Casinos across the United States are adopting a “show, don’t tell” approach as they work to convince the public they’re safe places to visit and work. From outfitting cleaning crews in bright uniforms and requiring face masks to enforcing social-distancing guidelines, casinos are taking a variety of steps to bounce back from their first-ever nationwide shutdown.
“They’ve clearly embraced the notion that you really can’t do enough to make customers feel safe,” Brett Abarbanel, research director of the UNLV International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Wednesday at the SBC Digital Summit North America.
She spoke during a panel discussion titled “Health and Safety in the Casino: Now and the Future.” Paul Hencoski, U.S. lead for KPMG’s government health and human services practice, also spoke, and Rick Arpin, managing partner of KPMG Las Vegas, moderated the discussion.
KPMG, a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax and advisory services, and the International Gaming Institute recently collaborated on a study examining how casinos can recover from the one-two punch of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic downturn.
The study, available here, concluded that regional casinos are likely to bounce back more quickly than destination sites such as Las Vegas.
Regional casinos do not rely as heavily on air travel for customers, have few international visitors, and tend to have smaller meeting and entertainment facilities, the study noted. For destination markets, “their longer-term prospects will depend on several factors, some within operator control and some not,” the report said, citing the airline industry as an example. The report encourages casinos to embrace digital engagement with customers, online gaming, and other business changes.
“Nobody has seen anything on this scale,” Hencoski said. “We’re dealing with something that we’re learning new things about every day. The sheer unknowns create complexity.”
For example, he said companies that were deemed essential operations and kept working throughout the worst weeks of the pandemic came up with individual procedures to maintain operations for what was hoped to be a short time.
“They’re starting to realize this is something … we’re going to be living with for some amount of time,” he continued. “They need to put in place controls and procedures that are sustain able for a medium to longer term.”
Abarbanel, one of four co-authors of the study, said such complex changes apply to customers as well as businesses. For example, customers might be required to wear masks and they’re responsible for maintaining social distance and using hand sanitizer. Arpin also was a co-author of the report.
The report by KPMG and the International Gaming Institute is based on a May 2020 survey of more than 1,000 people across the United States who had visited a casino within the past two years. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said gambling was a primary reason for their visit and 56 percent of those respondents visited a casino at least five times in the past two years. Men and women were equally represented, with an average age of about 52 and a median household income of $75,000. Opinions from 50 gaming-industry professionals, almost all of them with at least 10 years of experience, were collected during the same time.
Other findings of the report:
- 58 percent of customers said they would return to casinos — 12 percent immediately, 46 percent if casinos implement health and safety measures.
- The two most popular personal health measures are health checks for all employees and a smoking ban on gaming floors. Each policy was cited by 40 percent of respondents, topping health checks for all customers (34 percent) and enforced social distancing by spacing of slots and table games (33 percent).
- In addition to the 40 percent of customers who said a smoking ban would make them “significantly more comfortable” returning to casinos, nearly a quarter of respondents said a ban would not impact their comfort levels whatsoever. The study noted that these were among the top rankings in each category for any measure and said reducing second-hand smoke was also a benefit mentioned frequently in customers’ comments. The report adds, “While operators ranked prohibiting smoking as more important for employees than guests, the overall impact of following through with a ban was still perceived as low.”
- Customers clearly want operators to “go overboard” with health and safety procedures, at least initially. The study cites the travel measures imposed after the 9/11 attacks and notes that fliers soon became accustomed to them.
- 60 percent of respondents said a casino’s efforts to safeguard customer health and safety is a “very important” factor in deciding which casino to visit.
