An offshoot of the private gaming for high value gamers could also be reserved private gaming areas for anyone willing to pay a premium or guarantee a minimum theoretical for their group. Again, they could know that the area is separate from the main floor, cleaned directly before and after their group, and served by dedicated staff with enhanced food and beverage offerings. Fees could be charged to rent the private space and then waived or refunded for meeting a minimum spend. The basic concept is like a luxury box at a stadium or a private room at a nightclub. One of the biggest issues facing gaming demand for Indian casinos is the direct correlation between the key demographic for gaming demand and the most at risk demographic for severe cases of COVID-19. The ability to demonstrate increased safety precautions for your high value customers in at-risk groups will be important. On a broader basis, the focus on higher-value gamers through these measures and through raising minimum wagers at machines and tables is a refocusing from a high volume/low price model to a lower volume/premium price model. Like moving from a Holiday Inn to a Four Seasons model, where the money is made by getting more from each customer and catering only to those who can afford it, rather than catering to as many customers as possible, even if they only spend small amounts. This does not mean that casinos reject lower end gamers. However, it means that marketing efforts and floor operations do not cater to or even protect their needs. If they are willing to pay and can afford it, they are as welcome as anyone. If not, their loss is less serious to the economic health of the casinos due to the reduction in overall capacity driven by spacing requirements. From a cost perspective, it actually costs less to serve 50 customers each spending $100 than to serve 100 customers each spending $50. The reason this was not done more often pre-pandemic is that it is usually possible to make more total revenue and total dollar profit by having a more expansive marketing and operating model, assuming the space and gaming position capacity can accommodate it. Since that will be less true going forward, a shift to the lower volume higher-spending customer base will be much more appropriate. Casinos that were capturing average wins in the $300 per position-day range in the past were already doing variations on this model by default. Now, a wider range of gaming operations will be doing the same thing. Essentially average win per visit will increase in importance, with average win per position decreasing. Within this context, key recommendations and areas of focus include: Configuring of private gaming salons for exclusive use by high-value gamers or for rental by groups. Salons would have dedicated servers and premium food and beverage offerings. With advance reservations, specific games could be moved in and out until such time as multi-game stations are developed Reconfiguration of players’ club benefits to focus even more intensively on higher-value gamers and reduce incentives to bottom level gamers
∴ PRESCRIPTIONS
113
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs