Re-Opening Casinos during Pandemic
Covid 19 has swept the world causing an unprecedented crisis across the world causing havoc in travel, hospitality, leisure, tourism to name few. Also it has caused disruption in what is essentially the Brick and Mortar Casinos. The effect of pandemic was first felt in Macau when they closed down for approximately 2 weeks and when they reopened the doors it was mostly employees more than the actual players in those Casinos. The US Domestic Gaming market across different type of facility involving Commercial Casinos, Racinos, Slot Routes, Cruise ships, Native American Class III and Class II have shuttered their doors. With travel restrictions not easing any time soon the prospect of opening it up provides unique challenges to Casinos.
It is imperative for Casino executives to understand not only their operations now but also to understand the science of the pandemic. With distinct inputs from different corners and no scientific counsel on-board executives have to rely on information out there in mainstream and social media. The basic approach most properties are going to take has to be coming from CDC guidelines which in fact over the last few weeks were trying to press flatten the curve, wash your hands and keep social distancing. However for an operations executive, opening the doors means not only they have to keep their employees safe but as well as the Patrons who are going to walk past the doors to try their luck on the favorite slots.
The major risk executives have to take into consideration is of-course the stigma of having the disease associated with your brand. Once re opened any thing of cluster developing in a gaming location is inadvertently going to affect the brand value. However relatively in a free country like US, the confidence has to be developed by requesting the patrons to self regulate. This involves putting out enough signage advising the players not to come if they feel they are sick. However executives should try to see how effectively the lines can be avoided in the properties. The best way is to check for the players in the drive way itself. It would be a major challenge in resort destinations such as Vegas, if the player volumes do come back to pre-corona level — but highly unlikely in the short term. Hence advising players to have PPE such as masks can be requested; however with massive surveillance already in place for Casinos to check frauds, excluded patrons and other criminal elements the idea of patrons wearing masks can be challenging for security personnel to keep the bad apples away. However relying on technologies would be a good path going forward especially knowing your player and locality he is associated with.
The key factor would be leverage your existing data points and majorly looking at your current player database and mapping your active players location and comparing with government provided statistics to review whether the players are from hot spots and ranking the risk factor. Most Casinos Database analytics team should now not only focus on driving the promotions but also try to analyze the Covid 19 hotspot locations and use technology to protect their business from the effect of this pandemic. Also analyzing the day to day visitors should also be a constant practice till an effective vaccine is in place. This not only means that the trip analytics which was earlier used to understand your promotion responses but also effectively understanding the risk piece your exposure when the doors are open. In effect, the importance of data and analytical dashboards become significant for the path of security and brand protection. Not only it gauges how much risk your property is getting exposed to but identify your potential opportunity to optimize your business.
The major challenge still would be operating the property without bleeding cash because of new normal such as social distancing . Enforcing social distancing means either reduced no of players, less online slot machines and Table games. So effectively a fair evaluation of putting numbers into opening should be stressed up on. This involves evaluating your operating expenses in keeping the door open and how much footfall of revenue you are going to make out of it. Again data holds the key here and looking at the no is going to be significant. Also what is hard to control is the walkers in your property who are just there to see the action, but do not want to take part affecting your bottom line if you try to enforce a reduced capacity in your property based on jurisdictional or government guidelines. So the maths should be leaning towards focusing more on your top 20% players to visit your properties both in terms of theoretical and loyalty at the start of opening cycle with more safety measures and exclusivity.
Players are not only trying hands on their lucky game, but they are also looking at the property for a place to eat and socialize . Hence opening of restaurants and bars will be closely watched by executives as this is what keeps the players playing for a long time. With restaurants and buffet closed down, Wednesday Senior Buffets are off and giving the players a good experience now mainly comes down to more take away options for their food or moving them to closed seating to socially distance them. All these are going to be additional overheads that just keeps the business running and people getting used to the new normal. Recently there has been innovations at the Table Games side to have fiber glass protection on the tables. However implementing those measures involves thorough scanning from your surveillance to run all possible cases of fraud and doing trial runs to capture as much as scenarios before rolling these out on the floor.
It is also time to evaluate your strategies around leased games and trying to re negotiate your contract terms so that interests of long term revenue are protected . Also as with anything with data, the analytics on Slot performance has to be reasonable with metrics focusing on the long term performance of the game than having a myopic view on recent performance due to changes. If you are an operator running on leased property — it is imperative that you get concession to manage your expenses and work out payment options.
The worrying factor is still on destination resort properties that now have to rely heavily on local patrons to drive their business. This means targeting specific promotions and incentivizing them for their patronage. Overall this means that you are trying to pull the money from unusual quarters that is not in from your traditional business. Also this means some experiences which a tourist is spending for may have to be ignored in the earlier days of opening and focusing completely on the Casino side of the business. With multiple other economic factors involving loss of jobs and probable lack of spending income on entertainment and gaming from masses the focus needs to be on your high end.
The other crucial piece for this work is ensuring all your front end employees are safe. Employee Dining rooms may be a thing of the past. Making available test kits for employees may not look viable now, but giving them opportunities by reducing their shift times, enforcing social distancing in the break rooms would be a shot at keeping your environment safe. Smoking in facilities also needs to be reduced in the short term so that there is a healthier environment. However, gambling facilities and no-smoke can be challenging, but is needed on current times.
Technology is going to be a crucial companion in all this transformation especially in providing you the data, contactless technologies , scheduling , surveillance and operations. With Casino technologies being still redundant and regulated it boils down to getting the right tools and then relying on it to deliver. Always pen and paper to make your choices to see whether the technologies that good on presentation can deliver all you need. However it does not mean that you have to wait and watch all the time. Piloting the ideas and being agile will be the key to success in this times. Most of it may fail or you may not have the right skillset to handle the scenarios but keeping an open mind with your technology vendors and being a partner will help in long way. Just like Casinos, even the vendors are facing such a scenario for the first time. It is all a big experiment even for them. However, toughest times bring the best of innovation.
So the choices of executive decision making to open casinos has to be stressing on safety of employees, brand value, value proposition of being open with stress on data, security and technology. These can be stressful business decisions to make, but prioritizing based on your core business value and trying to develop an immunity model to help in short term will protect your business once you emerge on the other side of the pandemic.