The growth in the gaming industry has meant growing competition across the board. Casinos need to take advantage of technologies, such as people counters, to help them analyze traffic and business performance and make informed decisions about the improvements they need to make to stay competitive.
And competition is growing. According to the American Gaming Association’s report, State of the States 2018: The AGA Survey of the Commercial Casino Industry, although commercial gaming surpassed $40 billion for the first time in 2017, and 11 out of 24 gaming states reporting record annual revenues, tribal gaming facilities (not included in the $40 billion from commercial casinos) brought in a record $32.4 billion in 2017, a 3.9% increase from the previous year.
In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law banning the expansion of sports betting, paving the way for states and sovereign tribal governments to introduce new forms of sports betting. Several states, including New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts, are opening new commercial gaming facilities, and Pennsylvania enacted a major gambling reform bill that will allow satellite casinos, internet gaming operations, and video gaming terminals at locations other than commercial casinos, such as truck stops.
With these challenge-creating trends for casinos, people-counting systems can provide the insights they need to optimize their operations with data on the amount of traffic specific casino attractions or areas receive.
With people counters, gaming establishments can measure traffic at high-profile events to make sure they’re getting the right amount of bang for their buck. They can also get feedback on new attractions.
People counters can answer questions such as: How many people who come in are making purchases? And are they purchasing memberships, dinners, hotel rooms, or spa packages? By generating reports from your people-counting software and monitoring these numbers, you can adapt your business strategy to optimize revenue.
People counters can also help casinos assess their revenue sources besides gambling, including food and beverage sales and other attractions such as shows or shops. People counters enable you to track which dining areas are the most popular and how many people are ordering drinks at the tables. Get data on which show times are the most heavily attended or what times of day people are using the pool. This information can help with staffing decisions, budget allocations, and promotional choices.
Casino chains like Harrah’s and Bally’s can compare performance at one site to their other locations to find avenues for improvement. By generating traffic reports from people counters, locations can gauge the effectiveness of an attraction based on how well it performs at another location in their chain.
Comparative data allows casinos to benchmark performance of specific revenue streams and standardize successful processes throughout the chain. In general, using a people counter can answer questions like: How are they selling and promoting their attractions, and how is it working? How much traffic are they receiving, and how are they accommodating it? Are we performing as well as they are? These questions can be answered by comparing peak traffic hours and peak transaction hours across unique locations. You can make conclusions by analyzing how they change and overlap. For example, by finding out how many people are dining at each location, you can identify underperforming restaurants. Then promote those dining areas using a method that’s working more successfully at other locations.
People counters allow you to compare:
People counters can detect how many people enter certain areas. Casino owners and managers can generate reports on the amount of traffic received by their hotel rooms, concert hall, dining area, slot machines, card tables, pool area, spa or salon. They can learn which areas are lacking and brainstorm ways to attract more traffic to them. The more traffic comes in and out of each area, the more opportunities casinos have to encourage their customers to spend. They can also learn which areas are doing well and concentrate money into those areas to maximize profits.
With people counters, casinos can conduct real-time tracking of several metrics:
Analysis of visitor traffic patterns can also suggest potential improvements to the casino layout. For example, managers could put the most frequently played games toward the back of the house, in the hope that visitors will be drawn to other areas as they pass through. Or if people are often waiting to use the slot machines but not playing keno, perhaps keno should be taken out to make room for more slots.
During which times does your establishment see the most traffic? If your dining area sees the most traffic during dinner time, then offer dinner specials to create upselling opportunities. If your spa only gets customers during the mornings and afternoons, then keep it staffed during those hours and close it at night.
You can reduce labor costs by making sure that you aren’t paying employees just to stand around when business is slow. You also want to ensure adequate staffing and security during busy periods. Casinos, hotels, and resorts often have thousands of employees – having them all working at the same time is unnecessary and wasteful. You can also analyze hourly footfall and evaluate individual employee performance in order to reallocate labor in your establishment. In doing so, determine which of your employees should be scheduled during peak times.
People walk into casinos with dollars in their eyes, but as a casino owner, you’re looking to save money — or at least spend smartly. When it comes to people counting technology, wireless installations are attractive for many reasons, though their low cost likely stands out the most. Battery-operated wireless installations don’t compromise on people-counting accuracy or quality and enable greater flexibility in where they can be mounted including over doorways and in ceilings.
With all of the currency changing hands, security in casinos is a top priority. To ensure that security staff are deployed most effectively, use your people counting wireless installations to identify “hotspots” that consistently yield high traffic volumes. Beyond the obvious, such as the cashier’s window or the high-roller table, maybe you’ll find that some unusual or unexpected areas of your business could use additional security staffing.
The same holds true for other key staff members such as maintenance employees. As a round-the-clock business, casinos don’t have the luxury of downtime, although certain times of day may see a lull in the action. Data from your people counter wireless installation can show you the best times of the day, week, month and year to deploy maintenance staff for tasks both mundane and significant.
These are just a few of the ways that people counting data can not only help trim wasteful spending and improve casino operations, but also help identify promising areas that could grow with investments of money, people, or promotions – or a winning combination of all three.
People counting technology from Traf-Sys, Inc. gives the casino industry more options for increased visibility into their operations. Real-time data collected by unobtrusive hardware can accurately gauge true interest by patrons of your games and other attractions within the facility. With the right resources in the right places, you will see a boost in revenue and popularity of your casino with proven people counter technology.
Contact a Traf-Sys representative today to learn how you can add the power of people-counting capabilities to your casino.
