Early on, I didn’t care for casino promotions that gave away gifts to players, because, well, you can’t put a toaster into a slot machine. And if you can get the entertainer to do something special with your VIPs, like a meet and greet, it can make the event even more memorable. Whatever the case, casino entertainment works as a promotion if the entertainer and his or her genre connect with your players (especially VIPs), the events are held at the right times (e.g., not Saturdays), and don’t actually drive away regular business because of huge concert crowds. This casino promotion runs the gamut from a hot lounge act to the top A-list entertainers who charge six figures or more.

W arning: Some CFO types who may rarely interact with a living, breathing, casino customer may be awkward in this event. Whether a tournament, private dinner, prize drawing, entertainment party, or anything, this type of casino promotion is extremely powerful if the casino execs truly buy in, spend real time with the VIPs and NOT with one another, and really make fun happen for these players.

In these events, casino VIPs are “invited” by members of the executive team, who spend the event partying, playing, and schmoozing with the VIPs. These are exciting for players and the best casino marketers of this genre make sure the grand prize is eye-catching, that there are numerous preliminary prize winners along the way, and that some hoopla and pizzazz are injected into the execution of the whole shebang. Slot-tournament players compete in a qualifying round to move on to a final for bigger prizes. These slot tournaments are linked among a casino company’s individual properties or a slot manufacturer’s individual casino customers (e.g., Everi’s TournEvent), or sometimes even among casino competitors in a specific market. So I share with you my all-time top-10 types of casino promotions, along with a few tips savvy casino marketers have used to make them successful.

Granted, in the categories I’m about to highlight, some casinos screwed them up, but others were so successful with them that there is something inherently powerful - better - in the concept itself. But that got me to thinking about the types of casino promotions that have stood out to me over my nearly 50 years in the business.

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