Hoosier Park does a pretty good job, as they are a combo casino/racetrack. You get the gamblers in the door, and except for slots addicts (who are useful in the sense they support everyone else by not playing that smart) a LOT of people who gamble at one thing will gamble at others. And HP makes it look slick, especially in their advertising–casinos know this, tracks have to learn–NO ONE wants to go to the stereotypical dirty track with cigarette butts and empty beer cups lying around any more than they want to go to old-fashioned sleazy casinos with 99 cent shrimp buffets. People know on some level going in they are going to be leaving a lot of money–they want it to be AWESOME.
Here is this year’s TV spot for the casino I worked for’s main property:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLb4QbX1nU4
We are a tribal gaming casino in the middle of SW Michigan’s farm country. You turn out the driveway and you are on US-12 in the middle of nowhere alongside a railroad freight line. But (while the people are…um…prettied up and carefully selected there) the property interior is just that gorgeous. We are all (no matter what department you’re in) trained to pick up trash, greet guests as we pass, drop everything to assist a guest if it’s necessary and we’re the closest contact point, refer to our players as “guests” (like I keep doing), smile, go above and beyond (because of the layout of the walk-up restaurant I worked in I could see guests and they could see me–I had one regular lady where I started having her very specific to-go salads in the window before they rang it in-she loved it, she knew me and would smile at us and talk to us back in the kitchen, she felt special, it cost us absolutely nothing but made her feel like the staff knew her and genuinely wanted to make her experience good). That’s one point I will give Turfway a small nod, while their facilities are…not good (we won’t go into their crap racing surface) every track employee I interacted with, in the private balcony area where we had lunch or at the downstairs windows or running the elevators or whatever was pleasant and friendly and helpful. I STILL remember the teller at Suffolk who remembered ME, including the winning wager I’d made. Tracks need to remember who their customers are, even year-round.
