Brick And Mortar Casinos Hold Their Own in US - As Online Companies Seek After Asian Market

The capacity of the United States’ Asian domestic market for involvement in brick and mortar land-based casinos was recently described in an AP article.

The article describes how daily busloads of casino players have been leaving parts of New York and Boston that house Asians to attend the casinos. The use of these buses is a major part of the marketing strategy. To get there and back the Foxwoods customer pays $10. to sweeten the deal, but the casino adds for no more money, coupons for gambling and food the come to over $50. For those who are attending the Mohegan Sun casino, the cost of the bus ticket is also ten dollars but in this case coupons for food and gambling only amount to $35.

One of the biggest casinos worldwide, Foxwoods says that about twenty percent of its business comes from Asian Americans. This represents a twelve percent increase over the first six months of the previous year. In fact, Foxwoods says that approximately a third of their forty thousand-customer base is made up of Asian Americans, on a daily basis.

In the year 2000, Foxwoods, went so far as to hire a corporate VP whose sole job was to manage the Mashantucket Pequot tribe’s Asian American clientele market. But this casino is not alone in that by the year 2005, the Mohegan tribe owned Mohegan Sun, had brought on an executive for international marketing exclusively directed toward the Asian American community demographic.

Between the years of 2000 and 2004, the amount of Asians living in the United States had grown by seventeen percent. That made this group, according to the U.S. Census,  America’s fastest growing ethnic group of that interim. The American land-based gambling industry which is worth as much as $75 billion, caters to this Asian company like no other industry and with impressive cultural competency.

Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun are two casinos that are looking to draw in Asian American customers and hold them. These include mainly those Korean, Chinese, Cambodian and  Vietnamese heritage. They are doing this through the placement of ads in media of an ethnic nature, by making available a slew of eating places at the casinos that specialize in Asian food, and through the sponsorship of community activities, examples of which being the Southeast Asian Water Festival of Lowell, Mass, the Toronto Asian Beauty Pageant and the Boston Dragon Boat Festival.

There is an expected increase of participation on the Chinese New Year but unexpectedly it also increases on Christmas and Thanksgiving, a day that is usually not observed by Asian families.

It is said that to gamble you don't need to know the language. Also it can be carried out for a midst fee. Furthermore, those casinos that are targeting the Asain community such as Foxwoods feature games that are popular among Asians like Pai Gow dominoes, Pai Gow poker, Baccarat and Sic Bo.

Also there are other forms of entertainment designed especially for the Asian community such as Asian concerts and shows that participants can enjoy when they are not gambling. Superstar singers such as A-Mei of Taiwan, have been brought in by Mohegan Sun to attract Asians. They have also featured Sandy Lam who comes from Hong Kong who performs in a 10,000-seat arena.

At Foxwoods there is a noodle bar and next to it is the entry to the immense "Asian Pit.” The carved wooden panels adorn the doorway. This area is awash with Asian customers and is jumping with action. There are many simply milling around the room enjoying the activity.

Not only are the customers heavily Asian Americans but at Foxwoods, fully a fifth of the 13,000 head staff are Asians. They also are aware of Asian bluffs and customs. For example, they are turned to not touch the customers which is considered as being a bad luck sign. Another example is not saying ‘four’ which sounds similar to the Asian word for death. Along with this the seat marked with the number four will not be found at the Baccarat and Pai Gow tables.

The model of attracting and retaining Asian customers is being watched carefully as casinos reach out to other untapped markets.

Foxwoods director for Asian marketing, Ernie Wu, says that Asians love to experience the feeling of being lucky. He says that for them it is more entertainment than gambling.

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