What Stays in Vegas by Adam Tanner Page B

upscale casinos often appears more refined and perhaps a bit younger, more likely to wear designer evening clothes.
    Dan Kostel typically favored more elegant hotels such as the Bellagio, but one December weekend he decided to try his luck at Caesars Palace. He had joined Total Rewards about fifteen years before, but only patronized the casino from time to time. When he signed up for the loyalty program, he gave his name, address, date of birth, and other information. He reasoned that such details were already out there in the public realm. The casino would also know how much he had won or lost at the tables, something he did not consider particularly private.
    Kostel sat down at the blackjack table and handed in his Total Rewards card. A supervisor swiped the card through a computer reader. The scan showed that Kostel had previously shared financial details with Caesars to get a line of credit. The supervisor returned with a few thousand dollars in chips, which he placed onto the green felt table, and recorded Kostel’s initial purchase on a touch-screen computer tilted away from bettors. The screen also included notes on customers on preformatted fields that included sex, race, build, and age. The supervisor, moving around a cluster of tables, kept returning to note how much Kostel was betting and how well he played a game where skill can enhance—or at least mitigate—the luck of the draw. When the thirty-nine-year-old player cashed out twelve hours later, the program calculated his total earnings and time at the table. Kostel proved an excellent client: the house made thousands of dollars off him that night. Management definitely wanted him back.

    Dan Kostel at a blackjack table at Caesars Palace. Source: Author photo.
    By allowing Caesars to gather a significant amount of data about his casino activities, Kostel hoped to receive benefits much as an airline frequent flyer earns free flights. That is exactly what happened. A few months later, the world’s largest casino company mailed a letter to Kostel, offering him a free room and $1,000 in free play during his next trip.
    Kostel liked luxury. He liked to feel he was staying someplace special. At Caesars Palace, he had noticed some gamblers with extensive tattoos, and even a few guys wandering through without a shirt, escaping the desert heat. Many of his fellow gamblers were retirees, long into their golden years. He preferred a more refined ambiance. The offer of a free room was nothing special, Kostel thought; other casinos do that for big spenders. But $1,000 in chips to kick off the trip made it worth returning to Caesars Palace. “It’s older and the crowd is not as sophisticated and as upmarket as some of the newer hotels, but if I have a choice to stay at one place and they give me a thousand bucks, or stay next door and they won’t, I’ll stay at a place that won’t be as nice and keep that money,” he thought.
    By signing up for Total Rewards, Kostel agreed to share an intimate view of his activities on the company’s properties. Caesars know that he appreciates a visit to the hotel spa and that he likes southwestern food as well as blackjack. They record that he sometimes dines alone. Yet unlike many transactions in the current world of personal data-gathering, this process lets him know who is gathering the data and what they are gathering, and he receives clear benefits in return. Anyone who does not want to share their data can decline to enroll in the program and gamble anonymously. “The complimentaries that you can get can be considerable, and you are not going to get anything if you don’t use the card,” he says. “A substantial part of what makes gambling somewhat worthwhile in terms of its cost are the complimentary room, food, beverage, etc. that they can give you.”
    Kostel could afford to stay at any Vegas casino, but the generous $1,000 in free chips lured him back to Caesars Palace.