May 12th, 2023

I field questions all the time about all sorts of gambling and casino topics. But recently, it seems they can mostly be combined into one big question: Why is it getting so hard to be an advantage player? And then many tack on a plea: What can I do about it?

Let me take that second part first.

For many years now, I’ve been trying to give you little nuggets of information in my writings, especially here in this blog, that may help you cope as gambling conditions deteriorate. Actually, in a recent QOD, I gave a 10-item summary list of some of the most valuable nuggets that made casino action so successful for Brad and me down through the years. But sad to say, there never has been just one secret advantage-play gold mine anywhere. You have to prospect and dig constantly and it’s hard work.

It is a little easier to answer the first part of the question, the “why?” And I think you can boil it down to one word: analytics.

Eons ago when I started gambling in casinos, although I knew the meaning of the word, I was mostly unaware of the specifics that analytics covered. After all I was an English teacher and never a math major, and a very latecomer to the digital world. (In fact, after I handed in my first book in my little chicken-scratch handwriting, my long-time editor and friend, Deke Castleman, rejoiced when I bought a computer and learned word processing.)

In those earlier days, in my writing and talking about slot club benefits, I frequently emphasized that it didn’t matter what you played or whether you won or lost, that the key statistic was just the amount of coin-in you gave the casino. That’s why I pounded on the idea of using your players card, so the casino could track how much money you put through the machines. And that was true in almost all casinos at that time. They were just interested in how much play you gave them and they rewarded you accordingly.

However, I noticed early on, especially in the advertising and mailings I received, that they were full of positive terms and glowing descriptions that emphasized the “fun of winning.”  I knew their copywriters were either trained by or were themselves psychologists, well versed in influencing people’s behavior, as was common in any business at the time. I wrote about this in my 2003 book More Frugal Gambling, railing against the host system being called “player development.”

I have visions of wild-eyed scientists in the casino basement, madly working with multi-colored fluids and rows and rows of test tubes, cooking up a potion to add to the casino’s free drinks that will turn a sensible thrifty deliberate conservative nickel-playing Iowa hog farmer into a reckless loud-mouthed out-of-control money-flinging red-eyed marathon high-limit slot player.

Even more sinister, I see psychologists, advertising mavens, market researchers, and time-study experts sitting around a large boardroom table discussing how they can get gray-haired retirees to dig into that deep dark part of their wallet, take out the $20 stashed for emergencies, and try to hit that progressive jackpot that they know is “due.”

I can develop myself — my character, my physical body, my mind — all by myself, thank you. I don’t want to walk into a casino and feel I’m a subject in an experiment.

Today, I will at myself laugh with you at these naïve words.

Because, soon after, to the consternation of all of us knowledgeable players, casinos started using simple software that looked at several other factors as well as coin-in to determine how many benefits to give machine players: some combination of your zip code, frequency of visits, choice of machine, denomination level, and time spent playing. To maximize this last factor with reduced financial cost, I remember some of us experimented with playing two machines, trying to see how long we could pause between hands and not be timed out.

Even more problematic, we were slowly finding out that we could no longer depend on our friendly hosts who in the past helped us figure out the best way to take full advantage of the players club system; they themselves no longer knew all the details of these new programs that were quickly adding more and more pieces of information. So now I had a new picture in my head to describe in my writings – a kitchen food mixer. I remember I made a joke that perhaps if I changed the color of my hair, they’d throw that piece of information into the mixer and I could see if that changed my monthly mailers!

Well, as the old saying goes: That was then. This is now.

No longer a dozen or so factors, but millions of data points are being fed into programs. It’s hard enough for non-math me to understand the descriptions of the new ultra-sophisticated software available to casinos these days, much less to describe how they work and what they can do. Just google “modern casino technology” and you can read for hours about the many companies bringing out new and more complex programs at a fast and furious pace.

Although the press releases are full of hype about how these new programs will “improve the customer’s entertainment experience,” the casinos aren’t, to be sure, scrambling to install them for that as a primary purpose. Their eyes are always focused on improving their bottom line. Here is an example about one program put out by Acres, a leading innovator in casino technology.

The ability to double casino revenues! You don’t have to be a mathematician to know from whose pockets these new profits are coming. Their new Video Poker Analyzer software is a glaring example of the casinos’ bottom-line interest and a stark revelation for knowledgeable players of that game.

Another promotional piece I saw exclaimed, “The data and profiles we collect allow us to know the players’ personality and that can be used anywhere in the property.”

Another brags that their program “helps hosts get their players to play more.”

And this one made me laugh out loud. “So much of where we’re going and what we’re doing is to remove friction from the consumer experience.” Do they believe we casino players think it’s just too much to have to go to our mailbox to see how much money the casino wants to give us!?

Just when we think the situation can’t get any worse, now they’re going to use AI (artificial intelligence for you who are still hiding under a moldy rock).

Back almost 40 years ago, I was worrying about test tubes in a lab. I’m not even sure I knew what a computer chip was then.