Book Review: TALES FROM THE SLOT FLOOR

August 29, 2018 9:00 AM
  • Buddy Frank, CDC Gaming Reports
August 29, 2018 9:00 AM
  • Buddy Frank, CDC Gaming Reports

Edited by David G. Schwartz

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244 pp. UNLV Gaming Press 2018, Paperback $23

Tales from The Slot Floor is fascinating, even if I’m not certain which audience editor David G. Schwartz intended for this compilation of oral history excerpts. The book’s best advice is aimed at those considering a move to, or a new career in, slots. There is a desperate need for a comprehensive book on useful techniques to improve your slot management skills. I don’t think this book is that book. That’s not to say that those interviewed, and their insights, aren’t good. Indeed, I think they are the among the best of the best, including these three:

  • Charlie Lombardo started in Las Vegas in the early 1970s as a mechanic out of the Air Force. While he is semi-retired today, he is still advising clients coast-to-coast on slot floor layouts. Countless Las Vegas casinos still have elements from Charlie’s floor designs pioneered years ago. These days, virtually every Hard Rock casino (those run by the Seminoles) features a layout designed by Charlie. Additionally, he was always one of the early adopters and often gave critical feedback to manufacturers suggesting new slot concepts or improvements to existing games. I can’t tell you how many times I either asked for his advice or just stole his ideas.
  • Jay Duarte is one of those who moved up from the systems side of our business into slot operations. This is an excellent career path, as it forces you to learn and master virtually every aspect of a casino’s operation. Perhaps that’s why after years of being a top-flight slot manager, Jay is now the assistant general manager at the very successful Thunder Valley Casino Resort in central California. Like Lombardo, Duarte continues to be an innovator and often sponsors new technology.
  • One of the newest managers (a relative term, since he is a VP and has 10 years of experience) is Kevin Sweet. Like many of the current crop of slot managers, Sweet started on the analytical side of the business after graduating from college. I am not sure of his exact contribution, but I know that before he joined The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas their slot floor was disappointingly weak. Today, it’s very impressive and a top performer. That doesn’t happen by accident, and it never happens without a strong slot manager.

You’ll read comments directly from these pros, along with 16 others equally strong, on subjects ranging from good customer service and bad management to working with vendors and the future of slots. In Schwartz’s introduction, he notes that “this book is comprised of excerpts from the oral history interviews (conducted in his role as director of gaming research at UNLV) and is intended to highlight the diversity of opinions.”  He goes on to somewhat echo my opening comments in adding, “… rather than giving the ‘last word’ on best practices or operational philosophies.”

I should say here, to forestall any potential accusations of conflict of interest, that I was one of the managers interviewed for this project. I was surprised to be selected, and humbled, since I assumed that the only folks hearing or reading my comments would be academics or serious students.  Who else really researches university oral histories?  I was somewhat surprised when I learned that the comments had been published in a book form this year. That was my oversight; UNLV and Schwartz published Tales from the Pit two years earlier using the exact same format.

Despite the same literary techniques, this book is quite different from that first one. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that slot managers and table game managers are quite different – or, at least, the ones interviewed for these projects. If you had nothing else with which to judge, except the content of these two books, you would conclude:

  • Table game managers use more colorful language than slot managers.
  • Table managers hated/loved some of their employers
  • Table managers hated/loved some of their direct bosses.
  • Table managers hated/loved many of their players
  • Table managers seem to have more fun and/or more misery than slot managers.

I found this Pit book more interesting to read, but only in a vaguely salacious National Enquirer sort of way.

Returning to the Slot Floor and the main subject of this review, there are dozens and dozens of good slot-centric lessons here that are timeless. If you’re not following some of this advice, you should be. Here’s a small sampling:

  • “Learn all you can. Ask questions; don’t be afraid to ask questions. I learned years ago…the only dumb question is the one you don’t ask” – William Morgan
  • “Make it easy for them to go through (your floor) …. people like to see where they’re going, like to see where they came from, and how to get back” – Charlie Lombardo
  • “Managing the inventory of each of those various types of (slot) product, which is an ever-changing situation, it the only way to continually make more money year over year.” – Michael DeJong
  • “I don’t feel you can be a truly successful casino executive and not gamble.” – Kevin Sweet
  • “You’ve got to get into the details—actually play the games to know, hey, … is the depth of the game there?” – Roger Petterson
  • “I think there’s still a lot of opportunity to be innovative in how we deliver service, how we work with the customer, how we service machines.” – Aaron Rosenthal
  • “That’s what makes a successful leader; it’s about meeting and connecting with people. Know your trends, always ask questions, and always try to look for the next trend that could take a great idea to an incredible idea.” – Saul Wesley
  • “Unfortunately, there are properties around the country whose solution to that (free play) is to tighten the heck out of everything, and they give us all a bad name.” – David Rohn
  • “If you’re not a good communicator, you will never be a successful slot operations professional – manager or director – communication is key.” – Juan Saa

On a few of the other subjects cited in the text, I personally had some differing opinions. Yet I still found the book interesting and informative. Hearing from other pros can be very instructive, if for no other reason, so that you can compare and contrast your own thoughts with those managers from different positions and backgrounds.

Just for fun (and I ask that my many friends from the Pit forgive me for cherry picking only the juiciest quotes from their book), see if you can spot some differences in tone between the quotes above from Slot Floor and these excerpts from 2016’s Tales from The Pit:

  • “He was some kind of co#ksuc#er. And there are stories where if you wanted to do cocktails there, you had to f##king blow him or something—he was a motherf##ker.”
  • “When I f##king tell you to do something, you just do what the f##k I tell you to, do you understand?”
  • “Management was so paranoid after getting ripped off by these dealers that they were just, they would just fire you for anything.”
  • “I had another pit boss that used to kick your ankles.”
  • “He would always come by people, especially women, and give you a little kidney punch. ‘Damn women shouldn’t be in the business, you’re the reason, you bit##es are causing us to lose our jobs,’ and those kinds of things.”

I told you that book was more fun. (Note that I didn’t say anything about it being politically correct.) As Schwartz notes in the intro, “the views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of UNLV, its faculty, staff, administration… etc.”

Maybe not, but in both books, they are memorable.

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Note: ‘Tales from The Pit’ has 32 more pages but it sells for $4.60 less on Amazon?