Casino Host Goals
By Jackie Parker
136 pp., 2019, $25, Harvest Trends, Inc.
There are many difficult casino jobs, but at the top of the list may be the management of the Player Development team. Many have said that directing casino hosts is akin to herding cats. Or maybe herding a throng of cats, dogs, birds and camels.
Indeed, if you look at the published materials on the topic they range from Whale Hunt in the Desert about “superhost” Steve Cyr, who catered to the whims of jet-setting customers, to academic works like the UNLV dissertation, A Day In the Life of a Casino Host by Chu-Huan Liu. If you are new to the field, I highly recommend the UNLV thesis (although dated from 2005) to get a handle on basic terms and definitions of the profession.
For the Player Development manager, one of the most difficult tasks is how to rate and evaluate the performance of your hosting team. Do you give more points for effort, results or style? Except for a few forward-looking operators, the latter has historically ranked higher. A host that other executives “like” or the one with the best golf handicap has often ranked ahead of statistical and measurable performance. Today the trend may be turning, but the transition can be difficult.
Nineteenth century physicist Lord Kelvin first said, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.” He was talking about the science of absolute zero temperatures, but the quote is even more relevant to business … and hosts. The first step should be defining and setting the goals that you want to measure. This book, Casino Host Goals by Jackie Parker, does a good job providing some excellent guidelines on the topic.
I can’t tell if Parker has ever been a host herself. But she does have a BTech in Computer Science and an MBA. She is the co-founder of Harvest Trends, Inc., which provides CMS-like software aimed at casino hosting.
In my view, it’s almost always a mistake to put a strong host in charge of leading the host team. With rare exceptions, the characteristics that make a good host are seldom those required of a good manager. That’s a big plus for Parker in that she emphasizes “a strategic approach to Player Development” and knows analytical systems. The minus is that this book occasionally reads like a sales brochure for her firm’s software. Despite that flaw, there are good points here for managers and GMs seeking improvement in their PD team.
Some especially good contrasts are the distinctions she makes in measuring Effort versus Results. “Your goals should reward both Effort (how many Inactive players did you contact?) and Results (how many Inactive players actually came back?)”
There are also good ideas in the chapters on “How To Keep Momentum,” “New Player Goals,” and “Inactive Goals.” I was also impressed that she addressed customer “churn,” something that few casinos accurately measure in a timely way today.
Despite the occasional sales pitches, this book provides some excellent thoughts about improving the measurements and management of your host team.
Author Jackie Parker has two other publications on the topic: How to Become a Casino Host and The Strategic Casino Host. All the books are self-published.
(Notes: I bought my copy of Casino Host Goals on Amazon last month for $25, but now they say it is out of print with limited availability. Harvest Trends has a white paper online (click here to view it) which covers many of the points detailed in the book.)
