Monthly Archives: August 2010

New paper up @UNLV CGR

August 31, 2010 1:49 pm

Since starting the Occasional Paper Series over at the Center for Gaming Research, I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity of getting to learn more about the topics that scholars choose to write about. So it’s a good day when I can announce that another one is ready for your reading pleasure:

Paper 06: August 2010

Laura Cook Kenna. “The Promise of Gangster Glamour: Sinatra, Vegas, and Alluring, Ethnicized, Excess,” Occasional Paper Series 6. Las Vegas: Center for Gaming Research, University Libraries, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2010.

Abstract: Las Vegas has been linked with Frank Sinatra since the 1950s. The highly‐publicized performances of the Rat Pack (consisting of Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford) at the Sands crystallized the image of Las Vegas as a place that mingled economic mobility with excess. This excess was often associated with ethnicity and frequently linked to crime. It was, however, the excess that made Las Vegas and Sinatra glamorous to many audiences.

Keywords: Las Vegas, Rat Pack, Gangsters, American Ethnicity

View the paper here (pdf)

I tweaked the masthead a bit, to keep up with the lighter look that we’re going for with the site in general. I’m always open to feedback–it’s still in transition, most likely.

On to the paper: what I like about this one is that it gives a serious exploration of an idea–”gangster glamour”–that seems contradictory at first thought, but actually makes sense. In a lot of ways, this is what Las Vegas is all about. For decades, the city’s offered “safe adventure” for visitors–wild times, but not too wild (at least that’s how the city’s been promoted. Reality often differs quite a bit).

You can also hear the podcasted version of Kenna’s lecture here.

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Book Review: Android Karenina

August 27, 2010 3:18 pm

Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters. Android Karenina. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2010. 541 pages.

I don’t review too much fiction, but I thought I’d give this one a shot. Quirk Books has put out a few “mash-up” books–combinations of classic (and public domain) works of literature with genre fiction. The titles alone–like Price and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters–are a good indication of what you get. I’m more partial to 19th century Russian literature than British literature, so when I saw Android Karenina, I decided to give it a try.

This is a difficult book to review, because the plot basically follows that of Anna Karenina, with some extreme liberties taken. Essentially, it’s layering the star-crossed romance of Anna and Vronsky over a steampunk Russia filled with robots, ranging from simple Class Is to “beloved-companion” Class IIIs, of which each adult Russian has one, whose appearance and style says something about its owner. Anna’s Class III is named Android Karenina, and she silently supports Anna throughout her travails.

There’s also a bigger story about a terrorist group named UnConSciya, and even an alien invasion. Suffice it to say that this is not Tolstoy’s Russia, though most of the plot points are adapted to this new world with a few tweaks.

So is ANDROID KARENINA a worthwhile read? Well, it’s not exactly Literature with the upper-case “L,” but after a while it really draws you in. Fifty pages in, I thought that this would have made a witty short story, and was dreading the thought of almost another 500 pages. But around 100 pages, something clicked, and I really got into the Russo-steampunk universe Winters created. At the end, I wished there was more–which is pretty high praise for such a lengthy book, and probably one of the best signs of quality that I can think of.

If you are really into steampunk, or have a sense of humor about the classics, you’ll probably find ANDROID KARENINA a truly fun read. I know I did.

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Casino Facebook games in Vegas Seven

August 26, 2010 3:21 pm

At last I’m able to update my blog–it’s been a very busy day. I wanted to do a win/slot analysis to address the “fewer slot machines, but they have more games so it’s OK” idea, but that’s going to have to wait. Instead, read about my latest Vegas Seven column, which covers casinos breaking into the social games market:

Casinos in Las Vegas have been marketing through social media for some time now, mostly via Facebook and Twitter. Recently, however, two Las Vegas-based casino companies have taken their investment in social media to another level with Facebook applications.Facebook allows third-party developers to create applications, or apps, that users can access through their Facebook pages. Social games are some of the most popular apps available. Unlike sites that offer play-for-free or play-for-cash, these games require no download and can be played in a standard Web browser. By definition, they allow players to invite friends to join games and compete in friendly competitions.

via Casinos now playing Facebook games | Vegas Seven.

I played both games, and found the casino-builder to definitely require more attention as you play–no replying to emails in another tab while you play it.

This is probably going to be a big growth area, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see casinos big and small partnering with game developers.

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Turning around Resorts

August 25, 2010 10:02 am

An experienced gaming executive (who I once worked for at the Trump Taj Mahal) has acquired Resorts Atlantic City, and a former Resorts exec has some advice. From the AC Press:

One of the executives who oversaw Resorts Atlantic City during its 1970s heyday said the money-losing casino should transform itself into a convention haven as part of its turnaround strategy under new ownership.Steve Norton, who now serves as a private gaming consultant, said more conventions would fill the hotel rooms with lucrative customers and offset the typically slow midweek business cycles that plague Resorts and other casinos in town.

via pressofAtlanticCity.com: • Atlantic City, Pleasantville & Brigantine – Breaking News plus Local, Business, Sports, Entertainment & Video News for Southern New Jersey.

I’d like to think that everyone in the industry is aware of the “load balancing” that conventions provide–Vegas casinos have been doing this since the 1950s. But if people need to be reminded of that, so much the better that they hear it. But I would assume that any big casino’s going to be doing some kind of yield management with their rooms to maximize their revenues from business travelers, FITs, and casino guests. But looking at the performance of a lot of the Atlantic City casinos lately, maybe not.

The bigger question is: how do you position the city’s oldest casino in a business where being the newest usually has a premium? I know of only two casinos that actively trade on their history, or pedigree, and those are the Golden Gate and (more and more) the El Cortez in Downtown Las Vegas. In both cases, it’s a smart way to use an asset that your neighbors don’t have or (in the Nugget’s case) don’t want to use.

The property isn’t going to compete with Borgata, Caesars, the Taj, or Harrah’s in flashiness, but that’s OK. There are plenty of people who want a less-frenetic time “down the shore,” and Resorts might be able to capture this crowd–the people who feel underserved because they don’t want to go to bottle service nightclubs or listen to booming bass while they play quarter slots. They’re good casino customers, and there’s a lot of them: the key is making sure they drive to Atlantic City.

I’ll trot out a few of my suggestions for getting people in the door:
1. Free parking and free slot play in the amount of tolls/EZpass receipts for out-of state customers. I laid this out a few months ago, and I still think it’s a good idea. If they’re in your database, you’ve got their zipcode. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out how much they pay in tolls, so you wouldn’t even have to make them show receipts to you. We’re talking $30 or so in slot freeplay here, not really anything that’s going to break the bank, particularly when you consider that no one’s going to drive down, play $30, and leave right away. Sure, you might get some scammers who pack 6 to a car and take advantage, but this isn’t necessarily the worst thing: you’ve got people in your casino who think they’re playing with house money. If you’ve got a half-way decent casino, you should be able to keep them there.

2. Play up a more sedate, more sophisticated image. Sure, in the casino world this is subjective, but with the right packaging an anti-”Jersey Shore” campaign could go a long way.

3. A vintage slot section, with favorite games from way back. Others have done this, and it draws a crowd

Those are just three ideas, off the top of my head, without having been on the Resorts floor in a year or so and without any inside knowledge of what their customer database looks like.

In other words, I think there’s a lot Gomes & company can do with this property. I wish them luck.

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Not a happy June in the LVBP

August 24, 2010 11:33 am

My latest Las Vegas Business Press column is out, in which I dissect the June Nevada numbers:

The June results are in, and whatever the national economic picture, one thing is certain: Nevada gaming remains moribund. The figures released by the Gaming Control Board aren’t much cause for optimism, though things look a little better for Southern Nevada than for the north.

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : Latest data provide little optimism for gaming.

Basically, even without the incredibly low bacc hold on the Strip, it wasn’t a good month for the state, as slot handle continues to fall and table handle is mostly kept afloat by high levels of bacc play, play which happens in maybe a dozen casinos. But even if the bacc hold percentage had been more in the house’s favor, it still probably would have been a flat month.

Also, an interesting article in the LV Sun about the decreasing number of slots in Nevada, something I’ve written about. I’ve got one question: if it’s just a matter of having more games on each slot, why has the statewide win per slot only inched up slightly ($108.76 vs. $110.04) since 2004? The total win is declining in addition to the total number of slots, so each slot is doing about the same about of “work” it was six years ago, multiple games or not. Sure, the counter-argument is that revenues would have declined more without the game menus, but still, there hasn’t been a real increase in per-machine revenue generation yet.

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Nevada gaming revenue: What’s the deal?

August 23, 2010 2:32 pm

It seems like every month when the Nevada revenue numbers come out someone has a different spin on why things are looking up, or not looking up. It got me thinking that, even though all of these numbers are publicly available, there’s no readily-available source for some of the key numbers.

That’s a void I’ve been trying to fill over at the Center for Gaming Research, with the assumption that if people know more about the gaming industry and how it operates, there will be less misinformation out there. So many of the reports are summaries of available data on different games, with some narrative summary thrown in.

Last week I started thinking about one simple measure of how well the gaming industry’s doing: the monthly year-to-year comparisons. It seems pretty basic: if casinos make more money than they did in that month the previous year, they’re doing better; if they make less, they’re doing worse. There was a time when it seemed like every month was a “better” month, which should happen over time, even if the industry is stagnant, because of inflation. But we’ve seen so many months of decline for the past 2 years, any month with an increase is good news.

So to quantify just where we’ve been, and where we are, I started by looking at the monthly change in “total gaming win” for Nevada as a whole and for the Las Vegas Strip from January 2008 to today. You might want to open this pdf up in a different window to follow along–it’s the report.

It turns out that for the state, there’s a roughly u-shaped decline when comparing year-to-year performances, with the bottom coming in the fall/winter of 2008-9. We’ve got a year-year increase for the first time in two years in November 2009, followed by slight declines in December and January, a boffo increase in Feburary (which was fueled mostly by baccarat and a favorable calendar), and what looks like the start of another valley, much of which is due to June’s abnormally low baccarat hold.

Looking at the quarterly growth changes from 2Q 2007 to 2Q 2010, the u-shaped pattern is even more evident, as is the apparent reversal of an upward trend.

Yet it’s important to note that if we define a recession (narrowly) as two or more consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, Nevada gaming officially exited the recession back in March, when it notched a quarter of positive growth. Of course, it’s not really that easy, since employment numbers are still down, as are non-gaming revenues.

The pattern on the Strip matched that of the state as a whole, though the Fall/Winter 2008/09 was a little deeper and the Fall/Winter 2009 “recovery” was a little stronger. Still, three straight months of declines in April, May, and June of 2010 show that we’re not out of the woods yet. For what it’s worth, the Strip’s casinos posted positive revenue growth in 4Q 2009 and 1Q 2010, though 2Q 2010 was again a decline.

If anything, looking at these numbers suggests that when the industry does shake off the cobwebs and start growing again in earnest, the Strip is going to lead the rest of the state.

You can see the entire report, and the raw data, here: Nevada Gaming: Revenue Growth & Decline.

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Book Review: The Secrets of College Success

August 20, 2010 10:22 am

Lynn F. Jacobs and Jeremy S. Hyman. The Secrets of College Success: Over 600 Tips & Tricks Revealed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. 224 pages.

Most college graduates feel that, if they’d have known everything going in that they knew when they graduated, they would have had a much better time. THE SECRETS OF COLLEGE SUCCESS looks to fill that information gap, and it succeeds, with a few caveats. Generally, there’s no real “secrets” in here; a student would be able to learn everything in here on his or her own, but reading this book will save them a lot of time and frustration, which makes it worth it.

Essentially, the book runs through what college is (and isn’t), how the prepare for school, how to time-manage and study correctly, picking and taking classes, taking tests, and dealing with the inevitable unforeseen circumstances. It’s eminently readable–though the 224 pages are filled with useful information, they fly by pretty quickly–and the numerous numbered lists are great for future reference.

All of the tips are useful–I thought the chapter on picking courses and professors was particularly good, and I’m going to make sure to refer back to the “thirteen surefire signs of a bad professor” section to make sure I’m not slipping.

Like I said above, many of the “secrets” aren’t secret at all. For example, the “10 ways to whip the Freshman comp requirement” list includes: 1. go to class and 2. do all the work assigned. This seems pretty obvious, but it’s good that the authors remind students not to take shortcuts. Many of the tips are similarly rooted in common sense, and hopefully through repetition they sink in.

One caveat about the “partner with your professor” chapter. Yes, professors find it gratifying when students take an interest in their work, but there’s definitely a line there. Students, don’t assume that your professors live, breath, and sleep your course material. Even if they are passionate about teaching, they’ve probably got lots of stuff to do outside of class. Sometimes, showing too much interest in the class can be a little creepy. Just tackle the subject matter with confidence and curiosity, and you’ll be fine.

As someone who teaches, I found this book to be a great guide for students; even if they already know what to do, this book will confirm that they’re doing it right. If not, it’ll show them how to improve their grades and enjoyment of college. I would definitely get this book for a new college student, and will recommend it in the future.

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June analysis

August 20, 2010 8:47 am

A little late, but still, it’s here today: the 2004-2010 June Nevada Gaming numbers analysis. A continuation of the trend we’ve seen for a while.

Nevada Gaming Statistics: June Comparison
Statewide, Las Vegas Strip, Boulder Strip, and Washoe County figures for the month of June, 2004-2010
CGR Reports

Interesting trends. I’m going to be working more on this next week.

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Creative El Cortez in Vegas Seven

August 19, 2010 3:02 pm

It’s Thursday, so you’ve got more Vegas Seven goodness to read. This week, my contribution is a look into the El Cortez’s Design-a-Suite-Downtown competition:

Most casino executives view renovating hotel rooms as a necessary but disagreeable process. Room remodels are doubly expensive—they pull rooms out of the rental pool and incur labor and materials costs. It’s easy to see why few property owners look forward to them.The El Cortez, however, has found a way to use the renovation process to put the spotlight on itself and four Nevada design teams via its Design-a-Suite Downtown competition, showing again how it’s carving its own niche on Sixth and Fremont streets.

via El Cortez gets creative with design competition | Vegas Seven.

I think that what the El Cortez is going deserves notice. Between Emergency Arts, the Cabana Suites, and this, they’ve really done a lot of interesting things. It’s ironic that one of the most “old school” casinos–with coin-pay slots, no less–is also one of the most innovative. Or perhaps it’s not…

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Too many rooms? on NPR

August 17, 2010 12:13 pm

My interview with Steve Inskeep of KNPR’s Morning Edition has aired:

Las Vegas just added a bit more bling to its famed Strip with the unveiling of a new marquee for The Cosmopolitan — a resort-casino opening at the end of the year. There already are questions about how the city will absorb another 3,000 hotel rooms. Las Vegas has been hit hard by the down economy and is struggling with a glut of rooms. David Schwartz of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas talks to Steve Inskeep about the city's fortunes.

via Does Las Vegas Really Need Another Hotel-Casino? : NPR.

I had great conversation with Steve. It’s not an easy topic to discuss because there are so many variables. In the end, it seems like it’s just as much a crapshoot as anything on the casino floor. Which is ironic, perhaps, but maybe apt.

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