Inside Asian Gaming

August 2016 inside asian gaming 35 the IoS data streams. Though challenging, this combination and integration of data with IoT or IoS can yield impressive benefits for a gaming property, as we will show below where we explore how the Smart Casino can be more intelligent in how it handles labor and its deployment. LABORING FOR CHANGE A vast crew is required to operate a gaming property and this staff sets the tone for how the facility interacts with its customers. To understand the size and importance of the casino workforce, let’s look at the rough breakdown of labor based on a real (but unnamed) property. These 1,000 employees are responsible for the health of the business and have countless interactions with customers each year. In the IoS, the systems have incredible knowledge about the casino’s employees and customers. Knowing what these employees are doing and optimizing their interactions with customers is just one aspect of the Smart Casino. In the Smart Casino, all staff members are continuously connected, streaming data and communications to enable the facility to act in a coordinated and consistent way. To picture this, think about a table games dealer. This is one of the largest areas of staffing in the facility and their interactions with the patrons, in many ways, can define the customer experience. Currently, the optimization of the labor associated with table games is based on volume of players. But in the Smart Casino, we not only know about the dealers, we also know about customers. We know about their valet arrival, their hotel check, we know about their movement on the gaming floor, we understand their entertainment behavior, we know about who dealt for them last time and we understand their gaming wallet. Now this is a massive diversity of data about how players play and interact with the property. At the Smart Casino, this vast amount of Big Data can be analyzed and used not only to optimize labor with the goal of maximizing revenue but also to improve customer satisfaction, which is a drastic departure from traditional table game models. Let’s tag along with Jack the blackjack player as he visits the Smart Casino to see how this labor optimization engine works: Valet: Jack enters the valet, and they offer to take his bags to his room and automatically he is booked into his favorite steak house. The system knows that Jack does not typically play on his first day after arriving so the labor analysis recognizes it does not need to accommodate him. Restaurant: Jack is in the restaurant and a casino host knows that he is on property and meets and greets Jack at the restaurant. The host has complete information available about Jack including visitations, patterns and previous communications. Next day: Chances are (this is an optimization not a guarantee) that Jack will find a table at his preferred table minimum of US$50 in the room within the property he prefers. Furthermore, the optimization engine will try and find a dealer that Jack likes and was “lucky” for him in the past. For Jack the experience was seamless and consistent, he feels lucky to find the same dealer and that the property offers the kind of experience he enjoys. Another way to explain the labor optimization engine is to personify it. This personification is a nice way of thinking about the labor model as it allows us to characterize the behavior. To do this, let’s consider three personalities for the labor optimization engine: Rude Randy, Considerate Charley and Happy Harry. Rude Randy does not care about customers, only about profit. Rude Randy works hard to make sure that staff never work longer than needed and that the tables are at the maximum limits. Rude Randy is quick to close a pit if the numbers are low. Considerate Charley is a softie; he tries to keep the pits open longer and is even prepared to run a $10 minimum in slightly off peak times. Happy Harry works hard to make happy customers; he understands each customer and their preferred level of play and works really hard to help them find the gaming experience they love. Now there is no right personality for the labor optimization, it quite simply depends on your business model. The critical part of this optimization model is that each of the models are fully informed about the operations of the property. There is a massive amount of Big Data that sits behind each decision the labor optimization engine makes. The casino of the future is flooded with data and the combination of this data will touch nearly every part of the gaming operations. Labor analysis is an example of the complex area of Big Data analysis and leveraging this data to incorporate labor optimization as part of a Smart Casino can yield big results. Unlike traditional labor optimization, the Smart Casino optimizes the customer experience as it pertains to the interaction between team members and customers. Leveraging Big Data is the best way to take the customer experience to another level. Andrew Cardno , CTO and founder of VizExplorer, is an internationally acclaimed thought leader in the field of data visualization, advanced analytics and Big Data. A prolific inventor with more than 60 patent applications, he has published more than 100 industry and academic articles, and is co-author of the 2012 book The Math that Gaming Made. He can be reached at www.vizexplorer.com . Dr Ralph Thomas is Chief Data Scientist and General Manager gaming division for VizExplorer, a San Diego, California-based provider of software that makes life easier, more productive and more profitable for casino operators. He can be reached at www.vizexplorer.com . Reprinted with permission of Casino Journal “The casino of the future is flooded with data and the combination of this data will touch nearly every part of the gaming operations.” Features