Word: gambler
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...take serious note of such superstitious occasions. Sure there is a general awareness, but few business meetings have been rescheduled for fear of offending the spirits. I, however, am a close observer of Lady Fortune, and I fear Friday the 13th. I fear it because I am a gambler...
That may seem like an innocent enough come-on. But the unfortunate fact is that Willman, 53, is a compulsive gambler who lost so much money at Station Casino that to protect herself, she arranged to be legally barred from entering the riverboat and taken off its mailing lists. In spite of these efforts, the casino continues to send her a steady stream of solicitations--even though it is now exhorting her to commit an act of criminal trespass. "The mailings just keep on coming," she says. She was told by the management of Station Casino that its computerized database...
...best example of the casinos' brave new marketing style is Harrah's Entertainment Inc. of Memphis, Tenn., which this fall launched a campaign to use a single frequent-gambler card to link the 10 million-plus people already in its databases with Harrah's 16 casinos across the country. The concept of the ATM-size card, which is inserted into the back of a slot machine to record the player's wins and losses, has been around since the early 1990s. Most casinos now offer one as part of membership in a "slot club." (By gambling, players accumulate points, like...
Which raises the question of whether the casinos knowingly go after problem gamblers. But to answer the question there must be some agreed-upon definition of what constitutes a "problem" gambler, and here the industry and its critics are far apart. "Twenty percent of the customers account for 80% of the gambling industry's earnings," says Henry Lesieur, president of the Institute for Problem Gambling in Pawtucket, R.I. "We know that 5% to 6% of the total population are problem gamblers, and those 5% are spending 30% to 40% of the money." Critics charge that because the industry...
...from the mailing lists of the Station Casino, which Sharon Willman is having trouble with. She was told that the only way to have his name deleted was to appear in person with a copy of his death certificate. The lesson being, perhaps, that in the fight for the gambler's dollar, dying may not be enough to get one's name out of the database...