A quite engaging book about three very different men who have monopolised the casino industry in the United States.

• Steve Wynn (Wynn), the prime architect of Las Vegas’ resurrection from seedy gambling dens to the new entertainment capital of the United States. Energetic and creative as he personally designs every detail of his properties.
• Kirk Kerkorian (MGM), who doesn’t seem to put in many ideas into the industry personally (he doesn’t run his own properties and often hasn’t stepped into them) but is extremely canny in seeing when to pounce on companies at their most vulnerable, including Steve Wynn’s.
• Gary Loveman (Harrah’s), the oddest in the bunch. A Harvard economist who used lessons from large retail operations to transform Harrah’s operations. He introduced the “Total Rewards card”, which gave him enough information on people’s gambling habits that, combined with the power of statistical modelling, allows them to maximise value out of every gambler.

I was most interested in Gary Loveman’s applications of his statistical modelling. Because every gambler’s location is known through their Total Rewards card, hostesses can approach high-value gamblers, address them by name (personal attention is a big reason many people return to Harrah’s) and offer them food and drink to keep them from having to step away from their gambling. When they’re down on their luck, their depression is alleviated by luck ambassadors who offer a dinner or money voucher to “turn their luck around” – really to keep them from feeling down so they’ll keep on gambling. When people phone to book hotels, algorithms categorise them into “high-value” and “low-value” customers based on telephone number, which will promote them into fast or slow telephone queues. Hotel prices quoted vary from high to low-value gamblers and low to high-value gamblers. When customers are “past due” at a Harrah’s casino, they’re contacted by mail, email or even by phone and are given juicy coupons to entice them to return.

By the way, Loveman’s focus is on frequent but not necessarily high-spending gamblers – very different from the glitzy places that MGM and Wynn run. Again, this is because of the numbers – such gamblers actually bring in the most money to Harrah’s.

I was surprised there was little information on Sheldon Adelson, who owns Sands. I was pretty interested in his tactics as he’s won the right to build one of two casinos in Singapore. In fact this is mentioned, but he’s not one of the major players showcased, even though I would say that until Harrah’s’ acquisition of Caesar’s, Harrah’s’ presence in Las Vegas was minimal – they actually were the most distributed of the three.

I wished there was more “interaction design” mentioned in the book. After all, casinos are in the business of keeping people’s attention, keeping them in the “flow” – a major aspect of interaction design. But apart from Loveman’s tactics and Wynn’s careful design of his properties, there’s not a huge amount of attention to this. I’ll have to find some other book that discusses this in more detail. But from a business perspective, this is a pretty interesting book that kept me reading even though normally I would turn my nose up at Las Vegas.