SLOT MACHINES With over 1500 slot machines in stock, we are uniquely positioned to bring you the best gaming machines in the industry! NOTE: Slot machines require freight shipping services.To get an accurate shipping cost, please contact us directly at 763-253-0230.
—- Wednesday, June 10 —-
Drift Spa is now open! At this time services will only be available by appointment. No walk-ins are accepted. Book an appointment by calling 844-475-3743. Before you visit the Drift Spa for your services please read over the Drift Spa General Guidelines and Information.
—- Saturday, May 16 —-
We are open and here to serve you 24/7! Our slot machines, Hotel and RV Park are open along with Bingo, Golf, T.McC’s Sports Bar, Coral Reef Grille and Signature Subs & Pizza.
We are excited to see you here at the Island Resort & Casino! As always, we strive to provide superior service and quality entertainment to our guests. To do this in the safest manner while keeping the health of our guests and employees the number one priority we have outlined these guidelines and expectations to ensure a healthy return.
Employee and Guest General Guidelines and Information:
Health Concerns:
- Employees and guests not feeling well are asked to stay home and follow CDC guidelines.
- We suggest vulnerable individuals per the federal recommendations take special precautions and/or consider not visiting out facility at this time.
Guest Arrival:
- Individuals must be 18 or over to enter our facility at this time.
- There will be no smoking in the facility at this time.
- All active entrances will have Island staff present to conduct a temperature check. All checks will be done with an infrared thermometer not requiring personal contact.
- Customers and employees with a temperature above 100.0 without exception will not be admitted. We recommend following up with the CDC guidelines at this point.
Personal Protection Equipment:
- Employees and guests are required to wear a mask on the gaming floor. Personal masks may be worn or (1) is available at the door.
- Face masks may be worn in coordination with a face mask.
- Plexiglass barriers have been placed between staff and guests where possible.
Cleaning / Sanitizing:
- Slot Machines will be marked with a sticker to notify each guest that the machine has been cleaned. When guests play the machines with stickers they are asked to remove the sticker to notify our staff that cleaning is needed.
Guests wanting to play a machine that has not been cleaned and marked with a green sticker may press the call button and and Island employee with be over to clean the machine. - All restrooms, elevators, counters, furniture, workstations, doors, kiosks, ATM’s, TRM’s, equipment and multi touch areas will be sanitized consistently in both employee and guest areas.
Hand Sanitizer:
- Touchless and pump hand sanitizer dispensers have been increased throughout the facility. Dispensers are available at all high traffic areas as well we placed throughout the gaming floor for convenience when moving to new slot machines.
- Wet wipes are available by request from the Island Club, Guest Services, Food Service areas and Cashier.
Physical Distancing:
- Please keep a 6 foot distance from other while moving through the casino or standing in line. Please look for floor guides in high traffic areas.
Additional Guidelines by department:
Hotel, Guest Services, Island Club:
- To best adhere to sanitation recommendations, we would appreciate you leave your luggage in your vehicle during the Hotel check-in process.
- The pool and hot tub are temporarily closed.
- Island Club promotions and drawings are discontinued until further notice. Level benefits received in your monthly newsletter will be honored.
- Luggage service, valet parking and shuttle service will not be available at this time.
- Customer exchange items such as Island Club cards, room keys and wheelchairs are sanitized prior to delivery to each guest.
- Guest amenity delivery will be delivered with contactless procedures whenever possible.
Self Service Beverage Areas:
- Cup dispensers for cold beverages are available at each beverage station.
- Cups are for single-use and cannot be refilled.
- Complimentary coffee service will be provided by Guest Services in the Hotel Lobby.
Restaurant & Bar Areas:
- Condiments to be served in disposable single-use containers.
- Menus to be single-use and/or disposable.
- All self-serve condiments and utensils to be removed and available from cashiers or servers.
- All beverages are served in disposable drinkware.
- All food and beverage items to be placed on the table, counter, slot or other surfaces instead of being handed directly to a guest.
VIP Services:
- A limit of 2 VIP guests will be admitted at a time to the VIP room. Guests of VIP members are asked ti wait outside the VIP room at this time.
- The appropriate social distancing should be observed with other guests and employees while visiting the VIP room.
- Cookies will not be available in the VIP room at this time.
- Coffee and water service will be provided by VIP staff when available. There will be no self service areas in the VIP room at this time.
- Magazines and Newspapers will not be available at this time.
- Contact your VIP host via your cell phone for service from the gaming floor when possible. The VIP call phone outside the office will be unavailable at this time.
Golf:
- Golf carts, loaner clubs, locker rooms, equipment, counters and guest areas are sanitized consistently or before and after each round for individual use items.
- Guests will handle their own golf equipment.
- Ball washers, benches and rakes have been removed from the course.
- Our golf rangers will rake sand traps.
- Each player can request their own cart if desired.
- Please use the appropriate physical distancing in warm-up and pro shop areas.
- Tables and chairs have been relocated to allow for social distancing.
- Tees, ball markers, scorecards and pencils are pre-set in carts.
- Beverage cart service is not available at this time. Disposable bag coolers will be provided when purchasing beverages at the Starter Shack.
Housekeeping:
- Extra towels, pillows and blankets have been limited in each rooms and are available upon request.
- Guest linen will be delivered and removed from guest rooms in single use sealed bags.
- Decorative pillows and bed coverings have been removed from the room.
- We follow our cleaning protocol within the rooms with the same precautions we are taking within the facility. We also take special care to cover all touchpoints within each guest rooms including but not limited to all furniture, doors, door knobs, phones, remotes, thermostats, curtain pulls, fixtures, blow-dryers, iron, ironing boards, luggage stands, lighting controls, hangers, mocrowaves, refrigerators and amentieis.
- Ice and vending machines are sanitized consistently.
—- Tuesday, May 5 —-
Due to unforeseen circumstances our opening date has been postponed to Saturday, May 16th. We apologize for any inconveniences. We hope to see you soon!
—- Friday, May 1 —-
We will be reopening Wednesday, May 6! As always, we strive to provide superior service and quality entertainment for our guests. To do this in the safest manner while keeping the health of our guests and employees the number one priority we have outlined these guidelines and expectations to ensure a healthy return.
Click here to view the Employee and Guest Guidelines and Information.
—- Thursday, April 2 —-
In response to the ever changing COVID-19 crisis and to ensure the health and safety of our community, guests and employees, we will remain closed beyond April 6, 2020, and will only reopen when it is safe to do so.
We would like to thank all of our customers, vendors and employees for their continued patience. We look forward to seeing you soon.
—- Wednesday, March 18 —-
In a decision in the best interest of our community, the Island Resort & Casino, our customers, and employees, we will be taking additional precautionary measures to aid in the effort of preventing the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the surrounding areas.
Slot Machine Liquor Dispenser
Effective March 19th until April 6th, 2020 we will be closing all Tables Games, including Poker. Cosmo Bingo will also be canceled, regular bingo sessions will continue to operate. Slot Tournaments will not take place during this time.
Club 41 Entertainment, including karaoke, live bands, & comedy, are also canceled until April 6th.
Our restaurants will continue to operate normal business on a Take-Out basis. If you choose to eat in the casino, please continue to practice social distancing and follow the CDC’s recommendation of limiting groups to 10 people or less.
During this time, we will conduct a daily deep cleaning and sanitation of our facility during the hours of 7:00 am to 9:00 am. Along with the scheduled cleaning, all employees will continue to conduct constant cleaning and sanitation throughout the day.
To protect our employees, we ask that all guests continue to practice CDC guidelines for personal hygiene and safety. During this time, The Hannahville Indian Community and Island Resort & Casino are committed to continuing compensation for our employees.
We remain in constant contact with the Hannahville Health Clinic, Indian Health Services, and Centers of Disease Control & Prevention for updates.
—- Monday, March 16 —-
The health of Island Resort & Casino employees is our top priority as we continue to remain diligent in keeping our guests safe & healthy. Preventive measures will continue and additional items, such as wipes and hygienic gloves, are being provided to both employees and guests upon request.
All Island Team members are assisting in keeping our resort clean & sanitized.
Hotel staff continues to provide extensive cleaning & sanitation of all guest rooms.
Bar & Restaurant service will continue and is being assessed daily. Updates for each Food & Beverage outlet will be made as necessary.
Bus Group Tours coming from high-risk areas and beyond the radius of 125 miles within the next couple of days are currently being rescheduled. Effective March 19th, all Bus Group Tours arrivals will be halted until April 6th, 2020. Group Tours will remain in communication to reschedule your stay.
Large events happening in the Convention Center are canceled until March 27th, 2020. On-going discussion regarding any bookings past that date will be closely monitored and further decisions made as necessary.
The Landshark Tailgate Party & Show and Tesla will be postponed to a later date, to be announced. Information regarding refunds will be updated upon rescheduling.
Island Management continues to assess & strategize the situation throughout the day and we are closely monitoring the situation in the surrounding areas as the situation unfolds.
We will continue to provide updates here as they become available.
—- Sunday, March 15 —-
Over the past several days, we have seen an increase in cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) around the country. Island Resort & Casino Management continues to meet daily to assess the coronavirus situation locally and in relation to our facilities. We will continue to follow the CDC’s instruction and recommendations as the situation develops.
Over the following days, guests will see an even larger increase in the sanitation of areas of food & beverage service, the gaming pit, hotel front desk, Island Club, and slot machines. Additional items such as sanitizing cleaners, hygienic gloves, and hand sanitizer will be distributed to all departments as we begin to implement stricter sanitation procedures.
All upcoming groups & events are being reviewed and are currently expected to continue as scheduled. The Island Resort & Casino will be providing continuous updates here as they become available.
—- Friday, March 13 —-
In an effort to keep our customers safe and healthy, the Island Resort & Casino is closely monitoring the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) situation in light of recent local precautions.
We remain diligent and have taken measures to double our efforts amid the concerns, including increased cleaning and sanitation of high traffic areas such as bathrooms, lobbies, restaurants and slot machines.
Hand sanitizer dispensers can be found at many resort, restaurant and bathroom entrances, as well as employee stations. Hand towelettes will also be available at the Cashier Cage, Guest Services and Island Club upon request.
The Hannahville Health Department continues to receive up-to-date information from the Indian Health Services and the Center for Disease Control regarding the spread and treatment of this latest outbreak.
We strongly recommend that all Island team members and our guests follow the CDC’s recommendations to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
The Island Resort & Casino is committed to the safety and well-being of our guests and will continue to offer the Total Experience
This week I attended the Global Gaming Expo Show in Las Vegas. I've been to the show many times over the last few years. It's a trade show for the casino gaming industry ('by the industry, for the industry'). I always enjoy attending.
At this show is an eclectic mix of the products needed to run a casino property: Blackjack tables, chairs, chip counters, card shoes, uniforms, platters, ID, beverage dispensers, Elvis look-a-like performers, and of course slot machines.
Slot machines now account for 70-80% of casino gambling floor revenues. They are the evergreen revenue generators for properties, and there was no shortage of them on display on the show floor this year. Why is this?
First let’s take look at why people gamble.
Psychology of Gambling
It’s human nature to want to win. It’s part of our DNA, and this is how our DNA gets to propagate and make more DNA. Our brains reward victories with dopamine which makes us feel good and encourages us to want to do more of the same.
In prehistoric society, these dopamine boosts could be rewards for finding tasty and palatable food. Sex feels great to encourage procreation, and parental pride helps us raise children to further our family lineage. Fans follow their favorite football teams and celebrate their wins harkening back to tribal days and clashes between clans. It feels great when your teams scores.
Winning keeps us alive; for this reason, winning feels good.
Winning keeps us alive; for this reason, winning feels good.
Pavlov (and more importantly his dogs!) showed the reward stimuli can be driven through conditioning. Building on this was the work of Jerzy Konorski, and later Burrhus Frederic Skinner, and his research into operant conditioning chambers (now colloquially called “Skinner boxes”).
Skinner boxes
Skinner boxes build on the concepts of Pavlov (who showed that you can condition reactions), to show that you can condition volition (how people make choices).
Imagine you have a box, into which you place a rat. Inside the box is a button and a tray.
If the rat pushes the button, a pellet of food is dispensed into the tray. The dispensing of the food pellet is not reactive (unlike Pavlov); the rat has to take action to get reward. If you can change how the rat pushes the button, you can show that the you have influenced the rat to make a decision; this is called operant conditioning.
Skinner experimented with the how to condition his subjects, and the schedules for how to best train them.
Relevant to this article are two amazing discoveries from Skinner's work:
It works on humans just as much as animals!
The best way to condition is not to always reward the subject!
This later point, at first, seems counter-intuitive. You’d think that constantly rewarding the subject on each action would be the most pleasing to the subject, and thus the best way to condition them. However, this is not the case.
Using a technique called variable ratio reinforcement, the rate of the reinforcement reward is a balanced between expectation (tension), and release.
Research shows that not always dispensing a reward (only giving the reward after they have pushed the button a random number of times), and varying the value of the reward by a random amount, is a better way to train a subject to continue performing the action. I think you can see where this is going …
Just about everyone who plays a slot machine knows that the odds are stacked against them. Even the loosest machines you can find pay out, on average, less than they take in. So why does a sentient person stuff $100 into a machine, when they know that they’d be better off sticking the money in the bank receiving a sum-certain rate of return? (the food pellet on every push). The simple answer is that the reward on a win feels great (especially when it is not predictable or guaranteed).
Going even further, if you could find a slot machine that paid out better than 100% of what it took in (a job!), you would find that people would still prefer to “play” this slot for eight hours a day rather than working on a production line of a factory doing the same task continuously for a known fixed price (even if this production job paid better on average).
Winning feels great!
Solitaire is arguably the most popular card game in the World, and people love to play it (even though there’s no way to always guarantee a win). Remember how good it feels to win? The feeling of pleasure from beating a game that you don’t always win is higher than that of winning a game that is a sure thing.
Slot machines are Skinner boxes. You ‘pull the handle’, but you don’t get a reward every single time. When you do get a reward, sometimes it’s a small win, sometimes a big win. But it’s easy to feel the pressure of ‘just one more pull’. The feeling of euphoria (the dopamine boost) on each win is divine, and this is compelling enough to keep you playing.
Selling the Dream
It’s not just operant conditioning (with the associated dopamine reward boost on each mini-win) that makes gambling so appealing; there is an uber reward for all gambling, and this is the ‘selling of the dream’.
When you buy a $1 lottery ticket, you are not just investing a chance to win a prize, you are buying a dream of potentially winning a huge jackpot and a life changing event.
Winning a million times your initial bet in a game is a life changing event. You know your chances of winning are microscopic, but they’re measurable, and tangible, and you read in the media about others who have won. You can project yourself into the situation. You are buying a dream. You can reconcile this in your mind as part of the cost of the bet.
Is this all bad?
Is this all bad? Is gambling the work of the devil?
If you pay $15 to go see the latest blockbuster at a movie theatre, 120 minutes later you’ll leave with nothing more tangible than the memory of the experience, and the enjoyment you received. Have you received value for money?
Do you begrudge the movie theater once the movie is over?
If, instead of the movie ticket, you invested the same $15 playing penny slots for a couple of hours of entertainment, is this any different? Is one a more ‘legitimate’ entertainment than the other?
How about going to a concert, or reading a book you purchased, playing an online video game, or drinking a glass of vintage champagne …?
I’m not here to judge; if you are aware of what you are doing, I don’t think there is anything wrong/different with getting entertainment from feeding slots (if that is what floats your boat), compared to the experience of watching Britney Spears live on a stage. If nobody is forcing you, and you are getting pleasure from your pastime of choice, good for you. I have no more right to try to convince you what you should be doing for entertainment, than you have to try and persuade me that chicken soup is “more tasty” that tomato soup. Each to their own. It’s your money, spend it, and get enjoyment, however you like.
However, there is a dangerous aspect to gambling, and this is addiction (suffering withdrawal when it can’t be consumed, and becoming dependent). It’s a medical fact that certain people’s brains are wired differently and they lose control. People can become addicted to many different stimuli (drugs, alcohol, attention, food, nicotine, video games, sex, shopping …) and exploiting these behaviors is immoral.
If you are the type of person who suffers any kind of addiction, there is no shame in seeking help. Please do so.
Modern Day Slots
There’s very little in common between a modern slot machine and the “one armed bandit” of times past. In fact, it’s becoming increasingly harder to find a machine that actually uses rotating reels to display the outcome. Most modern slots are computers with buttons, lots of lights, huge screens, sound generating devices, ticket printers, and bill readers. They don’t even take coins or tokens anymore.
Inside a modern slot is software code that runs a Pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), and this is used to render the graphics on the screen depicting the virtual reels. The random numbers generated by the code determine what to display, and if these combinations constitute a win. The casino can configure the average pay-out percentages of the machines to determine how ‘lose’ or ‘tight’ they are. Typically they are configured in the range 92%-96%, so that they pay out, over average, this percentage of the money they take in. The balance is the casino’s profit. The PRNG component is highly regulated, governed, audited, and tested to ensure fairness and credibility.
Still, many casino players have a difficult time understanding odds, and many players have superstitions about how they push the buttons, how they sit, which hand they use, and if they touch anything as the reels are spinning. The random number generator does not care what you do. In fact, it’s already decided if your spin is going to generate a win before it even animates the reels! The spinning of the wheel and the flashing lights are all fireworks and theatrics.
Machines do not “run hot” or “cold”; the chances of a win on the next spin is agnostic of the number of spins since the last win. Machines are not “due for a jackpot soon”. Similarly, a ‘almost win’, where three symbols almost, but not quite, line-up, is just as much a loss as a pile of random symbols (though, as we will see below, this event can amplify the dopamine).
Every spin of a slot machine is an independent event. There is no correlation between prior results an the result of the next spin.
There is no skill involved in playing a slot machine. It's all luck.
Dopamine Amplifiers
Slot machines are colorful, attractive, musical boxes. They play melodies, flash lights, and celebrate wins. The son et lumière shows associated with wins (even small ones) amplify the euphoric feelings we get when we win (and Pavlov showed how important feedback on these can be). When you walk through a busy casino floor it’s impossible not to hear the positive chimes of winning machines and get ‘second-hand’ dopamine boost from the success of others (Inverse schadenfreude!)
I'm sure you've heard this sound as you've walked across a casino floor in Vegas. Does it make you smile?
Slot manufacturers have clever tricks to program our senses. As reels spin, many machines play melodic arpeggio chimes that increase in harmonic complexity as each reel stops. If it looks like there’s a potential win, these sounds build up to a climax, building in anticipation. Often the last reel will slow down just as it’s coming to it’s end point to intensify the climax. As we know from the PRNG, a miss by a inch is the same as a miss by a mile to the computer, but to a person seeing two symbols stop and the third decelerate to just short of the pay-line in slow motion with the chords in their ears can be agony and the catalyst needed for “just one more try”.
It's actually illegal (in the USA), to manufacture machines that artificially generate 'near miss' situations when the player has not won. All symbols are supposed to be rendered just as the PRNG asks them to be displayed (giving the win if appropriate, or showing the exact losing symbols if not), but I don't think it's illegal to celebrate and highlight a natural near-miss if one occurs.
Multiple Win Lines
Most slots these days allow for the playing of multiple win-lines (of course with the associated increase in wager for each line played). This allows the dopamine inducing shows to be played more often, even when the pull has resulted in a net loss. Playing all lines might cost you 100 credits, but you can be rewarded with sounds and lights for prizes of say 20, 30, 30 credits for wins on some of the lines. You feel as though you are winning, even when you are losing. It’s like death from a thousand paper-cuts that you feel good about.
To be honest, anything other than a couple of simple win-lines is just too complex to follow. After the reels stop, I defy anyone to be able to detect winning combinations without the aid of the computer on the more obscure lines.
Flow
When slot player plays a lot, and at speed, they get into what psychologists call 'flow' (that interesting state of the mind in which time seems to move both slowly and quickly at the same time), and can become completely absorbed in what they’re doing. Flow was first investigated by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. When in a state of flow, a machine can enable a player to work the machine at a rate along the lines of 800-1,200 pulls per hour!
Penny Slots
The ability to play multiple lines (and thus experience lots of wins even if there is a net loss), and the fact that machines take bills instead of coins have, paradoxically, turned ‘penny slots’ (where the elemental unit bet is just $0.01) into some of the casinos highest revenue units. A player can bet multiple win-lines and ratios on each pull making (potentially tens, or hundreds, of wagers on each spin), compared to betting just a single coin on a quarter or dollar machine.
Branding
Whilst there are minor tweaks that can be made to play style, a slot machine is essentially a commodity. All slots pretty much do the same thing; have the same inputs and outputs, and the same controls. Also, as we have seen above, the modern machine starts off as a modular blank cabinet. By changing the physical art assets on a case (if there even are any, as many are now displayed solely on the multiple flat panel screens), then the digital assets in the game (sound effects, pictures, animations, and music), a game can be converted from one design to another very easily.
It's easy to make a generic 'Lucky Slots' game that, absent of any other machine, might be played by a customer, but instead of just making anemic machines, manufactures partner and license recognized brands and build machines and 'experiences' around these. These can have a strong pull, as people like to affinitate themselves with brands they like.
If you are going to 'invest' $100 in a slot machine for entertainment, why stuff it in a generic no-name generic machine, when you could be playing with Joey, Phoebe, Monica, and Chandler from Friends? They are smiling at you, and playing along with you. Walking around the show floor, I found hundreds of brands licensed and turned into slots. There was something for everyone. Here's a short list of some of them I saw:
Slot Machine Liquor Dispenser
Simpson's, McGyver, Shark Week, Snoop Dog, Monopoly, Madonna, Farmville, Candy Crush, Ghost-busters, Little Shop of Horrors …
At peak, over 80 Million people a month played Zynga's Farmville on Facebook. That's a lot of people. If any of these players visit Vegas and stand in front of two slot machines, one a generic machine, and another branded with all the logos and symbols they recognize, which do you think they will play?
Machines are multimedia devices that can stimulate all our senses. Our brains latch onto sounds and well as still icons and moving images. A successful branding uses all these to pull in customers.
I'm sure most people are able to identify the branding on this machine from the sound alone.
(Machines branded with the above property sound have been the most popular branded slot for the last two decades!)
What about other casino games?
Slots are not the only games available at casinos, why are they so popular? What about the other games, and the table games?
There are many reasons why slots are so popular, but the first is the low-threshold to play. It takes nothing to walk up to a machine. Even a shy and self-conscious person can do it (or find a machine in far away corner away from others). It's anonymous, and you don't have to talk or interact with anyone. The rules are fixed, and there is no skill. There is no cause of embarrassment for 'doing it wrong' as one is not able to make an incorrect move. It's safe. Playing slots is a personal thing, and you don't often find it a spectator sport. Finally, the odds on slots are fixed and (compared to many casino offerings) are not bad. Anyone can play slots, even introverts. It's the catch-all game.
Next up the 'food chain' is video poker. This requires skill to play optimally so there is a rules barrier and learning curve. However, it's still a personal activity and there is none of the peer pressure or embarrassment of potentially making a bad move in a public arena. Introverts can still play, but we've lost potential audience from those intimidated by the rules/odds.
Next we move to table games like Blackjack. Blackjack requires skill (The absence of skill can make you lose money a lot faster). Blackjack is still random with the shuffled cards, but there is a optimal strategy to play based on the cards you hold and the dealers face-up card. Play stupidly and you can lose money very fast. Play optimally and (depending on the table rules and deck size), you might even have a very slight advantage over the house.
Whilst Blackjack is a social game, played by (potentially) many players at once, the actions of any one player do not affect the game for anyone else. In fact, the opposite is the case; all the players, together, have a common adversary, the dealer. If the dealer busts, it's group hugs all around the table; everyone wins! If the person to your left hits a Blackjack or hits 21 on a double-down you can give them a high-five and be pleased for them. Blackjack is not adversarial between players. Blackjack is a social game.
Blackjack can be played with friends, or with strangers.
Top of the pile are games like Poker. In poker, it's every-person for themselves. You are playing against the other players. A dealer in poker facilitates the game, but does not actively participate (other than taking a cut of the bets). Poker is an adversarial game, it's not social. A game of poker is a game of war. Being aggressive is an essential part of the game (this is not everyone's cup of tea), as it bluffing (some people hate to lie, or are just bad at it). Poker is about winning and beating your opponent. There's a good amount of skill in the game, it's not just luck (as can be seen by the repeated times some of the same characters have won the World Series of Poker events. If it were purely random, it's fairly likely that we'd see different people on the final tables every year, but we don't). It's a small subset of casino guests that enjoy poker.
Rewards
86% of people in the US belong to some sort of loyalty program. Things like frequent-flyer cards, credit card points schemes, coffee shop discount cards, hotel chain programs … Rewards programs keep people loyal to brands.
If you're going to buy a flight, if there's not much in it, you'll probably book it with the airline you have a relationship with. In turn, the airline will award you points and status that you can use for upgrades, free flights, or other rewards. Casinos are the same. They want your business, and they'll incentivize you to patronize their establishment over their competitors.
It's somewhat symbiotic. Casinos want repeat business, and players want to feel special. In the commodity world of casino offerings, each casino wants to encourage a player to exclusively place all their eggs (bets) in one basket, than spread them thin over multiple establishments.
Casinos offer rewards cards that are inserted into a machine before play begins. Wagers placed garner points (which can be exchanged at the casino for tangible benefits such as free food, and even complimentary show tickets and rooms). The casino is trading these prizes for your loyalty, but in addition they are tracking your usage patterns. Anonymously aggregated, this data has use to the casino to help it balance utilization, and how it might want to configure the casino floor layout, but individually it allows for targeting players based on their behaviors, needs, and actions. Casinos called this targeting 'player development' and this is marketing speak for the attempt to groom a player and move them up the value chain.
The correct branding on a machine might get a casino the 'first date' from a player on the machine, but it is probably the reward program that will get them the 'second', 'third' and 'fourth dates'.
Social Casino
What about social casino players? These are people who play casino games on Facebook and other social media.
There is a subtle distinction between social casino players and online casino players. Online players are still gambling with real money, it's just that they are doing it through their browsers and not from a 'brick and mortar' casino establishment. Until recently, in the USA, it was illegal to gamble online. Slowly this is changing, and some states are allowing it in controlled ways. It's fair to say that online gamblers are cut from the same cloth as gamblers who frequent physical casinos. They are risking real money for a chance to win real money; their motivations are the same as physical casino players.
But what about social casino players? At first glance these seem like strange beasts. A social casino player will exchange real money for virtual 'gold', and this is the currency they spend in their games. There is no way to get the money out! Zero. Even if they win billions of virtual coins, they can't cash them out. There's no mechanism (if there was, it would be illegal gambling). They can't get the money out in other way either; their balance can't be exchanged for a prize or anything with monetary value. A social player deposits physical money as a one-way transaction.
A social player deposits physical money as a one-way transaction.
So what motivates a player to pay a social slot machine? Some of the Skinner box principles described above still apply; it's still fun to win, but for social casino players there are different motivations. Social casino game designers have implemented different rewards mechanisms to achieve, obtain, or master. They offer 'badges' for completing certain tasks, levels, or obtaining certain achievements. Humans like to collect things; we like complete sets of things (whether it is baseball cards, toy cars, comic books, thimbles, or Pokemon). Social casino players like to obtain badges; and they also like to chat online. Visit a social casino bingo game and you'll often find bunches of friends chatting whilst playing. (Warning - if you enter one of these rooms, as an outsider, and call a bingo too early, you might be the target of some wrath as the others in the room were playing in a more social way and wanting to wait for others to complete so they could all call bingo at the same time, sharing the badge/prize).
Interestingly, many social casino players are happy playing their virtual casino games, and don't seem motivated to graduate to real casinos and real money. This came as quite a surprise to the industry. Profits at physical casinos has been declining in recent years (correlated, inversely, with the prolific rise of smartphone adoption). There was paranoia in the casino world that players would not need to visit physical casinos and would be able to gamble, without even having to get dressed, from the comfort of their own homes. The slot manufacturers also sensed a possible opportunity to cut out the casinos and deal directly with the players; if they could connect directly with players on their phones, once the online gambling laws crumbled, they'd have the relationship.
These two factors compounded and their was a land grab for social casino companies. High premiums were paid to obtain social casino game developers and their associated customer databases. The theory was that these social casino players could be groomed into profitable clients by converting them over from spending virtual coins into spending real coins. For the reasons mentioned above these conversions haven't been anywhere near as successful as planned, and many of these social gaming companies have changed ownership again.
Technology
The casino industry is ripe for leveraging technology. The tracking of players through the rewards programs discussed above is bread and butter for the Internet industry who have it down to fine art. Vast amounts of data are recorded for these player development programs (and to optimize casinos at both a macro and micro level). For the first time at the show I encountered a Google booth, and they were there offering their cloud, Machine Learning, and AI services to casinos.
I saw plenty of booths displaying heatmaps of floor regions showing where money was being earned more efficiently, and plenty of excel like tables showing sample databases of players and their spending patterns and rates.
Blockchain was another buzzword on the lips of many, but surprisingly I heard and saw no mention of any type of Cryptocurrency.
The dream of blockchain adoption is to help with affiliate marketing. With so many casinos (on and offline) offering similar products, they key to growing a business is bringing in more fresh customers. Casinos will pay a bounty for each new revenue generating customer, and this is significant enough to build entire industries around. Rather than just a finders fee, deals are often structured as affiliate marketing deals. These are revenue sharing deals in which the casino pays a percentage of the revenues from any player delivered for a defined period of time. Obviously, to administer this requires trust and auditing; with the associated complications and costs of both of these. Using blockchain to validate all transactions could provide a simple way for affiliate marketing to correctly attribute and compensate the lead generator.
Other interesting uses of technology seen at the show were facial recognition (to track players for loyalty programs, even if they didn't insert their card, or were playing table games), as well as to detect cheating, suspicious activity, and ticket theft. It's no surprise that casinos have hundreds of cameras already; it's not a leap to imagine these moving to provide a digitally enhanced service.
See you next year Global Gaming Expo! It was a fun show.