Slots of Confessions

Being a slots manager is a great profession but no matter how good you are there comes a time when you’re going to get frustrated.

By Andy Cosgrove

Getting frustrated is a necessary part of life that some of us would rather not experience but as unpleasant as it might appear certain kinds of frustration can also lead to great discoveries, life changing moments, and a culture of innovation that legends are born from. However, reality can be very different from eutopia and inevitably we sometimes come up against certain disagreeable circumstances that would cause even the most optimistic slot manager to do a U-turn and choose not to pursue their concerns any further no matter the consequences. Why do we do this? Because sometimes you just can’t change the time, the place the situation and certain mindsets. Sometimes the odds are stacked so high against you, that you just can’t win. This may cause us to bottle up our frustrations and let them simmer inside of us to near boiling point. Some of us carry on our lives oblivious of the storm brewing beneath the surface and herein lies the danger. Some will inevitably explode and possibly lose their job; others will take it out on their staff as they are unable to confront their demons. Some may kick a slot machine while others might choose to seek a confession by challenging authority head on.

The following is a list of bad decisions that a frustrated slots manager should take directly to their bosses with the hope of extracting a confession of wrongdoing (or plain old ignorance) before a casino full of virtue and promise becomes a vicious exercise on how fast you can get yourself fired from your job!

This is how we’ve always done it. – Some might remember life before computers became mainstream and it mainly consisted of a slow, long winded, labor intensive, admin heavy process that involved a lot of paper, filing cabinets, typewriters, telephone calls and fax messages. My point here is that if you try the same strategy, same technology and expect different results while your revenues continue to decline, then doesn’t it make sense to, at the very least, ask for a different opinion? Most of us would say yes to this without thinking twice, so why is it that so many bosses continue to frustrate their slot manager’s by digging a slow grave for their once promising casino?

Tighten up the slots and the player’s will still come – How many proven failures and slots statistics does it take to convince a casino manager that changing the slots hold from 6% to 12% might anger some of the local slots player’s? I’ve had this particular challenge with more than one GM and no matter how much evidence you provide against the hypothesis that less is more when it comes to player retention, they still don’t get it. Sometimes it’s ego, sometimes it’s a lack of understanding and sometimes it’s the temporary blindless that comes from an inability to say no to the board of directors or CEO. When this happens, it could be time for a serious confession session with your boss with maybe a Yoga session thrown in from on top of a remote mountain somewhere on the other side of the world.

I don’t accept that my decisions are responsible for the decline in slots revenues – This scenario involves the GM asking the slots manager for an in depth root cause analysis as to why slots revenues have fallen over the last few months in the hope that they could deflect the blame in the slots manager’s direction. It’s kind of like committing a crime, being caught on camera with multiple witnesses and still pleading not guilty. On one occasion a timeline was presented on how bad decisions made by a GM coincided with the decline in revenues caused by each policy. The correlation score was a perfect +1. Those bad decisions included: tripling the base rate required to qualify for comps; eliminating comp points from all video poker machines; making it mandatory for player’s to have a club card before they could perform any transaction at the cage and throwing out all slot promotions that were targeting locals. It came as no surprise that revenues dropped by a total of 20% which represented 80% of the casinos slots players who were locals!

Don’t plan your slots promotions, don’t tell your player’s and they will still come – This total lack of insight based decision making is easy to avoid and anyone who has worked at a successful casino knows the importance of planning in advance especially when it comes to high stakes promotions. Depending on the size of you promotion the deadline to start advertising should be 3 months prior to the main event. If it’s a promotion that involves high rollers that live a long way from your casino, they have to make plans and they have to be sufficiently excited about the promotion to make the effort to visit your casino, so the reason has to look and feel like it’s the only choice available….

Which also takes planning! Imagine that you calculate that you will need 100 extra player’s with an ADT of $500 to break even on your next record breaking promotion and then someone in marketing forgets to send out the invites and only realizes the error the day before the promotion. You, the responsible slots manager, hear about this through the grapevine and head to the GM’s office to make your case for avoiding heavy losses with the hope of a full blown confession from your boss stating that you are right, and that plan B should be put in place immediately. However even before you say a word, your boss dismisses your advice as micromanaging and end’s up losing a lot of money because no one turned up!

Take away the employee tips to improve customer service and everybody will be happy! This has to be the best example that I have ever heard of regarding the confession of a bad idea that your boss should seriously consider making. Any slot attendant who has ever received a tip from a satisfied customer knows how good it feels and they also fully recognize and appreciate the financial benefits that comes with receiving tips which, in many cases, can be the main reason for them wanting to work at your casino in the first place. Any boss who might even consider taking away tips probably won’t be a boss for long. The idea behind this particular example of genius (not) involved increasing the jackpot lockup limits by more than double in order to decrease waiting times for player’s to receive their winnings and was based solely on information given to them by the marketing team. The slots manager wasn’t consulted and as soon as the staff heard about it, they threatened to walk out. Only then was the slots manager consulted, a confession made, and a reasonable compromise reached.

Let’s buy only refurbished slots and we’ll still be able to attract the top slots players in the region within this highly competitive market – Imagine investing 500 million on an amazing resort and then some GM with no current market experience comes along and suggests to the owners (who have zero casino experience) that new slots won’t be necessary. In my experience GM’s like these will have come from a table games background and will quite possibly have no idea about slot machines or their customers. What’s even more concerning is that they probably don’t even care. A competent slots manager has to know much more than just the latest slots products and how to keep them running. They need to know the market, their customers and as much detail as possible to make the customer experience memorable while consistently exceeding expectations. The key to extracting this confession is to get in early and convince your boss to confess that they could be wrong and that they should let you do your job which, as a matter of fact, is what they pay you for.

Conclusion – Let’s face it, there is no such thing as a casino eutopia and knowing when to walk away is an art in itself that even the most experienced among us get wrong from time to time. Nobody agrees 100% of the time but through essential dialogue and a lot of listening you can get a confession from your boss (and others) in away that produces a better outcome for all and when it matters the most. No matter which way you look at it, any improvement initiative starts with having the courage to confess that we could be wrong.

Andrew Cosgrove is a seasoned slot operations veteran and certified project manager with over 24 years of hands on experience in Latin America and the Caribbean. Andrew has worked on both the operator and supplier side of casino slots and is available to help you succeed and exceed customer expectations via contracted consultancy services. Andrew can be reached at andy.cosgrove@henimgwaycasinoconsulting.com or seehttps://hemingwaycasinoconsulting.com/