BARONA INDIAN RESERVATION -- It's easy to spot the 70 percent of casino patrons here who are members of Club Barona. They're tethered to the slots.
At the end of clip-on cords they have magnetic-striped cards inserted in the machines. While they gamble they're accruing points that can be redeemed for meals, gift-shop goodies, even cash rebates.
Just about every casino from Atlantic City to El Cajon has such a program: Pala Privileges. Pauma Palm Club. Viejas VIP Rewards. But the casinos aren't giving something for nothing. What they get in return is almost as valuable as money shoved into the machines.
Player profiles.
Who their gamblers are. Where they live. What they play. How much they bet, win and lose. How often they come, and how long they stay.
This helps the casinos tailor and market themselves to specific targets. In a cash-driven industry that's getting more competitive all the time, customer information is the ultimate edge.
"You can literally go through there and do a slice and dice of your database and get every 20-year-old unmarried female who spends more than $20 a week and drives a Toyota," said Dick Martin, sales and marketing executive for a New York firm that develops what the casinos call "player-tracking" systems.
"If Tuesdays are slow, Wednesdays are slow, you can put together promotions for these people knowing what they like to do," Martin said. "If the casinos get 1,000 players to come in and spend 100 bucks a week, they can build their business on that and everything else is gravy."
If card-holders realize their play is being tracked, few seem to care. When they signed up, they provided basic information -- age, sex, income -- and often more, from favorite pastimes to favorite slot machines.
From then on, every time they plug in they're helping the casino analyze its demographics.
It's been around
Player tracking has always existed in some form. It used to be notes in a pit boss' pocket to help schmooze a high-roller: his favorite drink, his wife's name.
Modern systems evolved from the early 1980s in Atlantic City, where close-clumped casinos were vying for customers, said Jeffrey Compton, an industry analyst who writes for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and various trade publications.
"They decided to start setting up systems to basically recognize and reward the slot players," he said. "The first one was a pin club. People put a little pin on ... at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City.
"Then it came out to Las Vegas. Besides using their points to get hotel rooms and free meals, people could also use them to buy additional coin. That's how 'cash back' came into being."
Today's gambler-tracking giant is Harrah's, which is building a $125 million hotel-casino on the Rincon reservation near Valley Center.
Players who sign up for Harrah's Total Rewards become part of a database of 22 million members at 23 casinos. They can rack up points at Rincon and get a hotel discount at Lake Tahoe.
Harrah's headquarters, meanwhile, collects and cross-tabulates the data. Each casino gets reports it can use to tweak its slot mix or target its advertising.
"We've been able to develop a highly segmented system," said David Norton, Harrah's loyalty marketing vice president. "We've taken a leap ... to tie our customer data to our slot data."
Like most clubs, Harrah's has three card levels -- gold, platinum, diamond -- based on amount and frequency of spending. Points accrue faster and pay-backs increase at each level.
The aim is to keep your players on your system.
"We know the customer is trying out competing casinos," Norton said. "This is one way ... to make it painful for them to make that choice."
Anthony Curtis, a Las Vegas publisher and industry observer, considers a rewards club "an extremely good bargain for the player."
"I've never seen a valid reason for putting a nickel in a machine without a club card inserted," he said. "Any single thing they give you, even if it's one free beer, is a net positive."
In the long run, of course, the house usually wins.
"What they're going to give you back is based on them theoretically beating you out of much, much more," Curtis said. "Casinos don't want to tear your head off in one gulp. They work on ... essentially bleeding you slowly.
"Slot clubs are some of the best cheese in the trap."
'Data warehouse'
Curtis, Compton and other Las Vegas analysts say Barona's tracking system is one of the most advanced in the industry. And, it's about to get a lot more powerful.
Barona's technical consulting firm, Venture Catalyst, is creating a super-database called a "data warehouse." The difference "is like flat versus 3-D," explains information systems director Javier Saenz.
"With a database, you need to know the question before you ask," he said. "In a warehouse, you turn the cube and it tells you things you didn't know: What's the correlation between age and propensity to play 'Wheel of Fortune,' or to make a certain number of trips per month?"
The enhanced system, which is taking six engineers four months to program, will vastly expand Barona's data-storage capacity. Most casino databases can only hold about three months' worth of detail; after that, it gets summarized.
Barona's system, which logs 1.2 million card transactions a month, will be able to store every byte of that data for years, retrieving any of it at will.
Already Saenz can tap his laptop computer and get a floor map of Barona's 2,000 slot machines. The dots change colors in response to dozens of queries he can make about who plays what.
A few more mouse clicks and he has maps of San Diego County showing almost any variable he wants: Where are the once-a-week gamblers? Those who spend $100 a visit? Single moms who play video poker on Tuesdays?
Some reactions
Club card-holder Joan Graff of Escondido knows she's helping Barona compile this information. She couldn't care less.
"If anybody wants to know what I do out here, it's fine," said the 68-year-old grandmother, playing video poker at $15 a pull. "I think they want to pay us back for being good customers."
Graff comes about once a week and gambles $500. She uses her reward points for meals, golfing green fees and gift shop items. "I just bought myself a beautiful silver and turquoise necklace," she said.
This year, Barona surveyed 12,000 customers who wouldn't sign up, asking why not. Privacy was a distant fourth reason behind "don't understand the benefits," "too much hassle" and "superstition," Saenz said.
None of those are concerns for Fran Sperow of Tierrasanta, a Club Barona member who favors nickel slots. The 39-year-old mother of two doesn't mind being tracked by casino information specialists.
In fact, she's glad they do.
"They send me things in the mail, coupons for $20, $30," she said. "I know it's a marketing ploy but, if I'm going to come here, I want them to market to me."
