Casino Player Rating Systems

From evolution to revolution.

Years ago casino managers decided that they could stimulate play by offering "free" trips, room, food and beverage deals to specific customers. They "knew" they held between 20% and 40% of the average front money or bankroll brought by a customer. So if a player was willing to bring $10,000 to gamble they based their decision on how much to provide in complimentary benefits on that basis. So, depending on the policy of the casino, they might have given 10% of the players bankroll back to them in complimentaries. So, if you bring 10 grand we might have given a $500 airfare, 2 nights' accommodation, show tickets and paid for their food and beverage during the stay.

Well you don't have to be too bright obviously to use such an arbitrary system to your advantage. The more you bring the more you get and you don't have to play any differently.

So, casino managers moved from what were relatively arbitrary systems often based on personal contact and knowledge of players to more mathematically based criteria for establishing a customer's value. To do this, however, you need to determine average bet levels, type of game played and length of period played. So, for example, we know that a player plays $500 a hand at Baccarat for 1 hour. Based on other surveyed and statistical data we also know that on Baccarat we have 45 resolved hands per hour and that the house advantage is approximately 1.25%. Therefore, the player's theoretical loss will be around $280. Again, depending on the individual casino's policy, we might provide between 25% and 50% of that back to the player in complimentaries.

To work this through and collate this information for a large number of players, casinos turned to computers with significant processing power and the ability to manage large databases. But there are still "holes" in this system. We still manually estimate average bet levels and manually input the data. Also, we use system averages for various factors, which may not be representative of the actual play.

Thus, while this system is certainly better than the old "gut feel" approach it still may undervalue some customers while overvaluing others. To overcome this, various systems have been developed which record every aspect of a customer's table play. The most sophisticated examples of which are Mikohn's SafeJack and SafeBac systems, both of which are still really in an R&D; phase. SafeJack, for example, monitors every aspect of a Blackjack game.

Each time a card is removed from the specially designed dealing shoe it is read and displayed on the dealer's small V.F.D. screen in front of them. Once the player has two cards the total is shown for the dealer. On the round of play being completed the screen also shows the dealer whether or not the player has won, lost or drawn.

Embedded within the gaming chips the player uses is a micro-chip that has an assigned value and is encoded so that it may be ascribed to particular players. Built into the table under each betting box is a small aerial which means that not only do we know which cards are dealt to each box but how much is being wagered and by whom. The players themselves are identifiable by their mag-stripe player card with their details encoded thereon. In the future, Smart Cards may carry even more information about the players.

Thus, it is possible to know exactly how much a player bets, how many hands they play and even how good their play is compared to Basic Strategy on Blackjack.

Of possibly more interest to casino operators in Australia is a similar system for Baccarat. Given that this is the game of choice for many high rollers from Asia and that Australian casinos currently spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year manually recording the individual bets made, it is easy to see the value in moving to such a system. Also, now that we have varying government tax rates on different business segments in many Australian states, it would be clearly advantageous from the regulatory perspective to have more foolproof automated systems.

Once this level of accuracy is achieved for table game play, then no doubt we will see the true integration of slot club marketing systems with table game player rating systems. Many slot clubs (gaming machine clubs) both in the United States and now in Australia offer Cash Back to players either based on their turnover (total amount bet) or their theoretical loss.

For high rollers on table games the same is true, although we certainly don't advertise it as "Cash Back" for this group but refer to these as Commission Based or Discount programs.

For lower level table game players, at the moment, this does not happen. Once, though, we have smart systems on tables then that will change and whether you play table games or slots or both you will be treated no differently.

This may to some degree even spark a resurgence in the public's interest in table games. Certainly it will open up to Casino Marketing Departments the prospect of using all the tricks of the trade on tables in the same fashion that they employ these, so successfully, on slots. So let's bring on the revolution and encourage the technological innovation that our Table Games businesses so badly need.

So what are you going to do about it? Recently I have been involved in a couple of intriguing projects that have the prospect of changing the way the table games product is packaged and presented for our customers. Rapid Roulette is a new style table game that breaks the old paradigm that to be a table game you must use chips and work with a baize layout. It also breaks free of the thought that the ultimate evolution of the table game is to eliminate all staff and essentially fully automate all parts of the current processes. From an engineer's perspective or that of a computer boffin that may well have been the case, however, as my good friend Dennis Conrad always says "...ask the customer what they want and give it to them."

When we started on the Rapid Roulette project we conducted a series of focus groups with our customers who said the last thing they wanted was a fully automated Roulette game. What they could envisage was a real dealer and a mechanical wheel with computer style betting monitors being used to place bets. The customers actually like the social interaction and "contest" with the dealer and they like the fact that a dealer spinning a ball gives them a fighting chance in their mind. So we embarked on creating a new style of table game that met both our needs of reducing operating overheads and enhancing productivity and the customer's needs of maintaining a mechanical game.

Essentially we created a Roulette game with twelve betting stations and a single dealer. The player has their own 20 inch automated transaction station where they place on-screen chips on a computer simulated Roulette layout. The player buys in with cash or chips by handing this to the dealer who credits their station with a dollar account balance from which they may play. The player then selects the denomination of chip they wish to use by touching one of the onscreen chips and either drags and drops the on-screen chip onto the position on the Roulette layout or "points and clicks" the position. All standard Roulette bets may be placed along with "recall" options and some other standard French Roulette bets. When the player is ready to cash out they merely press "cash out" on their station and the dealer gives them their account balance in chips and clears the player's balance. Revolutionary? "Hardly," you might say. However, what we have achieved is a game where players can play in comfort, with a drink and a cigarette if they wish, and reach all areas of the Roulette layout without pushing or leaning and where all the standard features of the game they find desirable are maintained.

We have also been able to reduce labor costs by around 60% and have therefore been able to reduce the minimum bet by a factor of four. We also have a new platform for game development that is almost limitless. Streak betting, easy picks, feature games, jackpots and all the bells and whistles that have made slots such an exciting alternative for our players.

With lower betting limits and more fun options perhaps we can capture some of the players we have lost. Now, some might argue that it is better to let the player migrate across to slots. The problem with this is that as slots become more distributed in the community it becomes harder and harder to compete with slot parlors that can offer the same products and facilities as our casinos. A vibrant table game product is one way that we can maintain a point of difference with our competitors and make the casino experience more social and memorable.

The future of table games is definitely bright, if we want to make it that way!