The finance and marketing dilemma: Do promotional allowances actually increase revenue and profits for Atlantic City casinos?

Casinos offer free items to attract new guests or to reward their loyal customers. Casino management and marketing personnel believe these promotional allowances are necessary to maintain customers and to increase revenue. Three regression models are run to determine if promotional allowances increase gross revenue, net revenue, and gross operating profit for Atlantic City casinos. Results show that with a $1 increase in promotional allowances there is a significant increase of$4.53 in gross revenue, $3.53 in net revenue, and$1.29 in gross operating profit. These results will help management better understand the effect of offering complimentaries to their customers

Analyzing the Relationship Between Systematic Risk and Financial Variables in the Casino Industry

The gaming industry, previous to 2007, had experienced a continued increase in revenues and stock prices, but in late 2007, the industry started to be affected by a recession. To have a better understanding of the relationship between this external economic factor (recession) and a gaming company\u27s systematic risk (beta), this study analyzed which financial ratios are significant predictors of beta and evaluated if these financial ratios better predict beta before or during the recession. The financial ratios examined in this study include return on assets, liabilities as a percentage of assets, asset turnover, quick ratio, EBIT growth rate, and market capitalization. The results revealed that market capitalization was the only variable that had significantly positive impact on beta both before and during the recession. Asset turnover was a significant predictor only before the recession while liabilities as a percentage of assets was significant only during the recession

What Happened to Atlantic City’s Gaming Volume?

Atlantic City casinos were hit by the 2007-2009 recession and the addition of legalized gaming in Pennsylvania at about the same time. Results of this study show the opening of the first three Pennsylvania casinos significantly decreased slot coin-in in Atlantic City while the legalization of table games and the opening of the fourth casino significantly decreased table games drop. After taking this into account, the recession had no significant effect on Atlantic City casino volume. To counteract decreased volumes, casino management needs to understand how much gaming volume they are losing to competition and how much to the recession

Glass Ceilings & Leaky Pipelines: Gender Disparity in the Casino Industry

While women account for over half the hospitality workforce there is a gap in leadership positions. This study evaluates 10,950 management positions in 972 United States commercial and Native American casinos, as of December 2016. The results show women hold 35.5% of manager and above positions. Women lead in departments such as human resources, public relations, and sales and events, but lag in casino operations management. This demonstrates horizontal occupational segregation. The results also indicate women represent 46.7% of managers, but significantly less of executive leadership. Women held only 19.4% of owner, president, and chief positions. This suggests vertical occupational segregation or a potential glass ceiling. Gaps in vertical leadership occur across individual departments as well

How the Great Recession Affected Casino Staffing in Nevada Casinos

In service based industries, as revenue increases so does the need for employees to provide that service, but no known academic research has been conducted on what the most efficient level of that service should be for casinos. In Nevada casinos, significant results show that for each 1% increase in gaming revenue, casino employees increase 0.80%, salaries and wages increase 0.91%, and total payroll increases 0.95%. During fiscal years 2008 – 2010, what many consider the most significant recession to date for Nevada casinos, gaming divisions significantly decreased employees 11.6%, salaries and wages 8.7%, and total payroll 8.8% beyond that needed due to the decrease in revenue. In addition following this recession, gaming divisions continued to make decreases with 15.2% fewer employees, 11% less in salaries and wages, and 12.7% less in total payroll than prior to the recession. Since managers during and past the recession were able to decrease payroll beyond that demanded for the change in business volumes, they were either overstaffed prior or not maintaining labor efficiencies during non-recessionary periods

Building the First Gaming Master’s Program: An Industry Perspective

The gaming industry has dramatically expanded not only domestically and internationally, but further to the online market. This growth has caused the industry to be more complicated than ever, and face massive challenges, competition, and opportunity. Consequently, there is a need for more qualified candidates in the gaming industry. Few gaming degrees are offered at a university level and more importantly, there is currently no master’s program in gaming management in the United States. Results of this survey of 201 industry professionals show that the majority would be interested in a master’s in gaming with most preferring an online of executive format. Of the content areas studied 9 of the 13 were believed to be somewhat important or higher and there were only minimal significant differences between demographic sub-groups

Female Leadership in Gaming: Where Are They & Where Are They Missing?

Women account for over half the gaming workforce, but there is still a gap in leadership. Men continue to dominate casino executive and board positions and this is not representative of the front-line workforce. This presentation uses a database of 10, 950 management positions in 972 United States casinos to evaluate the facts, not perceptions. The database consists of 567 commercial and 405 Native American casinos, which are evaluated separately and in combination. Results show women hold 35.5% of manager and above positions when evaluated overall, but there is a significant difference when evaluated by type of operations. Commercial casinos averaged 33.6% female representation in management while Native American casinos averaged 37.8%. When evaluating across different levels of management positions in both commercial and Native American casinos, the higher the position, the less women represented. This decline is accentuated in commercial casinos properties. Native American casinos, in general, have a slightly higher percentage of females at each management level but only the top executive level indicates a significant difference between commercial and Native American casinos. These results suggest a potential glass ceiling in both commercial and Native American casinos

Food and Beverage Staffing Changes in Nevada Resorts After the Great Recession

With profit margins averagins 5-7% and labor costs of 30-55% of revenue, restaurant managers need to carefully monitor expenses to maintain these already low profit margins. This study evaluates food and beverage departments within Nevada casinos from 2000 to 2018 to see if managers exhibited expense preference behavior prior to the Great Recession. Three models were tested: number of employees, salaries and wages, and total payroll. Results show that in all three models, there is a significant decrease postrecession versus prerecession, with a decrease of 12.8% in employees, 4.5% in salaries and wages, and 9.1% in total payroll. Only the employee model shows a significant decrease during the recession with a decrease of 9.2%. The postrecession was also comparaed to the Great Recession, and total payroll saw a 5.1% decrease

The Importance of Finance and Accounting Competencies: The Gaming Industry’s Perspective

The literature acknowledges that finance and accounting competencies are critical for hospitality professional. To date, however, no research on finance and accounting competencies has been examined in the gaming industry nor has any study been conducted in any hospitality subsector after the Great Recession. The current study identifies how important finance and accounting abilities are and examines whether there are significant differences in the perceived importance among different gaming industry professionals. The findings reveal that preparing operating budgets has the highest importance of all skills and that years of experience and department do not generate a significant difference in the level of importance for any skills