Casinos try wooing millennials with tattoos, martial arts, table games

Associated Press

BOSTON

Casinos worried that millennials aren’t getting into traditional gambling like their parents and grandparents are bringing in tattoo studios, mixed-martial arts competitions and other offbeat attractions to attract a younger clientele.

In New England, where a regional casino war is afoot, Connecticut’s Foxwoods is remaking one of its gambling floors – now christened “The Fox” – as a hip, fun scene in the sprawling 30-year-old casino complex.

The casino-floor bar was redone in January to include a stage where a mostly female ensemble covers pop songs. Just off the gambling floor, a swank new tattoo studio/fashion retailer opened in the fall, not far from where Shrine, the casino’s popular nightclub, is increasingly booking top electronic dance acts such as DeadMau5 and Tiesto.

“It’s kind of like the party place,” says CEO Felix Rappaport. “It’s really energized the casino floor.”

In Rhode Island, the more modest-sized Twin River Casino removed 274 slot machines to make way for more poker and other table games favored by younger gamblers this past December. It’s also been hosting mixed-martial arts competitions at its event center, a nod to its popularity among younger fight fans.

Casinos are making the right move to draw in millennials if they’re putting fewer slot machines on their floors in favor of table games, said Sunny Chopra, a 25-year-old from Falmouth, Mass., as he considered betting at an electronic roulette wheel at Plainridge Park, a slots parlor and harness racing track in Plainville, Mass.

“I’ve never played slot machines,” Chopra said. “I’m not that old.”

Casinos slow to pivot to millennials’ preferences do so at their own risk, warned Steven Norton, a casino consultant based in Illinois.

Older members of the demographic are in their 30s, meaning they’re entering their prime earning and spending years, he says. That’s critical for an industry whose customers have historically been in their 40s and older.

“You want to develop good customers now so that we don’t become the horse- racing industry of the future, where all of our people have died off and we don’t have any new blood coming in,” Norton said.

It’s too soon to determine whether any of these efforts will translate to sustained success with millennials, casino operators said.

But market research suggests new thinking is necessary, said Michael Mathis, president of MGM Springfield, a $950 million resort casino expected to open in western Massachusetts in late 2018.