Whilst we used to segment the gaming floor by denomination groups with multidenomination games, gaming floors are no longer providing organised spaces for different types of players.
By using game volatility instead, we can segment the gaming floor by game type, player type, and enhancing your members’ experience.
The Issue
The temptation these days is to buy the leading link products based on performance, without any reference to our player’s preferences. On one level this makes sense! However, this game group are designed for specific gaming focused players, often at the expense of the far larger number of players with more modest budgets who are just interested in a little fun.
Over the longer term, this practice has reduced the enjoyment of many of our regular members.
These ‘entertainment seekers’ often come in to our clubs several times each week and spend in all areas of the club, including gaming. They are also the largest demographic group by numbers, so not catering to their preferences can be an issue, particularly in small-medium suburban venues. For these players, their enjoyment levels drop when they don’t hit a feature during play or get to spend much time playing at all, so they come less often, and this in turn negatively impacts all revenue streams.
The Solution
Diversifying the Gaming Floor
Every club needs a good number of the most popular games for more serious players to enjoy, but in our game choices, and our membership programs, clubs have focused on one group of players and risked a considerable proportion of games designed to make the “entertainment seekers” happy.
We would never reduce our bistro menu items to fish and chips, a Chicken Parmy, a classic burger, and chicken nuggets only – just because they are the best sellers. Yet in gaming, we do this in our game choices all the time!
Buying a variety of games to suit all players is absolutely necessary. The best source for finding out the range of volatilities in games are your game reps. They can tell you which market of player the games were designed to cover. You can then start to buy more of a mix.
Once you have the game variety available you can then start segmenting your gaming floor based on player types using the game volatility as a guide in machine placement.
Segmenting – Low and Medium Volatility Games
“Entertainment-style games” should be towards the front of the room. These players are playing for time and entertainment and like to look around to see who’s coming into the club or the gaming room. They are happy to have a chat and will sit where they can catch the eye of other members they know. They are there for social reasons and are happy to play and chat for long periods.
The biggest benefit for your venue is that these players are often your best advocates and will tell everyone how much fun the Club is to visit. They wont forget you for those big family celebration nights too so it benefits other areas of club revenue.
Performance should be compared to other games in this market group as a secondary game ranking. They will not compete at “top game” levels but certainly provide for a gaming player that we often ignore.
Segmenting – Medium to High Volatility Games
These mid-high-level games can fill the centre of the gaming floor. Particularly the Links with good jackpots should be as visible as possible to anyone entering the gaming room so should sit in the middle of your floor.
Segmenting – High Volatility Games
You can have a range of the higher volatility games towards the back of the room and the preferred games of the higher tier players.
These spaces then become a more private area for these players. These players hate to be overlooked so high traffic corridors are not ideal for these games.
Segmentation and Gaming Floor Design
It has always been true that “like follows like” so creating pockets of space to suit different types of players is important to their comfort. It is easier when you have good sized gaming room, but segmenting the floor by game type can add interesting areas to any sized gaming floor.
If you would like to learn how to optimise your gaming floor’s performance and ROI, please touch base with the DWS team here.
DWS is pleased to introduce Gaming Specialist and Consultant, Justine Channing, to the team.
Justine is an Executive Gaming Manager with over 30 years’ experience in the hospitality industry, has worked with prominent Australian Clubs and Hotel groups. She brings deep insights into gaming operations from her tenure with industry leaders like Aristocrat and IGT. Today, she leads a successful Gaming Specialist organisation, providing expertise in gaming analysis, revenue enhancement, and mentoring.
Additionally, Justine is a sought-after speaker at industry conferences and holds pivotal roles as Editor, co-owner, and Managing Director of The Drop.
