A New Type of Casino

The casino industry is changing to meet the demands of ‘millennials’, with mixed martial arts, tattoo parlours, and a shift away from traditional slots being some of the main moves to appeal to the younger generation.

As reported just before Christmas here on PokerTube, ‘food casinos’ have been making an appearance as a fun alternative to the traditional casino evening of slots and roulette, but now the industry is making a more serious effort to meet the ever-changing demands of a younger generation.

The need to entice people through the door has been met by a major shift away from the ‘old persons’ favourites –with StarWars-themed tables, music stages, live electronic dance acts, and MMA fights being staged to wow the younger crowd.

In New England there is apparently a ‘casino-war’ being waged, with paying punters as the spoils of war. Connecticut’s Foxwood’s Casino has landed a heavy blow by re-modelling one of its gambling floors.

Now re-christened as ‘ The Fox’, the entire casino floor was over-hauled with a tattoo studio-cum-fashion retailer standing next to the new nightclub-Shrine - which includes DeadMau5 and Tiesto among its top-class electronic dance music bookings.

Add to this a stage where a ‘mostly female ensemble covers pop songs’ and you can see where the casino is heading: it’s out with the old guard and in with the hip, moneyed, and gambling-friendly new generation.

It’s not only an isolated Connecticut phenomenon either, with fellow New England state Rhode Island seeing changes afoot there also. The Twin River Casino in Lincoln has seen its 274 slot machines removed just before Christmas, allowing them to increase the number or poker and other gaming tables instead.

They have also hosted MMA fights in the casino, a massive draw for the 20-40 year old demographic they are looking to real in. Their music events are also a popular way to attract the younger generation and so they have added cover bands and rock outfits to their ‘older-generation’ folk and RnB offerings.

‘Pop Disaster’, a young band who play “everything from Taylor Swift to Metallica” for example.

The US gambling industry is in a constant state of flux, where from state-to-state operators are fighting for and against various regulatory encroachments on their ‘turf’, while at the same time trying to ensure that theageing gambling community is replaced as the years progress by a new and more diverse crowd.

Steven Norton, an Illinois-based 'casino consultant': explained:

This view was mirrored by 25-year old Sunny Chopra from Falmouth, Massachussetts – another of the young New England millennials many of the casinos are trying to tempt through their doors.

'I've never played slot machines - I'm not that old!' he stated, a one-liner which reflects a lot of the younger generation's views. Brought up on a diet of electronic and online gaming, people such as Chopra would expect a casino to offer something which at least resonates with his age-group – hence the electronic roulette wheel he was considering at Plainridge Park, a slots parlor and harness racing track.

Other recent casino moves have seen virtual games with real dealers, as well as ‘pop culture-referenced’ gaming tables such as the “Shaquille O'Neal-themed electronic blackjack game where players are arranged 'stadium-style' around a live dealer.”

There has even been a spillover north of the border. Online casinos in Canada are blossoming with both flashy and creative alternatives to entice this new crowd of players. Of course, for online play, options tend to lean toward video games and and genre crossovers like HoldemX and Lords of Poker.

Naturally, not everyone sees this rush to bring in the ‘youngsters’ as being so important.

Nevertheless, as the Daily Mail pointed out in their article, “millennial-friendly nightlife and entertainment options like Vegas-style pool parties and rooftop concerts emerged almost four years ago” and have so far been a resounding success.

And it’s difficult to see the trend stopping, not the least because recent reports - such as the cited 2015 article by the Washington, D.C.-based Marketing Research Association have “suggested current versions of slot machines are 'widely viewed' by millennials as 'antisocial, non-intuitive, and generally boring.”

Michael Mathis, president of MGM Springfield, a $950million resort casino expected to open in western Massachusetts in late 2018, stated that “market research suggests new thinking is necessary,” and it’s difficult to disagree with this viewpoint.

Commercial casinos, the ‘bricks and mortar’ buildings which we are discussing here, have seen revenues steadily falling over the last few years, while e-gaming - the online sister industry – has seen the opposite happen in most areas.

Last year’s report by RubinBrown Business Consultants stated:

Q:In 2014, brick and mortar casinos generated $65.6 billion in revenues, a decline of 0.2 percent over 2013. Most notably, for the first time in the modern era of gaming, which started in 1989, the number of commercial casinos operating declined in 2014.”

Figures available for last year have shown similar slight falls in many states, while “The overall growth in US Gaming is attributed [in part] to the expansion of the iGaming (online gaming) market…” from the same Brown report.

So, it seems likely that the smart money in the US casino industry will continue to invest in electronic and other modern attractions within the real-life casinos, and those who fail to move with the times may see little but troubled-times ahead.