4Vol. 18 •No. 2 •FEBRUARY 2019
Roger Gros, Publisher | [email protected]
twitter: @GlobalGamingBiz
Frank Legato, Editor |[email protected]
twitter: @FranklySpeakn
Monica Cooley, Art Director |[email protected]
Lauren Byrge, Director, Sales & Marketing
[email protected]
Floyd Sembler, Business Development Manager
[email protected]
Becky Kingman-Gros, Chief Operating Officer
[email protected]
Lisa Johnson, Communications Advisor
[email protected]
twitter: @LisaJohnsonPR
Columnists
Casey Clark |Frank Fantini |Roger Snow
Contributing Editors
Dave Bontempo twitter: @bontempomedia
Brendan Bussman |Marie Casias
Steve Donoughue |Steve Gallaway |Allison McCoy
Dave Palermo twitter: @DavePalermo
Nicole Schultz |Michael Soll
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Rino Armeni, President, Armeni Enterprises- Mark A. Birtha, Senior Vice President & General Manager,
Hard Rock International
Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, President, Lifescapes International
Nicholas Casiello Jr., Shareholder, Fox Rothschild
Jeffrey Compton, Publisher, CDC E-Reports
twitter: @CDCNewswire
Dean Macomber, President, Macomber International, Inc.
Stephen Martino, Vice President & Chief Compliance Officer,
MGM Resorts International, twitter: @stephenmartino
Jim Rafferty, President, Rafferty & Associates
Thomas Reilly, Vice President Systems Sales, Scientific Games
Steven M. Rittvo, Chairman Emeritus, The Innovation Group
twitter: @InnovGrp
Katherine Spilde, Executive Director, Sycuan Gaming Institute,
San Diego State University, twitter: @kspilde
Ernie Stevens, Jr., Chairman, National Indian Gaming Association
twitter: @NIGA
Roy Student, President, Applied Management Strategies
David D. Waddell, Partner
Regulatory Management Counselors PC
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GLOBAL GAMING BUSINESS is published monthly by Casino Connection
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Official PublicationI
ronically, the story of a bypass around my little
town is a powerful analogy for today’s casino
industry. Ironic because my town, Boulder City,
is one of only two towns in Nevada that prohibits
gambling within its borders.
Las Vegas and Phoenix, Arizona are the two
largest cities in the U.S. not connected by an inter-
state highway. To get to Phoenix, drivers had to nav-
igate through little Boulder City. On weekends and
holidays, the roads were jammed heading to the
bridge to Arizona. (It used to be Hoover Dam until
they built the Mike O’Callaghan/Pat Tillman Bridge
over the Colorado River). Residents knew to avoid
the main highway through town on those days.
Congress passed a law creating I-11 that will
stretch eventually from Phoenix to Reno, Nevada.
But the first step was to build a bypass around
Boulder City. There were lots of consultations with
Boulder City officials and residents, but eventually
it was decided to swing it far out in the desert sev-
eral miles south of town.
It opened last summer, and for us residents it
has been a godsend. Traffic virtually disappeared
overnight, making it easy to enjoy what our town
offers no matter the date or time. It’s been harder
on businesses, however. Those fast-food outlets that
depended upon thousands of cars driving by each
day are suffering. Already Burger King has closed,
and who knows how long the others will last?
There are plenty of stories about little towns
whose downtowns dried up when a bypass opened
directing traffic away from those areas. Job losses,
home foreclosures and many other dire circum-
stances followed.
That won’t happen in Boulder City. As a bed-
room community to Las Vegas (and nearby
Henderson), Boulder City has a bright future. It
will be a little more challenging, but residents and
officials are working hard to develop attractions and
events that will keep the city vibrant.
So how does this relate to the casino industry?
Well, there has been a bypass—several bypasses in
some cases—built around land-based casinos over
the past decade. And the industry’s response will
determine whether casinos become like those dusty
abandoned downtowns or remain vital as Boulder
City hopes to do.
Let’s consider online gaming. Players in certainstates no longer have to travel to their favorite
casino. Their preferred games are now as close as
their computer or device. They can play on the
couch in their pajamas instead of getting dressed
and driving to a casino. And in many cases, the
games and odds are better online than in person.
Since there are only four states where online
gaming is legal at this point, most casinos don’t
see this as an immediate threat. But it won’t be
long. Mobile sports betting is already legal in
many more states than iGaming. Once bettors
get accustomed to betting on their devices or
their computers, how much longer will it be until
they are deferring trips to the casino and opting
to play online?
Yes, we’ve heard the argument that the
Atlantic City casinos are deriving first-time land-
based players from the internet. Truth be told,
however, most Atlantic City casinos do a very
poor job marketing their brick-and-mortar prop-
erties to their online players.
American casinos seem to be missing the
lesson that European casinos learned years ago.
Online gaming has the potential to devastate
your market, and unless you are proactive in mar-
keting your land-based and online offerings
hand-in-hand, you’re courting disaster.
But maybe your “bypass” is increased compe-
tition not only from online gaming but also from
new and newly renovated casinos in your area.
How you respond to that challenge is also very
crucial.
In California, there’s an arms race of casino
improvements as each tribal casino tries to one-
up the competitors with amazing amenities and
added gaming. But if you go too far, what’s the
return on investment? And are there enough cus-
tomers to go around?
In the northeastern U.S., competition is fierce.
Where once Atlantic City was the only gaming
option, there are now dozens of casinos spread
from Maryland to Massachusetts. And many of
them are modern five-star casino resorts, spreading
the market for players at that level very thin.
So if you don’t want your casino to dry up
and blow away, you’d better have a strategy to
defend your turn no matter how many bypasses
direct customers away.Roger Gros, PublisherTHE AGENDA
Global Gaming Business FEBRUARY 2019The Bypass
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