Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING JULY 2018 26 It’s critical that top executives recognize crisis management isn’t just a security concern but a risk management issue with potentially serious financial consequences FEATURE IN FOCUS it worked the way it was expected. We lost power, the generators worked, but what we hadn’t planned on was losing the water supply. It doesn’t sound like quite that big of a deal, but without the water you have no cooling. You risk losing your entire IT system and then you’ll lose your entire business. “This was not part of our planning, we didn’t anticipate it, but what we were able to do was because of this muscle memory, because of this intensive training, we were able to come up with creative ways to maintain a sufficient amount of water to keep the IT system running. That’s what’s so important about the planning, just continuing to be ready for whatever comes your way even though you know that the plan you come up with is not going to work.” TALKING THE TALK A key component of crisis management is communication among stakeholders and with the public. Different situations prescribe lead agencies, but all actors must be connected. “Those duties, roles and tasks need to be discussed beforehand, because when it does happen, it is simply chaos,” Burnett, whose Nevada Gaming Control Board tenure included the 1 October shooting that left 58 dead and 851 injured, says. Nevada’s Gaming Control Board enforcement division includes armed agents. Primary response came from other law enforcement agencies, but Burnett took the initiative to announce Control Board agents were present in casinos as a warning to possible accomplices or copycats. “I wanted to project to the outside world that we would have folks undercover, out and about,” Burnett, now a partner at Nevada law firm McDonald Carano, explains. “I wanted to do that publicly as a warning to stop anything further from happening. Fortunately, of course, this was an individual act.” Social media introduces a new dimension to the puzzle. It can be an effective communication tool for companies and authorities and a channel for misinformation. “We used to say, ‘We don’t comment on rumors,’ but now you can’t. You have to address social media,” Jacobs says. “Language is a key issue,” says Rai, who is based in multilingual Macau and fluent in four languages himself. Top casino executives across Asia may not have a common language Typhoon Hato wreaked havoc across Macau when it struck with force on 23 August 2017.