4505 South Maryland Pkwy. Box 457010 Las Vegas, Nevada Special Collections Library Site » (702) 895-2234. These are carefully-researched introductions to research for clearly-defined topics, such as problem gambling or casino math. Gambling and the Law Here, you'll find a plethora of articles by gambling law expert I. Published Dissertations A list of all gaming-related dissertations and theses published since 1991. He has co-authored Sports Wagering in America, Policies, Economics and Regulation (2018), The Law of Gambling and Regulated Gaming: Cases and Materials (2d 2015), Practical Casino Math (2d ed. 2005), Casino Credit and Collections (2003), International Casino Law (3rd ed. January 1999), and Federal Gaming Law (1999).
David G. Schwartz, editor. Tales from the Slot Floor: Casino Slot Managers in Their Own Words.Las Vegas: UNLV Gaming Press, 2018.
Slot machines are the backbone of most casinos. They earn the most money and determine the physical layout of the casino floor. The management of slot machines, which includes overseeing employees, selecting machines, designing the playing space, resolving customer disputes, and conducting analyses to improve operations, is a challenging field whose complexity has grown as the machines themselves have become more sophisticated.
To better document the current issues in slot management—and the change the field has seen over the past four decades—the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research conducted an oral history project. Those interviewed were at all stages of their careers.
Drawn from these interviews, Tales from the Slot Floor features slot managers discussing several of the most important issues in today’s casino world, including: the optimal layout of a slot floor; the qualities demonstrated by both good and bad managers; what customers want from their visits to the casino; the vendor/casino relationship; appealing to millennials; and what the future holds. In addition, those with long careers share their views on the changes they have seen, and all subjects offer their advice to those embarking on a career in slot management.
For those interested in becoming slot managers, or those just curious about how casinos work, Tales from the Slot Floor gives you the inside story of slot operations, from those who do it.
Excerpts from Tales from the Slot Floor
When I deal with vendors, like any business relationship, I want to have a great relationship with them and I need to trust them. So, when I first meet a vendor, especially if they’re a new vendor, I kind of do a couple things to test their knowledge of what they know. But when they come to me with a new game and say it’s going to make this, I always ask for data. You know, “Where was your test data at? Was it in a California market? Was it in an Indian casino market or in the regional space?” And then, we’ll look at the theme. I’ll say, “What type of themes do you have?” And then I’ll ask about the math. “What makes that math so special?”
- Saul Wesley
But normally, you want to get involved from the initial design stages as much as possible. As I said, you want to have some influence with the architect and the designer, and they’re not always the same guy. They’re oftentimes two different people, and they might have no idea what operations is all about, right? They’re just trying to make everything look cool and look interesting. Well, the operations guy, he’s concerned about how things fit: traffic patterns, what pieces and parts go where, how you’re going to attract the people to the tables or the slots or whatever, how you’re going to move people through a casino. I’m more interested in all of that stuff. Where do I put high denomination games, where do I put low denomination games?
-Charlie Lombardo
At Venetian, I set the floor up very different than I set it up at Bellagio, even though there’s a lot of
transient. At the Venetian, the philosophy is more so of, we have large convention groups, so—we’ll put participation right on the aisle way, where at Bellagio, I would never do that; I would never put a Wheel of Fortune right on the aisle. But at The Venetian, where you get a lot of conventioneers walking by, the theory is you’re going to pull, you pull ‘em in and you catch a larger share—catch a little bit of their wallet as opposed to taking up an A location where I’m revenue-sharing like I would at Bellagio. If it’s an A location, I don’t want to share my revenue on that, but Venetian’s—it’s just a little different of a mindset. So, it depends, again, like, on location—Treasure Island, I might do things a little bit different than Bellagio. When you get even more into the nitty gritty, it depends on your location in the casino, right, so I play with those a little more even within each of the four walls.
- Justin Beltran
I like leading by example, managing by walking around, and just listening, of course. You have to be a listener, and sometimes you can’t always follow the rules. You have to be flexible. People’s personal time is the most important thing to them. They go to work to provide for their family, and you would have the different type of managers where the customer policy is, you have to submit your vacation request two weeks in advance, but I know full well that I can totally manage my schedule, and if somebody said, “Can I have next Friday off?” instead of just saying, “No, you can’t have it, it’s not two weeks in advance,” you should say, “Let me look at the schedule and see if I can help.” That’s the difference between somebody that’s too black and white and then someone that’s willing to work with the employees. But they also have to be able to provide goals that somebody can achieve without it being so much of a, “You’re going to lose your job if you don’t do this,” but how can you help them strive to at least want to perform at average or better? Of course, you can’t have everybody better than average; the average just goes up.
- Amber Allan
Unlv Casino Mathematics
I’d say ticketing was one of the biggest innovations in the casino industry on the slot side in the past 30 years. I mean, that just was the dynamic that changed it for everybody. That sprung a leap into kiosk development, because now you didn’t need to change booths on the floor anymore, you didn’t need all these cashiering people running around selling coin, it saved the companies on full-time equivalent employees. Now, they’ve developed to the point, you drop your ticket in from the slot machine and you get your cash back. I would say the next great avenue was in the loyalty program. And I’ve watched it grow so much from just basically putting your card in to now putting your card in and being able to punch up a cocktail service or put your card up and your name flashes on the screen, or “Happy Birthday,” or, “Would you like to make reservations somewhere tonight?” And the player development people can sit at their terminals and know where the hot players are, where things are happening on the floor, if an area has changed—I mean, the dynamic has given the slot manager a whole new set of tools.
- Robert Ambrose
The Gaming Collection in UNLV Special Collections is the world's premier research repository of information relating to gambling and commercial gaming. Because of the global scope of today's gaming industry, the collection embraces not only Las Vegas and Nevada gaming, but gambling throughout the world.
The Gaming Collection is the mainstay of the Center for Gaming Research in Special Collections, which provides support for scholarly inquiry into all aspects of gambling, including the business of gaming, its economic and social impacts, and its historical and cultural manifestations.
The collections document the history and statistical basis of games and gambling; the economics and regulation of the gaming industry; the psychological, social, and political effects of gambling; and the history of specific hotel and casinos throughout the world
Significant book collections have been developed in the specific and related fields of organized crime and prostitution. Cultural aspects of gaming are represented in collections of literature and periodicals concerning Las Vegas and gambling, and in the visual material of photographs and motion pictures. The Taxe Collection is a significant historical resource on gaming with book titles dating to the 16th century.
Gaming Collection Resources in Special Collections
The Gaming Collection contains thousands of published works on gaming from gambling guides and gambling systems (including how-to books on games ranging from Whist to Texas Hold-em) to governmental reports on the financial impact of gaming to historical and sociological works on gaming to books on compulsive gambling. There are also biographies of gamblers, books of gambling poetry and a large collection of gambling fiction.
The historical gaming collection, the largest such collection in the world, contains the published history of games, gambling and their social context and includes many rare volumes, pamphlets, and broadsides, dating from the 16th century.
A large portion of this collection came from the private collection of Robert Taxe. This early literature ranges from treatises on specific card games, encyclopedias of game rules, moralizing sermons, Parliamentary and political debates, lottery tickets and advertisements, the history of playing cards, gentleman’s magazines, mathematical theories of chance and game theory, to the scandalous exposes and autobiographies of gamblers and their dissolute society.
Although primarily English and American, the collection includes French, Latin, Spanish, German, Dutch, and Italian editions and titles. Special Collections houses one of the largest collections of the many editions of Edmund Hoyle's games, from his original 1742 treatise on Whist, to the New Modern Hoyle. All of these can be found by using the library Quick Search.
The collection features a wide array of gaming-related periodicals both legacy and current.
Casino Publicity and Promotional Materials: Active The International Casino Public Relations and Promotional Archive is an active collection, featuring material from virtually every major casino property and manufacturer in the United States.
Publicity and Promotional Materials: Historical contains press releases, newspaper clippings, newsletters, and other types of promotional material from over 150 casinos, regulatory agencies, and other organizations.
Manuscript collections on casinos, gaming, gamblers, and gambling issues.
Includes papers from companies
- Caesars Entertainment
Personal papers chronicle the work individuals who have studied or worked in the gaming industry both in Las Vegas and nationally.
- Dennis Gomes
- John Luckman
- Eugene Christiansen
- Charles Hirsch
Records from organizations such as the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, the International Association of Gaming Attorneys, and the Charter Hospital of Las Vegas also form part of the collection.
Special Collections has a number of oral histories that deal with gaming issues, some of which are available as transcriptions and others that are available in audio cassette form. All of the interviews can be listened to in Special Collections, and the transcribed histories can be viewed in Special Collections. Browse a list of transcribed interviews on gaming-related topics.
Historical playing cards can be found in the Harrah's Entertainment Corporate Archive and the Coates Collection.
Center for Gaming Research Website Resources
In addition to the physical materials that form the Gaming Collection available in Special Collections, the Center for Gaming Research website provides a number of original online data sources:
- Reports, Data Sets, and Research Guides on gaming both in Las Vegas, nationally, and internationally.
- Jurisdictions provides information and statistics from gaming regulators at the state, national, and international level.
- Companies provides histories and financial data information on a number of national gaming companies.
- Subject guides on casino math and responsible gaming
- Occasional Paper Series and podcasts feature original research on gaming and Las Vegas by Eadington Fellows and other independent scholars.
- Virtual Museum of online exhibits
Unlv Casino Math Test
Read the Center for Gaming Research blog to keep current with its reports and events.