Introduction to Emotionally Overwhelmed
The casino floor environment is an advertising marketer’s dream. Emotionally overwhelmed slots enthusiasts are walking around with spare cash in their hands looking for where to spend it. Not IF they’ll spend it, but WHERE they’ll spend it.
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Keep Reading … or Watch Instead!
Or … Listen Instead!
Find my podcast wherever you listen to audio!
Holiday Marketing
Casino marketers salivate over how best to manipulate slots players to give up their hard-won cash. And they’re gotten quite good at making that happen. In this post, let’s talk about fantasy versus reality in the casino environment.
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Consider deliberate casino marketing manipulation, like why was Black Friday crazy busy at casinos? It was a rare occurrence where marketing in the whole wide world intersected with marketing at casinos. Well, sort of.
Casinos don’t have much of a choice about it. The world is one big marketing effort with Black Friday being its biggest day. That massive marketing effort couldn’t not spill over into casinos whether they liked it or not.
Consider Valentine’s Day. Does your casino celebrate Valentine’s Day? Come on, come on, you need to know or learn these things if you’re going to take advantage of your casino.
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
This “almost” holiday isn’t consistent like it is for Black Friday. Last February, I went to two casinos on Valentine’s Day. One casino had red hearts everywhere and a big couples-only dinner planned to their main ballroom.
The other casino had nothing planned. There, it was just a normal business-as-usual day. So, some holidays are optional for casinos.
Others “special” days are not optional. If you were at a U.S. casino last Black Friday after Thanksgiving Day, you know how incredibly busy it got. Imagine if the casino didn’t plan for that many patrons pouring into the casino. What if they didn’t have enough employees working that day?
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Or enough alcohol? Or enough food prepared? It would have been a disaster for the casino! Not being prepared for this sort of thing is how a casino ruins its reputation.
Casino Marketing
But let’s turn our focus onto casinos. Why did you go to a casino the last time you went? Was there an interesting promotional event you found out about by email or from a mail flyer?
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Did the casino let you know you had some free slots play available to spend? Marketing emails or mail flyers usually push these two kinds of “comps” to get you to come to the casino. And most of them are day or time sensitive so that you come in when they’re ready for you.
It’s great for them to be prepared for your arrival but is it great for you? In my opinion, not normally, no. Yes, the casino will be staffed up for the locals they expect because of their marketing efforts.
But how else will they be ready? In general, I try not to be suspicious without cause, but I’ve never liked being at a casino when they want me to be there.
Sure, I’ve gone to a car giveaway promotional event.
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
But I went to win the car. And I did. So, I’m not saying not to go to promotional events.
What I’m saying is, have a plan! A packed casino is a completely different experience from when that same casino has a normal-sized crowd. The casino goes through a lot of preparation for packed-house events.
What Casinos Say They Want
If you’ve put in the time figuring out how to win at your casino with normal crowds, like having found a slot machine set up to win because it’s facing in a direction advantageous to the casino making money, do you really expect to be able to get on that machine when the casino is packed with people?
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Nope. On packed nights, you would be lucky to find an available slot machine within sight of the slot machine you normally win on. But if you do, at least you can keep an eye on the winnings taking place on the machine you normally play, right?
And that’s also marketing. Think about how you’d feel if you were just standing there watching someone else win on that machine. You’d want to go play a slot machine.
And you’d want to play any slot machine! That feeling, that feeling right there, is casino marketing. In general, what do casinos marketers want you to do?
Well, yes, they want you to spend the bankroll you brought, go get more money, and spend that too. But that’s a result. What are marketers hoping you’ll do for them to get that result?
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
There’s a marketing cliché from academia that been updated. The old saying used to be,
“Someone who buys a 3/8th-inch drill bit wants a 3/8th-inch diameter hole in a wall.”
But with today’s vastly improved understanding of marketing, now the saying is,
“Someone who buys a 3/8th-inch drill bit wants to mount a shelf in their kitchen.”
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Do you understand the difference? Casinos aren’t saying, “Give us your money!” Instead, they’re saying, “Come in and enjoy yourself.” and then they wait for human nature to take its course.
What Casinos Really Want
The easiest way to get you to spend money at a casino after you arrive is get you to stop thinking. First, there’s the sights and sounds of an active casino environment. For most people, even those used to normal crowds at a casino, busy promotional events can be too, too much.
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Second, does your casino offer free drinks? I mean, free drinks with alcohol? Because of the higher cost, this is far less common.
But free soft drinks are still available. And all that sugar can get most people pretty worked up. You’ve seen this, right?
I remember being at Disney World one time, waiting in line for a rollercoaster, and next to me with his parents was a boy eating an ice cream cone just chattering away. His mom turned to me and said, “The ice cream is talking to us.”
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
Do you enjoy lots of free soft drinks or free alcohol while at the casino? How goes your slots play during those casino trips?
What Works Against You
So, casino marketers are after two changes: Diminish your thinking ability and overwhelm your emotions. That approach is comprehensive, wouldn’t you say?
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
And the result is you lose more money than you might otherwise. I’ll let you decide how to go about limiting your consumption of soft drinks and alcohol as a strategy to winning at slots more often. This isn’t a health-related lifestyle post.
But let’s talk about the other side of the coin: Being emotionally overwhelmed by your casino. The easiest way to not be emotionally overwhelmed by your casino’s environment is to:
- Not go to busy promotional events
- Take breaks often, possibly to someplace quieter than the casino floor.
- Wear hearing protection
- Practice remaining calm, like using a breathing exercise.
- Understand the kind of environment you’re in and that it’s designed to do this to you.
- Avoid playing slots next to someone who is emotional overwhelmed.
Get Your FREE Guide Revealing…
How do YOU avoid becoming emotional overwhelmed at a casino?
Summary of Emotionally overwhelmed
Emotionally overwhelmed slots enthusiasts are walking around with spare cash in their hands looking for where to spend it. Not IF they’ll spend it, but where they’ll spend it. What casinos want from you and what they tell you they want aren’t the same.