Casino – Understanding Your Casino’s Audience
As a gaming establishment, casinos rely on luck and chance to keep people coming back. However, something about gambling seems to encourage some players to cheat or steal rather than rely on random chance. For this reason, casinos spend a large amount of time, effort and money on security.
In Casino, Robert De Niro plays Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a hardened Vegas hustler with a cynical worldview and a chip on his shoulder. He resents the FBI’s interest in him, and he refuses to cooperate with them even though they threaten his life and the lives of those he’s wronged. Yet he also has an incomprehensible sense of loyalty to his partners and is unwilling to walk away from the business.
Aside from the obvious moral ambiguity, the movie’s central themes are rooted in reality. For example, studies have shown that the net value of a casino to a community is actually negative—as a result of shifting spending from other local entertainment options, lost productivity due to compulsive gambling, and social costs associated with treating problem gamblers.
While demographics provide helpful information about the types of audiences that visit a casino, it’s important to understand what the audience is hiring you for and how that differs between generations. For example, Gen X and Baby Boomers may use casinos as social spaces for family reunions and business meetings, whereas Millennials are more likely to seek out elevated food and entertainment offerings.