Health and safety in casinos, now and the future, issue of debate at SBC North America

UNLV and KPMG made a report about how casino customers felt on the current situation of pandemic. Rick Arpin asked Abarbanel about the highlights of that report. "What we found is that safety comes first," Abarbanel affirmed. "Two thirds of the people surveyed were worried about their health, and just 30% of the people were worried about their financial situation." She said that money was not necessarily their primary concern. "So, on top of the economic possibility of travelling or going to casinos, if you are worried about your health and safety, you are still not ready to do that."

On the second place, 75% of the people surveyed consider that safety measures are important. "Customers expect to see multiple measures, like cleaning or using sanitizers. They know that social distance is important, too. Casinos can make a change by  taking actions that make their customers feel safe. A 45% of the people surveyed said that they would visit a casino once the measures are in force." Finally, she said that 88% of the people surveyed said that health and safety measures that casinos can take are very important for them.

Then, Arpin asked Hencoski to talk about how it resonates not only in the casino industry but in general. He said that KPMG report includes activities like: consumer retail, travel, education, and of course gaming and entertainment. He then assured that the number one thing is employee confidence. "In the travel and entertainment industry, when employees don't have confidence in returning to their workplaces, there's a problem for your operation. Number two was the confidence in your customers. Whether we are talking about retail businesses, big airlines, casinos, etc, one of the major issues is how we are gonna make our customers feel confident in returning to our place. We've seen a lot of creative strategies been taken by businesses to build that confidence in employees and customers.
When Arpin asked about the challenges, he answered: "It's complicated because we are dealing with something we have never dealt before in our lives," and added:"We are learning things every single day.He then said that the other challenge they have is an issue of sustainability. "On the manufacturers side, they can present protocols and procedures so they can continue their operations. But then they find out that they have to continue with that protocols and procedures for some time, weeks, or months, or years, so they realize that they need a more sophisticated method".

Abarbanel added that those changes not only involve manufacturers or operators but also consumers, who have to adjust to certain security measures. "There are changes in the opening and closing protocols, in wearing masks, etc. In the case of casinos, they increased signage all over the place, they put health checkpoints, brilliant outfit, etc."

With regards to online casinos, she pointed: "Online has been a complement to traditional casinos for a very long time. The idea of online gambling cannibalizing brick-and-mortar casinos was popular, however, in the report, only 8% of the surveyed people said they would change traditional for online casinos."