You may have wondered as you saunter into a casino why they are designed and set out the way they are, as much like shiny, slick department stores, casinos are cleverly designed to attract customers and keep them interested. So just why are casinos designed the way they are? Many casinos when you walk in you feel as though you’ve stepped right into an intricate labyrinth with flashing lights of slot machines dazzling you at every turn. You won’t be alone in feeling like this and it certainly is no accident, casinos are designed that way to keep players in casinos longer, meaning they will generally spend more time playing.
Land-based casinos have fallen under huge pressure since online casinos such as Barbados Bingo have become increasingly popular and therefore brick and mortar casinos need to be even more clever in their casino designs to attract players and compete with players who have instead turned to play exclusively online instead of venturing out to a real-life casino. Casino design has been under much scrutiny with many different theories about why casinos are designed the way they are, so let’s take a look in more detail at the secrets of casino design and how they keep players interested.
A Casino Designed for Crowds
Casinos are designed the way they are as they have their end-users in mind, designed for a large number of players, day in, day out. Players and their experience in a casino environment vary to one extreme to the other, with experienced players and newbies who may never have set foot in a casino before and therefore the casino design needs to appeal to all kinds of players. Casinos may well design their casinos with different categories of players in mind and separating different areas of the casino for different kinds of players with varying experience levels. For example, some casinos may group different kinds of customers up so they can then target them as groups which may include high-rollers who may not be interested in slot machines or smaller games and may wish to play at VIP tables and casual gamblers who may be more interested in playing on slot games.
A lot of thought goes into the design of casinos from creating an ambience with music to cleverly arranging seating or tables where players tend to gather around to make the casinos as welcoming and comfortable as possible.
Customer Profiling
The casino’s designers also take into consideration market research when designing their casinos, focusing in on what their player’s profiles are like and what statistics back up stereotypes so they can best cater for their players and design the casino to encourage them to play more. For example, certain studies suggest that female players are more likely to play slot machines than card games and that they prefer more private playing than the main casino floor which is more exposed. This is taken into consideration when casinos design their casino’s floors, often placing slot machines in more secluded and quieter areas to provide the illusion of privacy. Casino designers think carefully about what pathways different kinds of players will take through a casino, so they can take advantage of the opportunities to encourage players to gamble.
Creating a Playground out of a Maze
Las Vegas is known for maze-like casinos, with many of the casinos on the famous strip adopting a maze design which basically ensured the casino was very alluring and tempting from the outside, meaning players would flock to the entrance, but it was very difficult to find your way out of it once you were in! As well as this, casinos often wanted to try and do everything they could to make you lose track of time, ensuring there are no clocks anywhere to be seen. In the modern-day when everyone has a smartphone that displays the time, this doesn’t really confuse many people and a lot of people have insisted this is a casino myth! The overall design concept for the casino would be to create winding rows of gaming machines instead of ill-designed rows of machines that old fashioned casinos used to feature, with machines and playing tables in clear sight as far as the eye can see!
It was soon discovered that players did not like this layout of the casino design and things began to change, transforming the cramped rat run style casinos into decadent, spacious and modern playground-like establishments. No one wants to feel cramped and crammed in, so new high-end and decadent casinos were designed with glamorous high ceilings that created a feeling of space and airiness. New modern casinos were no longer mazes with winding lines of slot machines that seemed endless, they were designed to be more open plan with decadent artwork, sculptures and filled with lots of light, with more of a focus of having gaming tables at the centre of the casino floor. This feeling of freedom not surprisingly has been more successful in trapping players in the casinos that the maze design, which just goes to show that psychologically, design it incredibly important in persuading players to stay and to place more bets.
Slot Machine Layout Design
Land-based casinos complete hugely with online casinos when it comes to slot games, especially as slot machines bring a huge percentage of revenue for casinos. Therefore, getting the layout of slot machines correct is essential for the revenue of a casino. As technology has progressed, casinos don’t need to have quite so many slot machines as before, which often would just sit empty, now, a casino can have just four or six machines selected from many different kinds of machines, creating more demand for the slot machines. The variety of machines ensures that they can be laid out into smaller groups so that they can be arranged in a circle and more social formation which makes the experience a lot more fun for players.
The Layout of Table Games
Table game layouts need to be the central focal point of the casino so that they can be closely monitored for security reasons and also to create a lively atmosphere at the middle of the casino floor. This is great for the casino as it makes the whole atmosphere exhilarating for all players, even the ones who aren’t playing on the tables.
