Casinos are, increasingly, a data-driven business. The existence of things like players cards are an effort to capture that data, learn about players, and then provide offers, casino events, and other elements that will excite players and drive traffic in. But the data collection doesn’t stop there, and some players wonder (or suspect) where else it goes:
Someone told me once that the second you walk into a casino they know exactly how much money you have on you. They said the casino can tell by the magnetic strip on the bills. 😂😂
Candi M.
That’s not something casinos can do, but there are other ways casinos can try to figure out your budget. One example is if you pull money out of the casino’s ATM, it’s not a stretch to then be able to link who is pulling out money with which players cards are being used in the casino at that time, and if you take out $500 and lose $200 that day, they may come to the conclusion that money was left on the table.
Cashless gaming will provide a more direct look, since you have a balance on account at that casino. And some casinos have added RFID components in their casino chips, which has the potential to allow more accurate tracking of money in and out, among other uses (the biggest being the ability to authenticate higher value chips). So it’s clearly going to go more in that direction over time.
Noah Acres, a casino industry expert and businessman (whose father pioneered many aspects of casino technology and who has followed in his footsteps), has noted in recent years that casinos’ reliance on theoretical loss fails to note that players don’t always just gamble everything they bring and leave – players will sometimes leave with money in their pocket.
Imagine a player with a $500 budget. During their time at the casino they may have been up money and down some (or even most) of that $500 budget, but maybe after a good comeback they leave even or just a bit down. The theo recorded is one way to score a player, and that player certainly will have put up some sort of theoretical loss value.
Acres’ Player Budget tools would look at it in another direction – at one point maybe the player was down $400, but they left even or a bit down – so there was the potential to win more than even the theo might suggest.
These aren’t precise measures – maybe you pulled out more cash from the ATM because you’re going to the grocery store afterwards, for instance – but they are ways casinos aim to learn more about us and continue to hone what they do to bring us into the casino.
Some of these potential measures we can counteract as players – use our own bank’s ATM before going to the casino, for instance, and buy in with smaller increments at tables or placed into slots – but it shows the importance of technology as the casino industry evolves.
Sometimes players indicate squeamishness about the data casinos have, but casinos are probably not a great place to try to remain anonymous, given the various elements of security and player tracking that already exist.
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