Originally Posted by
MaxPen
Bummer!
I think it is a mistake. Local casinos have things like movie theaters and bowling alley's to draw locals to the casino, that might not otherwise be going. The buffet falls into that catagory.
I know I have planned a trip to a casino, based on a free buffet for that particular day in my mailer. I mean it is a casino in my regular rotation, so I play blackjack or if a multiplier day, maybe some VP, but it was the free buffet (especially when my partner was alive) that got us there on that particular day. Now yeah, I am an AP, so the casinos don't case about me, but take the AP out of it, there are plenty of locals that do the same thing, plan their visit around a free or discounted buffet and then play while they are there.
So the new generation pencil pushers, look at the numbers and say, the buffet is losing money. What they should be looking at is that free or discounted buffet, that the casino says they are losing money on, (cost $10) brings in that player who loses 2-3 hundred that day that otherwise wouldn't have come. Sort of like free play. The pencil pusher can look at the free play given away and say that costs money. But if that $10, $15 whatever amount of free play, gets that player to that casino that the player would otherwise not visited, that is $10 well spent. It's called marketing.