Inside Asian Gaming

November 2010 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 35 marketing, free food, free rooms you give them. Because they’re people who just want to gamble. They don’t want you to disturb them and they don’t care how much they lose. They just want to feel the volatility and excitement.” Aside from VIPs and non-VIPs, slot players can also be categorised as regulars (including regular locals and tourists) and non-regulars.“Regular players provide a very stable income. Regular tourists provide a very good payout because they include VIPs from China with very high turnover on play,” points out Ms Tang. The regular crowd also includes far less affluent local players. “Because they’re coming regularly, some local players can’t afford to spend much on slot machines, so what happens is that more lines and lower denoms have become a very popular setting nowadays, because they allow players to keep betting for the whole day.” Although Asians are known to prefer highly volatile games, regular local players on a budget are clearly an exception. “Like grannies and women waiting to pick up their children from school. They just want to spend time somewhere. And old people wouldn’t spend much on high denom or high volatility games. They voice out, ‘we just want to spend time playing. We don’t mind losing a little bit of money every day.’ They come every day and just want to talk to the person next to them, and just spend some time because they are retired and they found the casino offers either cheap or free food and other things. “Sometimes many of them are couples. They come every day at the same time, like 10am, after breakfast, then they stay until 3 in the afternoon. Maybe they have a grandson they have to pick up after school. These segments don’t really play high volatility games.” Leaving the comfort zone It can be a challenge to get slot players in Macau to try new games. Alice Tang explains: “Most players [in Macau] stick with the types of games they are used to playing, and they are reluctant to move on to new games. Word of mouth is very helpful, because players always talk to each other. If someone recommends a game to a player, they might try it. And if one player gets a big win on a new machine, the news spreads very quickly throughout the hall. “When it’s a new game, they hesitate to try it, but if you give them some kind of incentive to try it, like free gifts—umbrellas, t-shirts, souvenirs, that kind of thing—they will be more inclined to try it.” A Mocha Clubs outlet—part of a chain of locals-focused slot parlours It can be a challenge to get slot players in Macau to try new games. Feature