Casino Adventures with Paul Sculpher

So I’ve been on my travels in the last couple of months, passing through a ton of casinos in the US, Africa and Europe. 

It all started at the end of March with a trip to the Eastern seaboard of the US.  I only managed a couple of casinos on that swing – 1 in Baltimore and 1 in Washington.  

The Horseshoe casino in Baltimore was … underwhelming.  I guess I wasn’t seeing it at its best, the nearby baseball stadium had just kicked out 45,000 people and given the home team had won their home opener, many of the fans were … well … in high spirits.   From the rave in the car park – which was pretty confusing – to the carnage at the bars, I wouldn’t be in a rush to go back there any time soon.

MGM’s site in Washington National Harbour was altogether different.  We know the guys at MGM pretty well so I got the full tour, including behind the scenes, and it’s quite a property.  It’s huge, and very shiny, and one thing that struck me was that they built the staff areas to be a similar standard to the public areas, it was spectacular.

Next trip was to South Africa in mid-April.  This was a consultancy job so had me in 6 casinos.   They were all impressive, but I’d say Grandwest in Capetown and Montecasino in Johannesburg were the most amazing.  Grandwest has a stately grandeur, while Montecasino is Italian themed and mighty impressive.  Also impressive was the quality of dealers in all the South African properties we visited – streets ahead of Vegas for speed and precision, and something I made a careful note of, for when we are asked to find roulette dealers in particular.  More news on that hopefully soon.

Next stops were Chicago and Las Vegas.   There’s a casino right in the centre of Chicago, owned by Bally’s, and it’s a nice compact site.  I have to say the level of business there was astonishingly high, the place must be making fortunes.

Vegas was Vegas, as usual on the main Strip at night, the table minimums were laughably high – they really are squeezing players there, and have done for many years. It’s still great fun, though, and going downtown where everything’s a little cheaper and grimier is always fun.  As usual we finished up at Red Rock Resort for the last couple of days – a much more serene experience!

Finally, Steven and I headed to Slovenia for the Casino Operations Summit.  Hotel Perla was the venue, something like my fifth time on properly, and it really is a pearl.  The slots there were kind to GRS at the ideal time – just before our airport taxi arrived – so we’ve both got a wad of Euros to spend on our next adventure!

Friends of GRS - The one with Nick Arron…

Welcome to our ‘Friends of GRS’ occasional series…the one where we spread the word about some of the great organisations and businesses we’ve partnered up with over the years.  Today we’re shining the spotlight on Nick Arron, partner at licensing law firm Poppleston Allen.

Our co-founder Paul Sculpher shares his thoughts on why Nick is such a great part of the wider GRS network:

“At GRS we’re often involved in helping companies build their teams for new projects, and in betting and gaming, new projects mean licensing headaches.  Nick Arron is partner in Poppleston Allen, a firm which specialises in licensing law, and supports operators across the spectrum of gambling operators (and beyond into other hospitality businesses).

I met Nick a terrifyingly long time ago, back when Scarborough was named as one of the successful towns to be awarded a 2005 Gambling Act Small licence, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since.  He has to be one of the nicest guys in the business – and I mean the gaming business, not just the licensing lawyer biz – and over the years we’ve sent each other countless contacts for projects, some of which have turned into live operations that you’d all be familiar with.

With my other hat on as a casino consultant, I’ve worked alongside Nick too on a number of projects, and am constantly impressed not just by his knowledge, but his ability to build relationships with everyone he works with.  If you need licensing advice, there are plenty of options out there – plenty of great options – with Nick being as good as it gets. Find him, with his super cheesy profile pic, at www.popall.co.uk.”

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Nick for his support and wisdom across various projects we've worked on together, and we look forward to working with him for many more years to come. 

Paul Sculpher discusses table tightening and more...

Paul Sculpher talks ETGs, slots, and more...

Paul Sculpher talks... recruitment!

The founding affiliates

Everywhere you look, everyone’s a founder these days – certainly if you spend time dredging through LinkedIn, fighting through the motivational messages, self-congratulatory waffle and posts starting with “I wouldn’t normally post this on a business forum” and proceeding to do so, in deeply irritating fashion. The number of new businesses that end up reaching the fabled “exit” stage is vanishingly small, but I travelled to Amsterdam to speak with Fintan Costello, chairman of BonusFinder, who is in the midst of its earnout having been acquired by Gambling.com Group. With a hefty price tag, it’s fair to say this is a success story in the world of affiliate marketing and, knowing how tough it is to get to this stage in a crowded field, it’s always worth a conversation to find out more.

BonusFinder is a pretty straightforward concept at heart – dissect the market for online casinos and identify bonuses worth playing for curious customers – avoiding the worst of the sector in terms of locked away funds and other dirty tricks some operators have been known to pull. A quick look at the site, however, and it’s clear that ease of use, plus some neat touches like allowing visitors to dictate their own budget, make the site all about getting best player value, not trying to facilitate bonus abuse (although there are plenty of sites for that).

I asked Costello about how the sale process – necessarily a complex one for a deal of this size – had taken shape. He told me: “The whole history of BonusFinder has been a case of teamwork, and everyone picking up tasks to which they’re best suited. For whatever reason, I have ended up as something of the public face of the company, and I peeled away from the day-to-day a little to focus primarily on the acquisition due diligence and associated work.” With a quick nod to one of the regular LinkedIn leadership meme culture staples – ‘distribute credit widely, take responsibility personally’ – Costello comes across as someone who knows the value of a productive team. As a team they’re widely spread, from London to Helsinki and plenty of other spots in between – Costello is the only employee in Amsterdam, with his family – there’s no debate over returning to the office with these guys.

That journey from idea to exit is a long, arduous one and it feels to me like the best way to learn how to navigate it is from people who’ve travelled the road (rather than from those LinkedIn memes). I asked Costello what it takes to be successful from his perspective: “It won’t give me LinkedIn guru status but any success we have is due to eight years of consistent hard work. We had our ups and downs along the way, but by showing up every day we put ourselves in a market leading position in Canada and a super fast growing business in the US.

"The second thing that is slightly more counter-intuitive is that we never had a plan to exit, the focus was always just to grow a great business that we’d all love to work for. This freed us up to make the right long-term decisions; for example when we launched in Canada, we were one of the few to focus on the market and when we entered the US market there was only New Jersey and Pennsylvania that were regulated. All of that combined in a way where it was an obvious great fit with the Gambling.com Group that meant we could turbo-charge our roadmap under their wings."

The other question I wanted to ask, coming from an offline perspective, was why do land-based casino operators seem to have, in many cases made such heavy weather of getting their online offers right? Developments in the US are of limited comparative value to the UK situation – everyone over the pond already knows the value of the online market, so there’s not the same first-mover advantage that was available 10-15 years ago here – but it does feel like there have been some misfires in the UK. What would he do differently?

“First thing is not to just slap a logo on a white-label casino and assume magic will happen, no matter what the sales rep promises you. For land-based casinos, I believe the true value unlock is really leaning into the multi-channel opportunities and joining the dots in a thoughtful way between both environments. For example: single wallets and loyalty programmes, using the casino floor for online live dealers as well as shared concierge and VIP management. An overlooked area would also be solutions that allow VIPs to play online from outside the UK.

"I also think there is a middle ground, with thoughtful use of digital within the land-based casino; food and beverage ordering, restaurant reservations, digital loyalty cards and all of it backed by hi-speed wifi. In 2023, it has never been easier to create these experiences and with a growing digital customer base it’s at the point where it needs to be considered a bare minimum. I’d see the real challenge as creating an environment where the land-based and online work as a single team.”

Costello's last point certainly resonates from my point of view – there’s no ‘political’ angle with a pure online operator, but any time you have a legacy business which in theory meshes well with a new opportunity, territoriality rears its head and things get complicated. Common goals are clear to see from the strategic angle, but don’t always look that way when you’re on the ground with a subtly different agenda.

It certainly sounds like an exciting time for the group at BonusFinder – soon to be part of the team at Gambling.com – and of course for Costello himself. What is clear is that he wants to stay in the industry and continue to use his hard-won experience. So watch this space!

This article originally appeared in Gambling Insider:

www.gamblinginsider.com/trafficology/117/the-founding-affiliates

Brand ambassadors not the answer to gambling industry's marketing needs?

Click to see Paul Sculpher’s interview on YouTube

Christine Hili joins Gaming Recruitment Solutions

Christine Hili has become the latest member of the team at gaming industry recruitment firm Gaming Recruitment Solutions (GRS).

The appointment of the Malta-based Hili helps GRS expand into the rest of Europe.

“We had decided to add resources to help us with the growth of the business, and Christine came to us at the perfect time,” said GRS Director Steven Jackson.

“Not only is she an experienced 360-degree recruiter, she is also based in one of the primary online gaming hubs and is an online betting and gaming specialist.”

GRS noted that it has been active across the spectrum of betting and gaming for the last nine years, with the recruitment of Hili intended to boost its presence in the online sector.

Hili commented: “I’m hugely excited to join GRS in their growth phase, and I think my 17 years of experience in online betting and gaming recruitment complements their presence in the industry.”

GRS added that it has been active on some large-scale projects recently, and is currently running a mass recruitment exercise for Europe’s first integrated casino resort in Cyprus.

Paul Sculpher, GRS Co-Director, commented: “We’ve been looking to add to the team for a while and Christine was too good an opportunity to miss. 

“Along with our admin support and other resourcing backup, adding Christine will allow us to add new clients and take excellent care of them, and I couldn’t be more excited about the future of the company with several large projects in the pipeline.”

PML training

If you need help with PML training, Marieanne has over 30 years' experience in the gambling industry. She's a friend of GRS, and provides personal management licence (PML) training to gambling companies who wish to ensure their PML holders fully understand their specific responsibilities, as well as to individuals who wish to expand their knowledge.

For more information contact Marieanne

Sports betting in the USA - growing pains?

Sports betting in the USA used to be something which publicly seemed to be considered somewhere between “a bit dodgy” and outright degenerate behaviour. It’s fair to say there was plenty of illegal bookmaking, and the availability of offshore bookies meant you’d probably have been able to get a bet on from most states; but betting has historically never been really considered fully legit. For decades a slew of betting-related scandals, from the 1919 World Series “Black Sox” through Pete Rose betting on baseball games he was managing and plenty of other points shaving / paid officials / high-profile addicts, meant it was held in low regard, legal in Nevada and treated with suspicion everywhere else.

There was plenty of resistance, too, to a top-level sports franchise in Las Vegas when the Golden Knights NHL expansion team was announced, with hand wringing over players being too close to temptation – conveniently ignoring that a) any top-level player (or anyone else) could have got a bet on any game illegally for decades and b) the temptations on offer in Las Vegas for young people with high incomes aren’t limited to gambling.

In any case, fast forward to right now and the explosion in sports betting is truly staggering. If you’ve been to the US recently and tried to watch a sporting event on TV,the avalanche of betting ads is, frankly, relentless. The speed and totality with which the major sports have suddenly embraced sports betting is equally staggering – I determined to write this article when, while I was watching a baseball show on a national network, the hosts highlighted a tweet which began “Betting is awesome.” It went on to detail how the tweeter and their father love a bet on a game while they’re watching live. I enjoy a bet and completely get the concept of having a bet to make the game more fun; but in most developed countries you don’t see that type of cheerleading for what is effectively a controlled substance. Not too many beer ads have the headline “boozing is awesome,” and there’s a reason for that. A cynical person might conclude that the reason for this Damascene conversion on behalf of the major sports has more to do with mountains of potential income from data rights and advertising revenue than a change in ethical considerations.

Predictably, there’s a massive state-by-state land grab for betting players right now – as each state opens up, depending on tax rates and other restrictions, vast sums of money are being expanded to try to be the critical first betting app on a new market’s phones. Elsewhere in this issue, Ozric Vandervelden talks about the hidden cost of bonus abuse – almost on an industrial scale, we suspect –but the other cost may be a tsunami of problem gambling behaviours.

The key question is what happens if it’s all unchecked, and what are legislators and operators doing to keep players safe? Worst case, if it were allowed to be a totally – well – Wild West situation, with everyone making a ton of money and huge numbers of unprotected punters getting into a horrific mess, would be a predictable fallout of crime and suicide; such as arguably has been seen in other jurisdictions when commercial concerns raced ahead of legal controls. There’s a counter argument to controls too, along the lines of “what’s the point when crypto bros and inexperienced stock pickers are leveraging up and taking immense risks, and Daily Fantasy Sports has such an impact.” But I’d argue sports betting is far “harder” gambling in terms of both speed of repeat staking, and core links to something every red-blooded American is supposed to love – sports.

I spoke with Bill Pascrell III (known affectionately in the industry as BP3), a partner in Princeton Public Affairs Group, who is involved in working with operators (including Entain) and regulators, about where the US is at right now. He was forthright about the need for safer gambling controls to be more than a box-ticking exercise, and recognises that it has to be a priority, not just for the sake of doing the right thing, but as a matter of survival for an embryonic industry in the US. He told me: “It’s useful to think where we started – offline sports betting used at one time to be controlled by the mob, and now we have many new entrants to the industry, there hasn’t been a foundation of responsible gambling policies. Here, VIP was generally a code name for an addict, and that has to change across the board”.

He believes that one key pillar regulation is to capture data so that it can be shared across operators; although he recognises that sharing data across states, in an environment where each state has its own legislation (and of course some have none) is more challenging. The concept of a national self-exclusion system, such as SENSE in UK offline casinos, seems along way away, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing that can be done.

He continued: “It’s time to stop just talking about problem gambling and find solutions. Clinical studies are required, such as the one currently commissioned at Rutgers University, so that solutions can be research and value driven.” Bill went on to tell me about initiatives his clients are looking at, data-driven mechanisms to warn the player when their behaviours begin to look like those of a problem gambler, perhaps resulting in pauses or slowdowns being suggested, or enforced. He also told me about ARC, a process whereby 72 different data points are used to form a profile of a player and their likely disposable income, which sounds like a much better way than the current UK system of interactions, questions, bank statements and gas bills, if it’s reliable. Some of the data is provided by the player, some open source material, but it certainly sounds like an interesting initiative. It's designed to provide the highest possible levels of player safety and protection, continuously upgrading and personalising protection for Entain's customers.

With this information in mind, I also spoke with Karim Chikh, Head of Legal and Compliance Analytics at Kindred Group, about how he saw best practise in what’s a much more mature online betting market in the UK and Europe. His primary point was that responsible gambling considerations should be part of the process as early as possible, and should be tailored to the player’s profile as it develops.

“It’s obviously difficult at first, when you know nothing about a player beyond perhaps a TransUnion credit check to make sure they’re not in the process of going bankrupt,” Karim told me. “But as your system sees gambling behaviours it can be set, for example, to deliver a popup after a certain length of play or another metric is triggered”. He was careful to point out that, while some elements of funding behaviour – multiple failed payments, rapid deposits, cancelling withdrawals – might indicate grounds for concern, there are lots of other behaviours that are worth monitoring.

Looking at the wider picture, the main concern is that the UK and wider European industry only got to where it is now – at least a safer regulatory structure than was in place before the 2017 Money Laundering Directive – because the societal impact became great enough to generate media stories, which in turn affected the politicians enough to drive them to deliver effective regulation. In a brand new market like the US, with the state-by-state structure of the evolving laws, there’s a short-term / long-term problem. There’s so much money to be made in the early years that there’s little incentive, beyond a purely ethical one, for firms to self-regulate before it’s enforced; and that creates scope for a lot of human harm before rules catch up.So what’s the answer, to make an embryonic industry sustainable in the US? Karim pointed to Kindred’s journey to zero (the mission to reduce percentage of revenue from harmful gambling to 0%) and collaborative approach, where it participates in conferences, commission research which is made public, and even share part of the logic behind its proprietary player monitoring system. True collaboration in a relatively fractured US market will be just as challenging as across Europe – if not more so – and the commercial driving force of maximising profit may lead some companies in the US to push until the regulators push back. We can only hope executives at a senior enough level will see the longer-term picture and recognise that hoovering up vast profits in the early days with little care for player protection will lead, inevitably, to a far harsher crackdown that will hurt everyone and torpedo the industry in the future.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

Casinosaurus Rex

PAUL SCULPHER assesses what would happen if a UK casino now were to be run the same way as it would have in 1994…

Recently I was trawling through the murk of LinkedIn, as recruitment people are wont to do, when I came across an actual casino dinosaur. Now I think we all cling onto elements of our early careers as being the right way to do things, but this was a genuine “side bets are bad, open door is bad, technology is bad, all management since the 1990’s are useless number crunchers” Casinosaurus Rex individual. It got me to thinking – what if you ran a UK casino right now, today, in the same way as you’d have run one in the last year the old C. Rex appeared to think they were “properly” run, circa 1994? What would happen?

There are, to say the least, a few problems. I think the first one is pure commercials. I don’t think anyone would disagree that a good proportion of casino trade back in the 1990’s was from, shall we say, dubious sources. I was only a dealer (m’lud!) so I can say without fear of prosecution that I was 99% sure some of the bigger punters in the casino I trained in were criminals of some sort.

The idea of running source of funds checks for AML purposes in our 1994 casino, plonked into 2021, would be trouble. Not only would you never see the genuinely suspect players again, you would of course lose a good swathe of your non-criminal players, due to unwillingness to provide the information, laziness or fear of the taxman.  

So you’ve sliced out a good lump of your better players. That’s not the end of it, though, because you’re really going to struggle to replace them. You’re still in 24-hour rule territory, you see, so anyone who wants to visit has to have signed up 24 hours in advance. That kills the possibility of impulse visits unless you’ve a member in your party who can sign in their guests – although impulse visits aren’t likely unless people are walking right past, as you can’t advertise, not even a website. Back then all you could offer was prescribed-sized classified adverts for the restaurant.

The catering efforts are an interesting question. Casino catering in the UK has been downgraded over the years, from A La Carte menus cooked by serious chefs, to something in some cases not far north of a Wetherspoons menu. That’s not universally the case, but both the largest two chains of casinos have broadly standardised their menus and you won’t find too many kitchen workers paid a long way above minimum wage. I’m somewhat split on this issue – for smaller sites, I think you just need to have a food offer as fuel for gamers, but there’s still a sliver of market for customers who both want fine food and will game to any extent. One thing’s for sure, you’re not going to make significant profit from your upscale food offer, so it had better lead to crossover income.

Your other issue is the bar experience. A swanky bar is a key part of the process of turning people from non visitors to occasional visitors, to people who like to have a modest punt once they’re comfortable. But – oh no – 1994 rules mean you can’t have alcohol on the gaming floor (as anyone who worked as a shift manager around this period will have stated at least 100 times every Saturday night). Those of us working in casinos back then will also remember they weren’t the most welcoming of places, with thick smoke (not anymore!), low ceilings and usually a tiny bar, purely as a service.

The 1994 casino is a bit limited in terms of gaming options, as well. Just the two slots, which if we’re being honest were largely run back then as a mysterious box that was a pain in the backside to empty and count. No electronic roulette – the Casinosaurus doubtless does not approve anyway – so really it’s just tables. You’d just about got the option to offer Casino Stud Poker back then (and “Super Pan 9” – great) by 1994. Proper side bets were a gleam in someone’s eye.

Side bets are in fact a divisive issue, and I can see the argument for non-progressive bets both ways. Anyone can point to the revenue generated by them, but I don’t think many have assessed the impact of both the frustration caused by a slower game, and danger of rapid bankroll exhaustion. One thing’s for certain in my mind, though, progressive side bets are a must. They add a different dimension to casino gambling, where you can genuinely turn a £100 ($135.38) buy-in into life-changing money in one shot. Without them there’s an erosion of the casino experience for some people.

The challenges don't stop there, mind. You can't have debit cards, just three cheques per person, per day, backed up by a "Cheque Guarantee Card" (ask your parents, kids) unless you set up a complicated facility. ATMs weren't permitted, and by all means stick you smiling friendly faced receptionist out there on reception, but almost nobody had door security - I'm sure it'll be okay. That'll do nicely on a lively Friday night... and one more thing - you'll be needing to close at 4am, and 2am on a Saturday night, just when it's getting fun.

Even staffing was a ton easier back then, with far superior options for the skilled dealer abroad, when being a UK licensed casino professional meant something overseas. If you operate with the same bloated 1994 rota and super low gaming minimums to match, you’re just not going to make enough money, with staff far more expensive overall today. Oh and no tips to supplement the salary. In fact running a 2021 casino on a 1994 roster, with tipless wages adjusted to the point where you could actually get enough staff, bankrupts you before you’ve been trading a month.

You’d need to adopt the old policy of banning fraternisation with customers, too – back then as a dealer you could get fired for being in a photo with a member of your casino. That works a lot better when you have a very small number of respectable players (respectable in terms of spend level, not always in terms of respectable individuals) than when you’re trying to bring new trade through the doors.

In short, if you tried to operate the same way today as you did in 1994, you’d be dead in the water. You can’t afford the staff you’d have had back then, your ancillary income is devastated, and a lump of your primary income is a victim of modern AML regulations. Online gaming soaks up some portion of your core market – the sofa can be more tempting as a gambling location than having to get up and put actual clothes on.  

Oh, and if you thought you were going to turn a blind eye to problem gambling issues, which operators might have done back then to a small extent (and there weren’t anything like the same regulations anyway), the combination of the National Self Exclusion Scheme and stringent penalties for not doing the right thing will see you in big trouble.

It’s easy to remember the golden days and for our Jurassic joker to pooh-pooh the efforts of managers since then, but the truth is the market and the operating environment has changed. In a dynamic world, adapting to change is key, and bleating that everything’s worse than it was when Casinosaurus roamed the pit just evokes thoughts of oncoming asteroids and imminent fossilisation.

There is more than one way to both skin a cat and run a casino – not necessarily complementary skills – but harking back to 27 years ago doesn’t form part of any method with a chance of success.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

Time Spent Playing

Gaming Consultant at iGAM Consulting – LinkedIn comment:

Speaking from experience, there were players at various casinos in the US that would regularly gamble for periods of over 24 hours. If they were approached  about taking breaks the staff were met with abuse and cursing – something to do with the belief of the player that the machine was either “hot” or “warming up.” Not sure about the case mentioned, but sometimes you just cannot help people no matter what safeguards are put in place.

Guest Relation Executive at Bellagio Colombo – LinkedIn comment:

Many addicted players always play over 24-hour periods... I have seen a player who played on the table for three days... His excuse was it's hard for him to take a break from his work...

There’s no doubt that safer gaming is high on everyone’s list of issues for the industry. But we saw something in reply to a Gambling Insider LinkedIn post that, apart from anything else, highlighted how far we’ve come as an industry in the UK.

With this in mind, it’s interesting to look at the current mindset surrounding how long customers can play before some sort of interaction is triggered. The most interesting part of looking at this question has been the difference between the approaches of offline and online operators. I’ve shied away from the word “contrast” because clearly both sides are looking to accomplish the same goal, but their resources are certainly different.

Firstly I spoke with Jon Duffy, SVP of Corporate Assurance and Regulatory Affairs from Genting Casinos, for his view on the offline casino world. He pointed out that, in the bricks and mortar world, it’s more about customer behaviours than simply clocking time spent playing. He told me “we really don’t have a fixed time period after which we will interact. Our team are very experienced in identifying behaviours that represent risk indicators, and those indicators can appear regardless of time spent playing.”

When I asked Jon for some examples, he described some that will be familiar to anyone who has undergone problem gambling awareness training (as has every customer-facing Genting employee). Behaviours like becoming emotional due to gambling results, spending time around the gaming tables after a playing session has finished, and complaining that equipment is “rigged” are all red flags for responsible operators.

He also pointed out that there’s an increasing amount of data available to offline operators – loyalty cards give their team much of the data that online operators can wield, although unless the Gambling Review introduces mandatory carded play this data will always be incomplete. There have certainly been some spectacular failures to act responsibly by operators over the years, and one suspects not too many of them make it into the public domain unless the regulator steps in. If the Australian Daily Mail is to be believed, one of the current licensing challenges facing Crown Melbourne, for example, relates to a baccarat player involved in a 96-hour playing session, along with a host of other unbelievably long sessions.

I think it’s important to note that, particularly playing offline, most of us are used to the feeling that time passes very quickly in a casino, when you’re in perhaps a comfortable seat, with refreshments to hand, and maybe a relaxed atmosphere with friends. Gambling requires just enough attention to keep you interested, but not enough so that it’s draining.  However, there comes a point when a long session passes from, for most of us, “I’ve had (or lost) enough, time to go home” to, for some, something a little more unhealthy.

The equivalent in online play looks quite different from an operator’s point of view.   I spoke with Adele Farrell, Director of Compliance and Safer Gambling at Rank Group, for a view from the online side of things. Adele explained that online operators have more granular data than their offline equivalents (given that she takes care of both for Rank Group). “We have details of every hand, every staking decision, and every game selection for our players, so we are able to make decisions in a much more data-driven way,” she told me. “As regards time spent playing (TSP), this is one of the things that is fed into our algorithms and safer gambling models to identify customers who may be at risk or experiencing problem gambling. On its own, our players will see a pop-up on their screen once they reach one hour playing, suggesting they take a break, but that’s not the whole story.”

The Gambling Commission’s advice note from June 2020 touched on session length in the context of additional risks posed by, effectively, lockdown boredom and noted that online sessions longer than one hour had increased by 23% on a like-for-like (equivalent pre-Covid month) basis. The conclusion was that, because it is simple enough for players to switch operators in the online world, interactions would be a more robust approach, so I asked Adele about her company’s approach to personal interactions.

Adele explained to me how a range of other factors will feed into the decision to trigger a personal interaction, keyed on changes of behaviour – such as a spike in deposits, velocity of play, frequency of play or indeed playing for longer periods at unsociable hours defined as “late night play.” That interaction might also be influenced by total spend, and the same data collected relating to customer due diligence for anti-money laundering and affordability; this can be useful to feed into customer reviews to help people who may be moving into having issues with their gambling. Rank recently unveiled a new real-time safer gambling monitoring desk, the new “Hawkeye” system will allow it to more quickly identify customer online behaviour that may require intervention.

In summary, Time Spent Playing is only a small part of the puzzle as regards detecting and interacting with people who may be experiencing problems with their gambling. It does seem the offline world and online world are at opposite ends of the spectrum, however. Online, you have access to perfect data, but far less of the softer information, so operators are trying to synthesise behaviour tracking from changes in measurable benchmarks. Offline, experienced team members have their eyes, experience and training to spot troubling behaviour, and are trying to improve the amount of hard data they collect via loyalty cards and other methods. Perhaps over time both ends of the industry will get closer to their shared goal – a blend of soft and hard data to better help the minority of customers who need our help.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

Back to the Grind

PAUL SCULPHER assesses the return of land-based casinos in the UK – but asks: is there a step change coming to table gaming pricing?

As I type, UK casinos have finally been given the green light to re-open on a somewhat limited basis, and casinos around the world are creaking into action at varying speeds, with some still completely closed, and some open without restrictions. The initial results are in for UK casinos at least, and seem to be reasonably consistent – pleasing early levels of business, generally with a slightly lower attendance than expected, but higher spend per visit.

There’s cautious optimism, although in the unique situation we’re in, there is of course plenty of uncertainty as to what happens in the summer. Is the fabled huge pot of new household savings going to be partially diverted into drop boxes, or will it get spent on staycations, longed-for other nights out, or simply stashed in case of future life-changing events?

One thing that does seem to have popped up as a bit of a game changer is consideration of price of play. For many years, UK operators have aspired to divert lower spenders (and, critically, slower spenders) in the direction of electronic gaming, both slots and more importantly (given we’re allowed unlimited numbers) onto electronic table games. Electronic Roulette is particularly key, given Roulette is the dominant table game in the UK.

The gaming floor yield specialist's dream is to get bigger players on the live tables; receiving exceptional customer service in a nice, fast, three or four player game while the "I've got £50($70) and I want two hours' entertainment from it" merchants are happy on the terminals, with a cocktail/coffee valet not too far away. The advantages of offering electronic play are obvious, with far lower annual cost per position, no sick days (well, that's if your tech team are on the case) and, if you wnat to insist on it or are obliged to provide it, an easy route to 100% carded play.

The interesting element has evolved out of early lockdown restrictions, however. In an environment where only three players were allowed per table, and in some cases social distancing plus restricted space meant operators couldn’t offer as many tables as usual, available playing positions were drastically reduced. As any A-level economics student can tell you, when demand remains constant but supply is restricted, price goes up – and in many cases that’s what happened. In the steady state pre-Covid, most operators were at least somewhat hesitant to go on the attack with minimum stakes, especially in a competitive landscape where most of your players are regulars; and can play down the road at your rival’s casino if they want, say, a £5 Blackjack game where you’ve jacked it to £10.

However, those decisions became a lot easier when you’ve got the excuse/reason that you only have 12 playing positions where you’d normally have 30, even to the extent of leaning on saying exactly that to players. “We’ve done it to help you get a seat” sounds a lot better than “we’ve done it because a £5 Blackjack game with five skilled players playing to 0.8% and ignoring the side bets – after 30% gaming duty, and running slow because we have to rely on trainee dealers – barely pays for the dealer and a piece of the other staff’s hourly rates, and we’re not a charity”.

As a side note, I’m always surprised how heavily UK operators rely on spend per visit as a key metric when looking at individual player value, especially at the lower end. Modelling everything in granular detail is tough – even for the operators who use the top of the line yield management software (not much of which is really designed with UK-sized business in mind). However, there’s a key stat that I don’t really see anyone looking at, and that’s speed of play.

In a world where you’re mostly limited to 20 slots, and maybe now a lower than usual number of table gaming positions, how fast people play is just as important as how much they play. Obviously decisions per hour and stake per round are part of the theoretical win calculation, but that’s generally just used in terms of Average Daily Theo or theo per day/year – theo per hour as a measure of speed of loss is also important in a world of limited supply. The truth is that, at busy periods, you really can’t afford to have someone taking up a valuable slot seat (and maybe now table seat) if they’re only playing 50p a spin, at a glacial pace. Seats are for gamers only!

Since re-opening in the UK there’s the additional incentive to trade players up the cost curve because, as predicted by many, staffing is an issue. A cursory look at LinkedIn or any operator’s website will see them all hiring gaming staff, or trying to; and with plenty of staff having hoovered up furlough payments with no intention of returning to work (or returning to the country), the cupboard is pretty bare.

The normal route of laying on a ton of training schools will be tough too – the dearth of staff in all hospitality roles may well mean a rise in wages. And not too many 20-year-olds looking for a job will actively seek the one which needs six weeks of training and working through the night; rather than the bar or waiting job with a couple of days to get up to speed and knocking off nightly at 11pm.

The UK has always been relatively timid on pricing for table games. Part of this may be the neighbourhood-type style of many smaller sites. Using my not-particularly-scientific indexing method of comparing minimum Blackjack bet to price of a beer, in most UK casinos outside London you've always been able to get a game for around the price of a pint, often less.

There are plenty of countries where that wouldn’t be true, and while dealer wages in the UK are proportionately lower than many countries, it seems to me that a rebalancing is due.

The Covid-19 outbreak and restrictions of available player positions, now exacerbated by lack of staff to operate them, may hurry operators down the line of catching up with other countries – and making table gaming an option only for those prepared to level up their play.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

Chequemate

PAUL SCULPHER, co-director of Gaming Recruitment Solutions, dusts off the credibility of an antiquated payments system and asks if progress might actually signal the end of Mayfair’s world-leading exclusive casinos.

Anyone who works in the gaming industry can’t help but notice the bombardment we all get via LinkedIn and other avenues from payment processors, generally offering ever sketchier sounding solutions for online casino providers to help their clients deposit funds. However, there’s a world of trouble being caused at the very pinnacle of the market due to the imminent withdrawal of a far older payment method – cheques (checks to our American brethren).

While to most people, cheques are a distant memory – the last time I got one, I think it was a tax rebate years ago, and I had to go into an actual bank branch to deposit it, like some sort of caveman – they’re a key part of the UK high-end casino business.

Their use in casinos was ubiquitous years ago, before the 2005 Gambling Act came into force, where they were permitted by secondary legislation under strict rules. With no ATMs allowed, and before the days of debit cards, there was a period when most casino guests could use up to three cheques per day, backed by their “cheque guarantee card”, a concept from yesteryear. It was also permitted to set up a cheque cashing facility (CCF), which allowed larger cheques to be drawn by players, up to an agreed facility limit with strict rules on how that limit could be extended. It was possible to have “house cheques” which were in a blank chequebook, where the casino would fill in the account details for the player from their records, so they didn’t even need to remember their own chequebook.

The system was very effective, and indeed I remember, as a trainee dealer, the glorious pleasure of being plucked by a friendly pit boss from a tedious day shift to walk up to the bank and deposit the 20-odd cheques from the previous day’s trading. However even in those days, the cheque situation was much more fundamental to the existence of the Mayfair casinos, as it was the only practical way to access funds for gaming beyond carrying cash itself – obviously no joke when you’re into five figures and beyond.

Fast forward to the last five years, and the cheque element of the top-end casinos is critical. Mayfair and those associated high-end casinos of London are alongside the top destinations in the casino world, and with staggering sums changing hands, any friction in the flow of funds is going to be problematic, especially when dealing with people not necessarily known for their patient attitude to service issues.

The problem is that the processing of foreign cheques is already beginning to end, and, for example, RBS has closed accounts for some of the high-end casinos. Given that you, I and everyone we know outside casinos don't use cheques anymore, that kind of makes sense. However, this is going to cause an absolute disaster for the Mayfair casinos in terms of access for players to their own funds. You might well ask "So what? Every business has to adapt to the modern world." And well they should, but the anachronistic legislation does not allow it.

The implications are also wider than just the business of the people concerned. Consider that, pre-Covid, the last numbers publicly available for the “big six” top-end casinos (classified as Les Ambassadeurs, Crockfords, Aspinalls, Ritz, Maxims and the Clermont) showed their combined GGR was about a third of a billion pounds per annum, so straight away that’s well over £100m ($139m) in gaming duty per year. It’s not like the people who visit these sites only spend money in casinos too. This pinnacle of wealthy tourists tends to hang their visits around the casino option but they aren’t scared to spend money elsewhere in town during their stay, along with generally a pretty large entourage. There is also the employment these casinos offer, in a traditionally staff intensive hospitality environment of well over a thousand employees. Finally, if the perception is that these businesses are so wealthy that they can withstand any storm, bear in mind that the legendary Ritz casino is gone from Mayfair for good, closed in early Covid. No business is immune.

I spoke with David Livermore, legal and compliance director at Les Ambassadeurs Club, who told me, “The Mayfair casinos have operated for just a few days since the first lockdown in March and this sector is unlikely to open again until the summer. Even then, our high net worth customers may not return to the UK, certainly until they are confident in the travel arrangements and their ability to transact at our casinos when they arrive. It is extremely frustrating that we’ve been discussing what amounts to a minor change to the legislation with DCMS, Treasury and the Gambling Commission for over four years, and despite an agreement that it’s necessary and sensible, there has been no progress. The proposed change would allow the Gambling Commission to regulate all transaction methods, replacing the current outdated restriction that exists on the face of the Act. Without this adjustment, our customers will be unable to sensibly transact and are thus unlikely to come back to London at all. The loss of so many jobs and vital revenue for the UK, for the sake of a minor regulatory adjustment, would be irresponsible.”

It does seem that asking for a minor change in the legislation, to bring more methods of funding under the Gambling Commission purview, shouldn’t be that big a deal. While sympathy may be in short supply for these incredibly luxurious and exclusive properties, it certainly shouldn’t be for the staff who work there, and that’s before we even think about the nine-figure sum of tax raised annually by their players.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

Return to Form

Casinos are due to re-open soon, but will there be anyone available to work in them? PAUL SCULPHER, co-director of Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and a case study from SYLVIE MAZACOVA, a casino dealer at Genting Casinos UK, examine the harsh realities of getting back to business.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant:

The struggles of the hospitality industry have been well chronicled in the media over the last year or more, and as I write, the hallowed date of 17 May for re-opening is fast approaching and some sectors may be in a better position to get a running start than others.

Personally, I am a firm believer that there’s going to be an explosion of activity from patrons who’ve had nothing beyond the essentials on which to spend their money for a year, and tills will be ringing away up and down the land, with the offline gambling sector being no exception.

However, there is another looming potential problem in the casino sector, likely shared by others – availability of staff. The impact of Brexit combined with Ovid may deliver an impact greater than the sum of its parts on an industry that has depended in recent years on more than its fair share of European imports for staffing.

Let’s wind the clock back a decade and figure out how we got to where we are. Ten or 15 years ago, there was a significant expansion in UK casinos, in scale if not so pronounced in numbers. Many sites were relocated from smaller city-centre premises, to larger edge-of-town sites. Gaming table numbers increased, and the general feeling was that with UK casino participation rates being so low by comparison with other countries, there was an opportunity for operators to open up the industry with more newbie-friendly surroundings. Leaving aside whether this was a profitable strategy, clearly larger premises would require more staff.

This gap was filled in many cases with staff from overseas. In the UK offline casino sector, gaming staff can’t just be pulled in off the street. They generally need a six-week training period, and it takes at least that long for them to apply for and receive their Personal Functional Licence, which confirms they’re fit and proper to operate in a business that needs to stay firmly on the right side of the law. Enterprising types in Europe began running training schools for dealers, and applying for their licences directly, meaning they could offer dealers that were table ready without UK operators having to deal with the expense and delay of “growing their own”.

Many a casino punter over the last few years will have had the experience of being dealt to by friendly faces from Italy (particularly Sicily), Lithuania, Poland and a wealth of other countries, and the whole arrangement worked tremendously well for all concerned. However, there’s now a real concern that having relied on this resource to keep the lights on, Brexit and Covid in tandem could derail an industry that has come to rely on a rich seam of skilled pre-packed colleagues. contact about this looming problem. He told me in no uncertain terms that we don’t know for sure where we stand. “Many I spoke with a senior industry contact about this looming problem. He told me in no uncertain terms that we don’t know for sure where we stand. “Many of our European staff have successfully achieved settled status, but they may not be in the country, and may not be able to enter easily pending Covid regulations,” he said. That doesn’t sound ideal, and we further discussed the prevailing mindset. “The fact that the pound has lost some of its value against the Euro won’t help either, making for a reduced incentive for staff to return if their objective was to send funds home for their family or future,” he added.

The issues around Brexit and Covid are most pressing for staff based overseas, but the sector has long struggled with recruitment in the UK, too. As readers will know, UK casinos outside London are not generally a licence to print money, and with the wage bill being a very significant part of operating costs – almost no casino can open its doors without spending a £1M on wages, and most significantly more – they aren’t in a world of being able to blast 20% pay increases to boost the intake.

“One of our other issues is the minimum living wage,” my connection further commented. “As it increases, it pushes up our floor rate, and of course we still need to maintain the increments for our more senior staff, so there really isn’t much space for more increases. Tips do help, but it’s not a huge bonus in most sites. We are really competing against other base level jobs like working in retail or behind a bar.”

While that may not sound like a recipe for the pinnacle of customer service, anyone who has visited UK casinos will attest that service levels range from the wonderfully personal to the actively hostile – much like anywhere else in the world at the grind action level. UK casinos tend to end up with a hard core of staff who stick around for years, plus a revolving cast who try it out for a few months or a year, and decide it’s not for them. The hardcore are generally (although not in all cases) the ones who get to love the environment and the guests, and become a much loved part of the fabric of the club. In many ways, that’s the key to getting a team that will deliver what an operator needs – stability. There’s a lot to be said for the casino working environment for the right type of person. Sure, nights are tough but speaking as an ex-dealer, shift manager and GM, there’s a rhythm to casino life that makes it a satisfying lifestyle. Weekend nights out are overrated anyway, midweek happy hours fit the bill for a lower wage, and with rush hour an irrelevance and progression a possibility for a hard working staff member, it’s not all bad. 

If there is a reduction in available staff, particularly on the dealing side, casino operators have some difficult decisions to make. It’s not like staffing levels haven’t been cut down as far as possible from a cost perspective in past years, so there isn’t a simple solution. The only alternative course of actual in the face of true staff shortage, if table yielding has been maximised under a larger staff complement, is to drive up the cost of playing. A good operator will already have games running at maximum speed, so price of play is the only other option. These days (as opposed to the old 1968 Gaming Act), we can amend rules to be a little tougher – double zero blackjack and harsher blackjack rules would increase the edge – but in a market mostly depending on local customers like the UK, that’s going to raise eyebrows. Raising price of play is thus the route operators may take, and here is where there may still be some juice.

From vague memories of when casinos were open, you would still see £3 blackjack games provincially in some places, but if staff is short, these types of games must surely disappear. Roulette, the mainstay of UK casinos, is more complex, since if you increase the minimum chip cost, people just play fewer chips, so enforcing a minimum spread per spin may be the next move.

My contact also made the point that ancillary spend might be the next target, and given the nature of most newer UK casinos, with ample bar and food provision, that makes sense. The problem is there’s a big gap between gaming spend and F&B– typical averages outside London in the UK might be £20 to £25 per head and £3 to £5 per head respectively – so that’s a lot of work to do to fill the hole. There’s also the issue that serious punters and social visitors primarily there for a few drinks and to watch the gamers don’t always mix that well, so the F&B route out of the problem may not be straightforward.

Other ideas have been floating around for years, like some kind of hybrid offer with bar, food, cash gaming and other types of social games (shuffleboard, pool and so on), or a few very international scale sites (torpedoed by the change in legislative policy), or my preferred route of smaller sites focused on pure gamers with miniature wage bills to match. Whatever happens, offline play levels aren’t increasing, wage bills are marching northward and the precious resource of competent gaming staff is likely about to take a nosedive.

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Silvie Mazacova, Veteran casino dealer at Genting Casinos UK:

Casinos should definitely worry about more than just whether their patrons will return or not. Staff levels should absolutely be top of their agenda as well.

While some casino groups kept nearly the same level of staff as before Covid and made use of the incredibly generous furlough scheme, some casinos went for it and decided to make as much as 60% of their staff redundant.

However, casino businesses have seen a massive plunge in staff levels over the past decade. I experienced a 50% decrease in staff numbers over the past five years. From 40 people on a night shift to 20 in one club, and from 15 people on a day shift to 8 in another. Low levels of staff may also mean dealers will spend longer periods on the tables between breaks - hardly a recipe for exceptional customer service (or enhanced security).

The wage for new croupiers just joining the business hasn’t been particularly encouraging either. Some high-end casinos in London are offering amounts of around £22k. Yes, tips in London are better than in provincial casinos, but, as we have found out this year, they are of no help if something unpredictable happens, like a global pandemic. Looking at possibilities for changing career paths, remote working is an enticing possibility, and in other sectors, a new working week looks something like three days in the office and two days at home. Why am I mentioning this? The commuting cost, of course.

Another facet that’s challenging for casino staff is the chance to progress and earn a pay-rise since not everyone got hit by Covid as hard as casinos, as other companies still offer progression. My view is it's not a secret that progression in a casino means that you are doing more tasks for the same amount of money. Senior croupiers run the floor and dealers inspect. It's not unusual to earn 22k a year and supervise a game with tens of thousands of pounds at stake. I am afraid that many people will not want extra responsibility for no extra reward. So who would want to commute to the centre of town five times a week and spend all night and weekends at work, with limited chance of meaningful progression, if they can get a job that's partly remote?

I suspect casinos may realise that they’ve made a huge mistake by getting rid of many of their staff with a plan to hire more when the pandemic is over. Many casino workers have used the one-year-long lockdown to up skill and, so that they can pursue a new career; they may not find the idea of working five nights a week with no chance of promotion and a pay rise for years to come very appealing. I, for example, have gone through writing courses, started a side-hustle as a copywriter to open new opportunities and set up a blog about fitness. Others started crafting beautiful items to sell on Etsy, which can easily turn into a full-time business in the future. This makes me believe that from the already reduced team, many of them will not return to their old job at all.

Brexit will also make the “foreign import” harder. If the new system of having to earn at least 25k a year gets the green light, casinos will lose a source of qualified and licensed staff from the rest of Europe. If the points system based on Australia becomes a thing, casinos may not be able to get a foreign workforce at all. It’s safe to assume that croupiers will rarely be considered as important for the economy and society as doctors or engineers. But maybe that drives casino wages up – or staff numbers further down – but something will have to change.

Credit for this article goes to Gambling Insider.

An identity crisis amid the government review and the coronavirus pandemic

With a legal review coming on UK land-based casinos, PAUL SCULPHER of Gaming Recruitment Solutions asks: where are we going?

The pandemic, and its associated restrictions, has obviously had an effect on the UK casino industry that ranges, depending on whom you speak to, from the dire to the catastrophic. As I type, the furlough replacement scheme – the Job Support Scheme – has just been announced, and operators have a complicated equation to consider, with some unknown variables. Paying 33% of full-time hours vs government subsidy vs redundancy costs vs £1,000 grant for retained staff would be a mathematical problem. But add in the question about further lockdowns and a guess about the landscape in April and you end up with a difficult educated guess required as to what to do.

Where is this industry going? 

To answer that, it’s worth reflecting on where it’s been. I’ll cut a long story short, and please forgive the cliches. Thirty years ago when casinos were largely low ceilinged, centrally located smoky places with a waiting period before you could get in, the public perception was that they were a) full of gangsters and scary people or b) full of James Bond types in dinner jackets using cigarette holders and eating caviar. 

As we moved into the late 90s and the 21st century, operators were trying to open up the perception of casinos into the mainstream, with the oft-quoted stat that only 2% or 3% of the population had visited a casino in the last 12 months, wildly lower than (usually cherry-picked) other countries – conveniently failing to recognise the AWPs in every pub, high street arcades, 9,000 plus betting shops and the imminent arrival of online gambling.

This opening up process often took the form of a larger site, further from the centre of the town or city, with a wider offering, encompassing at least an upscale bar, larger restaurant, sometimes entertainment and with deregulation to smooth things along. The idea was that penetration into the populace would doubtless follow. 

Looking back now, you’d struggle to say it was a wild success. Bigger sites mean bigger rents and bigger employment costs, but many operators simply found that while their admissions numbers went up sharply in the bigger boxes, the surge was largely at weekends and those extra admissions translated into bar sales, sure, but not so much on gaming (especially when limited to ten, then 20 B1 slots).

The addition of live entertainment didn’t even tickle the needle in most places, and many operators were left scratching their heads as to why their bills were way higher but their bottom line didn’t move much – those throngs of new visitors stubbornly refused to become gamers in significant numbers, and those that did not only didn’t have much of a gaming budget, but equally importantly were slow spenders on gaming. 

Fast forward to today, and not too much has changed. I’ve written before how smaller sites seem to me to be the direction of travel. With licences devalued given both the pandemic and the strangling effect of AML and affordability regulations, it seems to make sense to take a step back and aim the offer at people who already have both the desire and the means to gamble. In fact there’s even been a short-term direct blow struck to the industry by the will to offer a wider experience in the UK casino trade. When, as an industry, you lobby for years for some sympathetic treatment from lawmakers on the basis that casinos aren’t just gambling venues and have a wider offer, it’s hardly surprising that you get lumped in with bars and restaurants when it’s time to decide who gets stuck with a 10pm curfew. That’s just unfortunate happenstance, but the question remains: Has the attempt to open the market up to new players failed? 

I spoke with the marketing director of one major UK operation last week (mostly operating larger sites with the same drive to attract non-gamblers), who revealed to me a very telling snippet. The most popular page on their websites was under FAQ, and was “What’s the dress code?” If potential visitors are still asking that question after two decades of making casinos more friendly to newbies, surely an objective observer would say it just didn’t work. 

So what’s the answer, when the COVID dust settles and it’s time to look beyond the immediate survival horizon? Well, there’s a Gambling Review coming, and while it may be over-dramatising to say it’s either move forward or die, there certainly won’t be many chances to secure improved terms for the offline industry. Sure to be on the larger operators’ lists of preferred changes will be more slots and portability of existing licenses. There’s an element of “they would say that” of course since they hold most of the existing unused licences and their operations are skewed towards the higher footfall locations where the limit of 20 slots means they’re at or near comfort capacity a relatively high proportion of the time.

If we look beyond the big boys, what else might the industry ask for that could genuinely help out, and not be unrealistically contentious? Well, you’d start with automated table games. Electronic roulette was a total game-changer when it was first introduced, with the UK being so roulette heavy, transferring some of the action onto terminals saved a fortune in employment costs and has doubtless effectively protected thousands of other jobs ever since. There’s no earthly reason why roulette and other games shouldn’t be allowed to be offered on terminals via RNG, as they are in every online casino on earth, and the combination of the casino atmosphere with a variety of available games means the casinos could simply be a lot more fun.  

Currently the rules mandate that there has to be physical equipment involved: a real wheel, or real cards and dice, and this makes offering auto craps and card games exceptionally awkward and expensive, as anyone who’s seen the price tag for an automated dice shaker will attest. The chance for players to test the water on a million new games that people might love, but don’t want to play first time at an intimidating table could revitalise the industry like few other options. The jobs protected by making the whole product more fun and ensuring the viability of some casinos would heavily outweigh those lost in a couple fewer tables per site. 

The review should also consider adding in new areas for casinos. The Permitted Areas Regulations, which governed where all casinos could be located, date back to 1960-something, so it’s hardly too relevant these days. The 2005 Act added some laughably random sites, from those already offering casinos, Leeds and Southampton for instance, to the ludicrously non-viable: Dumfries, Skegness anyone? There are plenty of areas in the country that currently can’t by law offer a casino, but from an economic perspective would be very attractive, leading to a potential competition process for local councils that could guarantee significant local benefits (as were realised in Stratford, Leeds and other locations). There’s no value in allowing portability of existing licences (which were originally awarded with no assurance of anything but the right to operate within that area) when there are tens of millions to be made for local areas by maximising the value of new locations.

There are plenty of other areas where the UK casino industry can lobby for changes, especially in the context of the online operators being under so much scrutiny. Concessions to these big land-based casino employers seem only fair as they’re locking in the most jobs, paying significant UK taxes, and bear the burden of the AML and affordability rules. The contrast between the process UK casinos have to follow, and that which online players need to follow is genuinely astounding, as anyone who has seen some of the self-certification safer gambling page of one major bookmaker will attest. I don’t even know how much you have to spend with some online operators to trigger a conversation with a real person, even now, after so many high profile cases of spends wildly out of line with incomes. But it’s the sort of number that no offline casino operator could even imagine. 

The offline industry in the UK is in a hole, no doubt about it. The upcoming review may be a lifeline – although some operators will sink without a trace long before it provides any benefit. But we can only hope that it offers some kind of opportunity to continue to provide one of the more community benefit-rich forms of gambling in terms of employment and tax revenue to UK punters. That shouldn’t be restricted solely to the two major operators, and the other operators’ voices should be heard when it’s time to put forward the industry view.

Paul Sculper, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant

This article originally appeared in the November/December edition of Gambling Insider magazine.

Your Perfect Employee Comes From The Casino Industry!

Why do we, casino employees, always meet with a suspicious eye when applying for a job in a different field?

An article by Silvie Mazacova,

Casino Dealer at Genting Casinos UK and publisher of fitness & food website www.fitnesschaos.com

We either don't get contacted at all, or we have to answer weird questions like:

• "And what does it mean to work in a casino?"

• "Why on earth do you think that you could be a good fit for our company?" (OK, not in these words, hiring people are professionals after all, and they try not to be rude. But, between the lines, this is exactly what they are asking.

And I can't say I blame them.

A WEEK IN A LIFE OF A CASINO EMPLOYEE

The casino industry is a world of its own. We all know each other because we work such unsociable hours that we have no option to know anyone else. We are so desperate that we marry each other in the end.

OK, that sounds a little too tragic! It's not always like that and many people manage to have a decent life, some of us do manage to have friends elsewhere, and the lucky ones even get to marry someone from the outside!

The main reason as to why we are the best employee anyone could have, is that we are so used to pressure! And it's a shame that none of the potential employers know that!

Imagine starting your work-day at 10 pm. Then, you try to make drunk people happy for 8 hours, while you are attempting to work out, sometimes incredibly complex, calculations. Obviously looking beautiful - full make-up, hair and nails done, suited and booted.

Not to mention that the treatment you get sometimes might not be your typical office interaction. You might get to experience some beautiful moments like:

• Someone shouting at you

• Someone insulting you

• 5 different people asking 5 different questions from 5 different directions (my favourite, especially when your own helpful colleagues are part of this verbal diarrhea)

• If you are lucky, someone might even throw something at you

Yes, Casinos are a very civilised environment.

So you go through all that, only to get home at 7-8 o'clock in the morning. Pass out, wake up in the afternoon when everyone is just finishing their work day.

You have a "breakfast". And if you slept more than 5 hours, you might even go ahead and hit the gym or do some housework, or even shopping! But you can't do much because the working hours change all the time and you have less time today! You have to get to work for 8pm, which means that you have to leave at 6 pm.

Traffic in London is a sight to behold. Even if you don't drive, you have to leave early because the train is 90% likely to get cancelled.

You get there five minutes to 8, slap make-up on your face, boys suit and boot up. And we do the shouting, insulting, counting and arguing all over again.

We leave the building at 3am! Yay! Don't get excited, you have to be back at 2 pm the same day. Go home, go to sleep, and get up at 11am not knowing where, or who you are. But that's OK, we are used to that. Coffee will do the job. Or seventeen of them.

You go through the day-shift without ever waking up and, quite often, not remembering what on earth happened that day. The only thing you can think of, is sleep. Somehow, however, you manage to do your job extremely well and even put a smile on your face.

You are so knackered at the end of the day that you master the last little remnants of strength, and drag yourself to a pub to get a Gin & Tonic for £15. Or two. The beauty of working in Mayfair is the bargain prices.

After 5 days of these shifts, days off come! It's not a weekend, obviously, so you can't go out with your normal friends (if you have any). But that's OK, you just want to sleep, anyway.

You manage to do some housework, catch up on sleep, go to the gym so you don't have a heart attack when you are 45 (you at least hope so), and spend some time with a partner of yours. Which is really convenient because, remember, they work in a casino too.

But they are most likely on opposite shifts, so you just have to call them and hope they are awake. Same as your family, really. Get used to the fact that your mum will be calling you at 9 am asking: "Why are you asleep?" Mine still does this 11 years later, so don't think you will be able to explain your weird hours to them.

Want to go out with your normal friends or visit your family at the weekend? Sure. No problem. You have weekends off every 6 months. Who wants to see them more often, anyway.

SO, WHY ARE CASINO EMPLOYEES SO GOOD TO HIRE?

Well, first of all, after what I've just mentioned, I don't think you can throw us off by something simple like a deadline. I mean, after being sleep-deprived for years, a deadline is quite a nice form of pressure. Or is it pressure, really?

We juggle constantly changing shifts, friends, love life, family and some of us try to stay fit and look OK-ish. So by being told that I have to write 5,000 words in four weeks is not going to make me crumble. I'll probably do it on the train to work.

I am not trying to devalue anyone's work at the office and I am aware that a 9-5 job, or working from home, poses its own difficulties.

Also, I cannot even imagine what sort of pressure you must be experiencing, if you own your own business!

Main point I am trying to make here is that we are constantly under pressure and we are damn good at dealing with it:

• We have to look presentable.

• We have to smile all the time and pretend that we have no personal issues or lives.

• We have to function on minimal amounts of sleep. And we do!

• We have to multitask - calculate, look good, smile, have a casual conversation with a customer, and be respectful of the team we work with (which is challenging at times).

• Our interpersonal skills and relationships must be top-notch! As I will explain in a bit.

So, if any potential employer is reading this, don't dismiss us. We are NOT just a bunch of pretty girls and boys, who spin the ball in a roulette wheel. It's a tough job, emotionally and mentally.

If you ever need an employee, who

• is energetic

• can multitask

• is great at customer service

• doesn't crumble under pressure

• is excellent at teamwork

• doesn't mind a little sleep deprivation

then please do consider a CV with the casino industry on it. We are often overlooked because nobody knows what skill sets we possess. Even if we do mention our skills on our resumes, nobody can put them into context, and I am not surprised. A casino is not a venue that everyone has been to, or want to go to.

WE ARE NOT CROOKS!

As my former colleague rightly pointed out, other issues we often have to deal with are the following accusations:

• We do not steal anyone's money, neither do we beat people up in the basement.

• The casino industry is incredibly strictly regulated.

• We have to prove where every penny comes from and if we cannot, we are not allowed to accept it. Cash is becoming less and less frequent due to increasing numbers of rules regarding money laundering.

• We have to be aware of many rules and regulations and protect ourselves and our employer all the time.

• The times when casinos were dark dens in the underground and customers were carrying guns are buried in the past. It's definitely not your typical UK scene.

• We don't work for Kray brothers!

WHAT DO WE DO WHEN THE CASINO IS QUIET?

You must have been thinking this, right?

It can't be busy all the time, just like pubs and bars are not constantly packed.

You are absolutely right. More often than not, we are quiet. But that poses more challenges than you would think.

We are a small team of people. So imagine working with 10 - 15 employees. Not a problem, right?

Now, imagine that you have nothing to do and you have to spend 8 hours a day staring at your colleagues. With nothing to do, no deadlines, no assignments, nothing to do at all. Now, imagine they are all women. The casino industry, at least the London one, is largely dominated by women.

Not that I am against women, not at all. It would be a little counterproductive if I was since I am a woman myself. I have found some amazing friends in this industry. But let's be fair. We, women, tend to have the urge to talk without saying a lot. If you had 10 men in the room, it would most likely be a very quiet room.

Lock 15 women together in a room with nothing to do and let 2 men be their boss. What do you think is going to happen? You are probably thinking something like a third world war. Well, I'm sure there were moments where this guess was not far from the truth.

So, what do we do?

Well, we cover the weather, obviously. We ask about the husbands, kids and family and find out if they are still alive. We might even have something in common with each other, we are human beings after all.

I'm not going to lie. There are differences and disagreements.

BUT! We have learned to leave our own emotions and issues at home. When we come to work, we have to treat everyone professionally, not just the customers, but each other too. We work in a high-end environment and there is no space for personal issues.

This is another reason that makes us so valuable! And it all comes down to the ability to handle pressure and stress in the end. We are damn good at it. We make jokes out of situations that would send most of the population to a psychiatrist's office.

THE END

I hope I didn't bore you too much with a story about a profession nobody knows anything about. But that was the point of this article. I wanted more people to know what we do and how our skills can be transferable to many different industries.

If you could share this post, dear reader, I'd be eternally grateful. And I am sorry if my sarcastic tone made someone feel undervalued or uncomfortable - that was not the purpose.

The purpose of this post was to:

• offer insight into a mysterious job role from someone who has been in it for 11 years.

• inform

• hopefully entertain

If I made anyone laugh, that's a bonus.

It's enough for me that you managed to stick to the end!

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn

Gaming recruitment: Are we seeing the end of the office?

Paul Sculpher, co-director of Gaming Recruitment Solutions, explains the rapidly evolving landscape of recruitment in the gaming industry now that working from home is gaining ground.

This article originally appeared in the July/August edition of Gambling Insider magazine.

Working from home – WFH – is obviously a concept with which a whole lot of people have become far more familiar in the various lockdown situations across the world. The nature of the offline gaming industry has meant it’s been unable, at an operational level, to take advantage of the opportunity to work from home, however, and has been devastated. Online betting and gaming operators, on the other hand, have in some sectors seen significant gains, which will be boosted now that there’s a lot more sport to bet on. We are taking baby steps towards lifting the current movement restrictions, and while casinos are finally being allowed to reopen with strict new guidelines in place, the mindset seems to have shifted from fear of the unknown to buckling up and getting ready for resumption of trading, and the bumpy ride that’s likely to ensue.

The end of the office?

Every element of the supply chain has been affected by the changes, whether by lack of demand or personal struggles with social distancing. Recruitment is no different. GRS Recruitment is an agency that covers not just the UK, but all over the world too, and for us the concept of a central office has never been particularly relevant. We had already moved towards a working model that was pretty decentralised, with my co-director Steven Jackson and I primarily working from our homes, with our finance and admin function also remote, and our accountancy requirements covered by our partners a good 300 miles away.

The future of the “commute to office” model has been uncertain for a while now, and the sudden onset of the virus crisis has meant many companies have had to run what amounts to a live test of the process. The upsides of the WFH culture are obvious to all, starting with money, time and stress saved by not having to commute. Once the concept really beds in, however, it offers so much more. One clear example is that the talent pool is opened up, internationally in some cases, by not restricting team members to those who live within an hour or so of the office, and you won’t find too many people who will complain about saving the cost of a season ticket and a couple of hours a day in cramped public transport.

The virus has also pretty much forced us all to learn the basics of online working and meetings. Anyone who has run a quiz (or participated in one) will be familiar with how to work Zoom or Microsoft Teams, for example, and progressed to figuring out etiquette for things like muting their microphone when not speaking.

There are downsides of course. Training needs a different approach, and the benefit gained from team members at all levels interacting casually in the office is lost, along with some of the team spirit. Companies can no longer rely on their shiny office with refrigerators, beanbags and a ping pong table to tip the recruitment balance in their favour, for example, but speaking for myself, any part of that which is appealing is never far away, and certainly doesn’t involve an hour’s journey.

Recruitment in a WFH world

The gaming industry has historically been something like 60% offline work and 40% online, and we’d be lying if we said the offline element in particular hasn’t taken a hit from the virus situation.

Operational roles have largely been taken off the table until operators understand what the business looks like post-virus – indeed, at least one of our placements that was in progress as the lockdown commenced has ended up not leaving their previous employer – possibly temporarily – so they don’t fall through the cracks of the furlough programme.

It’s fair to say, however, that some elements even of the offline industry have kept ticking along. Compliance – one of our core areas – are still grinding away in some companies, taking the downtime as a valuable opportunity to refine strategies at the senior end, and work through the backlog of customers requiring EDD or KYC verification at the more functional end of the business. It feels like there are new guidelines coming out every week at the moment too – currently focussed on online gambling – so the wheels of interpretation and adjustment of procedures never stop turning.

The online element of our business on the other hand is ploughing on as before, as one might imagine. The gradual consolidation of the online industry doesn’t stop companies needing to refresh their teams, and the dynamic nature of the industry means there are always plenty of firms who need specialist help to find the perfect candidate to take their business to the next level.

There are also upsides to the shift to working from home from a pure recruitment point of view. We can get a candidate list to a client more quickly at the moment. Part of that is due to the general availability of candidates to us, given they’re not stuck in an office where these conversations are difficult if not impossible. Also, while meeting candidates isn’t something we do in all cases, everyone’s growing familiarity with the online communication process is making life easier all round.

The personal approach

The fundamentals of our recruitment business have been affected, but not totally turned upside down. In a relatively small field like betting and gaming, we always like to think there’s never more than one degree of separation between Steven and me, and any candidate in the industry. Put another way, in pretty much all cases, we will either know the candidate we’re putting forward or we’ll know someone who has worked with them, so we’re very rarely in the dark about their strengths and weaknesses. We feel this is a key part of what we offer as a recruitment partner. That hasn’t changed with the lockdown and working from home situation. What has changed, of course, is the chance to get out there in the operations, meet new people and network. Previously on our travels, we’d be forever meeting new people in the industry, which aside from the general enjoyment of that, it was valuable in terms both of finding potential new clients and candidates.

Naturally the interview process is changing in this period of social distancing as well, with video calling via Skype, Zoom or equivalent. Most employers would prefer to meet a candidate face to face, of course, but when forced, a good proportion is finding that a video call is a perfectly good substitute. Whether this approach will outlive the pandemic is anyone’s guess, but there could certainly be a huge amount of inconvenience avoided by running at least the first part of a selection process remotely.

The process

It’s worth a very brief word to remind everyone of the basics of online interviewing. As noted above, we’re all getting better at it, but there are obvious pitfalls to avoid. An obvious one is how one dresses. Businesslike is always best for candidates of course, and while we’ve all had Zoom calls with, shall we say, the top half of our clothing not matching the bottom half, bear in mind what happens if during your interview the doorbell rings. It’s unavoidable, employers understand we’re supposed to be staying at home and can’t control deliveries, so if you’ve gone for the cooling relief of an underwear-based clothing solution below the waist, you’re in a mess.

Following on from the entirely tedious “controversy” about books found on the bookcases of some political interviewees (in the background of their video interviews at home), I’ve seen a couple of comments from candidates who were mortified about what reading material might be visible to interviewers. Our standard response to this would be that if the interviewer was paying that much attention to the bookcase contents, the interview probably wasn't going that well in any case – or more simply, just blur the background.

Finally, there are always technical hiccups to avoid, and we all have connection problems from time to time. A degree of understanding will generally be the case. Again, we don’t always have the option to run the interview in a super high bandwidth location, but use some common sense and if your connection is flaky, try and avoid two kids watching Netflix and another streaming a new video game at the same time.

Offline to online 

I’ve written elsewhere about the prospect of offline managers migrating to online, but we believe it will be an increasingly common phenomenon. We’ve certainly seen a massive increase in the number of offline managers known to us looking for a way to move into a sector with better prospects, and many of them are of exceptionally high quality. Consultation processes are underway in several of the larger offline casino operators, with a view to a very different structure post virus, at least at first. It’s tough times out there, but there are plenty of exceptional people who will fall victim to circumstance, and we’re all in prime position to help prospective employers pick the best of them.

Paul Sculpher, Gaming Recruitment Solutions, and Independent Gaming Consultant

Moving jobs from offline casinos to the online world

With the move from brick-and-mortar to digital gaming accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, Paul Sculpher, director of GRS, describes the process of a transferring staff and skills – from one channel to the next:

www.igamingtimes.com/2020/05/22/gaming-recruitment-paul-sculpher/

Is the Las Vegas Strip finally showing cracks in their pricing policy?

By Paul Sculpher, Special to CDC Gaming Reports

The cost of a trip to Las Vegas has been increasing almost exponentially for many years, with both highly visible changes (new resort fees, new parking charges) and more subtle increments (lower slot payout percentages, higher drink prices) contributing to the savage attack on the Strip visitor’s wallet.

It’s also fair to say that it would be difficult to point to areas where service levels have increased apace. While the resort experience is still a very high-quality one, overall, the queues for check in and general impossibility to find a waitress on most megaresort gaming floors make clear that cost cutting is at the heart of most business plans.

Anecdotal comment in online forums and social media suggest that service-level teams are having to do more with less – not exactly encouraging for the imminent Las Vegas visitor. Only last month, MGM announced 254 jobs were to be cut, largely at management level and above, and there’s another round coming soon, including staff-level roles.

This salami slicing of dollar value has been going on for a while – I wrote a piece about it more than three years ago – https://www.gamblinginsider.com/in-depth/1928/las-vegas-risks-pricing-itself-out-of-the-market – and things have unquestionably become noticeably more expensive since then. I’ve spent at least 30 days in Vegas since that article was written, and one incident encapsulates perfectly how rapacious the processing of customer money has become. Last year I was playing slots at a major top-end Strip property. After a half hour fruitlessly waiting for a floor valet to take a drinks order, we got fed up and headed for the sports bar. Sitting down to play video poker, it came as no surprise that drinks weren’t comped. What did come as a shock was that the bill for two beers was $28!

From the casino executive’s point of view, it can be tough to make major changes. If the culture has been about cost control for years, with some strategic innovation mixed in (for example, the growth of the lucrative nightclub culture), then in a short-termist world, who wants to be the person who stands up and says “nope, we’ll forego some easy income because it’ll be good for us in the longer term”? People get fired for reduced short-term profits. Turkeys generally aren’t in the habit of voting for Christmas (or Thanksgiving).

Given all that, the recent announcement that Wynn are cutting mandatory self-parking charges was a very interesting one. This may be a simple marketing exercise, but it also may be the beginning of the backlash that many believe is long overdue. Summary statistics are of course available for Nevada and Las Vegas visitation, but naturally operators have access to numbers in real time, and if this is the beginning of a readjustment to falling visitor numbers, perhaps there’ll be more to follow.

There is an interesting parallel in the UK, although in retail banking. For decades now, if you banked with one of the big names, your high street experience has been getting steadily less and less personal, and worse and worse overall. You want to speak with someone? Make an appointment. You want something that isn’t absolutely standard? Nah, too much trouble. You want your mum’s local branch to be available, since she’s not so internet savvy? Tough luck, we’re closing it since it costs too much.

In the UK, the rise of Metro Bank has been fascinating. They’re taken a completely different approach from the prevailing one, with the view that the customer does in fact care about service. They’re open evenings and weekends, and they have people on staff who can make decisions. I went in recently to open a new business banking account, and the reception team member had to repeat herself – my mind simply couldn’t process that there’d be someone onsite who could handle that process for me in ten minutes, no need to book for next week.

The Metro Bank route may have challenges, but having all your competitors go the cost-slicing route, eroding service and relying on automation at the expense of personal service wherever possible, might be opening a gap for you to exploit.

The casino world is an even more service-orientated business than banking. Yes, there’s a huge amount of brand loyalty in Las Vegas, but you only need to look through any related Facebook group to see the level of dissatisfaction with being treated like a walking wallet by your favourite casino. Is there an opportunity for an operator to move to the other end of the pendulum swing and offer an experience that people will switch operators to sample?

Enhanced service costs money – a lot of money in the labour-intensive world of casinos. But bank staff also aren’t cheap, and the above example suggests that people may indeed care enough to switch to get the experience they want.

The key for casinos is REVPAR – revenue per available room. It’s no use increasing your levels of service if the customers don’t spend a suitable amount, either on the room itself or, if we’re trying to avoid horrific pricing policies on food and beverage (F&B) and other ancillaries, on gaming. It’s more challenging when you add in the gaming element. Exactly how you manage REVPAR typically depends on the type of customer.

Looking at the very top tier in Vegas – Cosmopolitan, for example, or Wynn – the opulence of the resort is part of the key to attracting the bigger-spending players. However, at the top of the tree, business development is ruled by loss rebate offers, private flights, and the reputation and cachet of the casino itself. It’s the medium spender who’s been shut out by Las Vegas of late. While the average gambling spend for Vegas is around $500 per person per trip, the most disillusioned element are perhaps the spenders in the $3,000 – $25,000 range. Their comps have been whittled away, their bankroll gets eaten at a frightening rate by ancillary costs, and they just aren’t getting treated the way they expect their spend would merit. This group is the one that may most matter to the savvy operator. We’ll see, over the next couple of years, if anyone wants to make significant changes to seriously up their proportion of this cohort by treating them more like a human being and less like an ADT (Average Daily Theoretical) statistic.

By the way, kudos to the Cosmopolitan for getting the message of sympathy out there to the unfortunate people made redundant in the recent MGM layoff round, and that they have jobs available. Obviously there’ll be some self interest – good people are hard to find – but it looks like they’ve recognized that it can happen to all of us, and just putting the message out there that someone empathises may help in some small way.

This report first published in CDC Gaming Reports:

https://www.cdcgamingreports.com/commentaries/is-the-las-vegas-strip-finally-showing-cracks-in-their-pricing-policy/