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The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used measure of customer loyalty. It was touted as "the one number you need to grow" due to a purported relationship between the NPS and firm growth. A number of academic papers have examined this macro relationship with decidedly mixed results. In this study, we focus on the micro relationship between a customer's loyalty segment (Promoter, Passive, or Detractor) and purchasing behavior. While other studies focus on the relationship between a customer's NPS segment and word of mouth (the other driver of firm growth), only a few have examined the impact of the NPS segment on consumer retention and future spending. Unlike prior studies using consumers, we have objective measures of retention, past spending, and future spending. We explore three important research questions: (1) Does past purchase behavior vary differ across the NPS segments? (2) Does future consumer behavior vary across the NPS segments? And (3) How do the NPS segments compare to other metrics in predicting future consumer behavior? Our data comes from post-visit surveys and transaction histories from the casino gaming industry. We find Promoters have significantly higher levels of past spending, retention, and future spending (controlling for past spending) than Detractors. However, using other metrics such as satisfaction or likelihood-to-revisit provides comparable fit to the data. Furthermore, the average difference in future spending between the Promoters and Defectors is small, despite its statistical significance. While this study provides empirical validation of the use of the NPS segments to capture differences in consumer behavior, managers have options with comparable explanatory power to measure the state of their relationships with customers. This study adds to the very limited empirical research that validates the assumptions about consumer behavior that underlie the use of the NPS for predicting firm growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is dedicated to highlighting current issues in the legislative regulation of the organization and conduct of gambling in Ukraine, as well as finding optimal solutions to these problems. Based on the conducted analysis, it is stated that the legislative regulation of public relations in the field of gambling is characterized by a wide range of issues, including deficiencies in the conceptual and categorical apparatus, insufficiently clear general requirements for gambling organizers, and the absence of requirements aimed at ensuring the stable operation of gambling establishments under conditions of unstable power supply. Directions for improving the conceptual and categorical apparatus of Ukrainian gambling legislation are outlined. The author formulates a definition of the term «gambling.» The types of gambling are systematized, the shortcomings of their legislative description are identified, and the necessity of legally defining lotteries as a type of gambling is substantiated. It is concluded that the general requirements for the subjects organizing and conducting gambling are insufficiently coordinated, particularly the requirements regarding their impeccable business reputation. It is proposed to establish a licensing requirement for the impeccable business reputation of legal entities intending to conduct business activities in the field of gamblin g. The article pays special attention to the problem of ensuring the uninterrupted functioning of gambling establishments under conditions of constant stabilization and emergency power outages. It is emphasized that during such outages, the operation of electronic and technical equipment in casinos and gaming halls is significantly disrupted, making it impossible to record the current state and results of games, fairly calculate winnings, and monitor draws online. In this regard, it is proposed to establish a legislative requirement for the mandatory equipping of casino and gaming hall establishments with backup power sources. To improve the administrative and legal foundations of the organization and conduct of gambling, the article proposes a comprehensive review of sectoral legislation to ensure its consistency, completeness of regulation, adequacy to modern realities, and compliance with the main trends of gambling development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been instrumental in achieving corporation's competitive advantage, this is not the case for casinos. This study examines how CSR scepticism develops in the context of the casino industry by investigating the effects of customers' attitudes towards casinos engaged in corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) and the controversy surrounding casino businesses on CSR scepticism, which leads negative word-of-mouth (WOM) and protest behaviour. To this end, 310 South Korean casino customers completed an online questionnaire. The results of partial least squares path modelling revealed direct effects of customers' attitudes towards firms exhibiting CSI and the perceived controversy on CSR scepticism leading to negative WOM and protest behaviour. The impact of the attitude towards firms exhibiting CSI on CSR scepticism was found to differ between low perceived controversy and high perceived controversy customers. The findings suggest that casino companies should strive for transparency and develop appropriate CSR initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the continued focus on profiling gambling helpline callers, little is known about the characteristics of callers in Macao. To address this gap, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of problem gamblers calling the helpline in Macao and explore the regional differences between callers from Macao, mainland China, and Hong Kong. Specifically, the study examined their demographics, helpline usage, and gambling-related characteristics. The study used data collected by SKHSSCO between 2015 and 2021. The results showed that, at the aggregate level, the helpline callers in Macao were male, young, and full-time employees. The majority used the telephone and reported problems with casino table games. In addition, the referral rate was relatively low, while the rate of suicidal ideation was comparatively high. The results also revealed that callers from Macao, mainland China, and Hong Kong were notably distinct in these characteristics. The findings shed light on how to increase helpline accessibility and create tailored interventions and prevention efforts to better support individuals affected by problem gambling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology-based gambling prevalence is not well understood since relevant questions are not included in health and disease surveillance studies. The current study sought to estimate the prevalence of internet-based and smartphone app-based gambling, along with casino gambling, in a sample of U.S. young adults and determine if gambling modality was associated with problem gambling symptoms or substance use. The 2022 Rhode Island Young Adult Survey included N = 1,022 students between the ages of 18 to 25 years old who had lived in Rhode Island, with n = 414 lifetime gamblers (40.5%) included in this study. Odds of gambling via a smartphone app and on the internet, respectively, were greater in heterosexual cis-males compared to heterosexual cis-females (OR[95%CI] = 3.14 [1.25,7.91]; OR[95%CI] = 6.30 [2.05,19.3]). Internet gambling amongst employed students was less common than among those who were not a student and not employed (OR[95%CI] = 0.25 [0.06,1.00]). Odds of problem gambling symptoms were higher among those who gambled via a smartphone app (OR[95%CI] = 3.23 [1.21,8.60]). All forms of gambling were associated with alcohol consumption, although the strength of the association was stronger in app and internet gamblers. Casino gamblers were more likely to be high risk marijuana and illicit drug users. The rising availability of app gambling coupled with its social, psychological, and cultural context may presents an alternative pathway to problem gambling. Bans on internet gambling and/or strict guidelines on the frequency of wagers and cash placed per wager, should be considered as viable methods to mitigate associated consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Casino gaming is considered as an entertainment but it may cause financial and psychological burdens to some individuals and their families. Therefore, casino operators have established and deployed responsible gaming policy and practice to mitigate such negative effects. This study explores whether and how responsible gaming policy and practice influences people's casino gaming intention and behavior. Data were collected from 644 Chinese adults in Macao. Results showed that responsible gaming policy and practice significantly influenced people's attitude towards casino gaming (as a legal activity and hobby), subjective norm (for disapproval of casino gaming), and perceived behavior control (for not engaging in casino gaming). Casino gaming intention was positively affected by attitude and negatively affected by subjective norm and perceived behavior control. Casino gaming behavior was positively affected by intention and negatively affected by perceived behavior control. As a whole, responsible gaming policy and practice had a small, negative but significant indirect effect on casino gaming behavior. Implications of the study were given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests for potential cross-border substitution in casino gambling between Illinois and Missouri due to the launch of sports betting in Illinois. Using casino-level gambling revenue and admissions data, difference-in-differences, event study analysis, and regression discontinuity design, our findings suggest that the launch of sports betting increased casino revenues and admissions in the Illinois casinos and decreased revenue and admissions in Missouri casinos close to the border of Illinois and Missouri. Thus, Missouri not only lost potential sports betting tax revenue but also tax revenue from casino gambling revenue and admissions resulting from cross-border substitution between Missouri and Illinois after the launch of sports betting. The size of the lost casino and foregone sports betting tax revenues suggests Missouri and other states in similar circumstances are likely to experience continued fiscal pressure to legalize sports betting despite possible moral objections or an intent to minimize social costs through prohibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Casinos have heavily invested in providing live entertainment to generate visitation. However, literature on how patrons' music preferences affect their perception of complimentary tickets to live shows, a common practice by casinos, is scant. A series of discrete choice surveys to multiple pools were utilized in this study and showed that listeners' genre preferences significantly influence perceptions of ticketing offers. The results also point to a potential misalignment of fit between the genre preferences of patrons and live shows hosted by casinos, which may account for the poor ROI from casino showrooms. Additionally, the findings showed that live performances from select genres might make it more challenging for casinos to yield satisfactory returns since listeners of these genres place less value on complimentary tickets. Thus, it is recommended that casinos take a multi-pronged strategy approach to diversify their loyalty offerings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the engagement of player-facing casino employees with GameSense, a responsible gambling (RG) program, and referral of players to GameSense. We surveyed 280 employees across three casinos in Massachusetts that use this RG program as part of their RG strategy. We found that although most player-facing casino employees were aware of GameSense, slightly over half visited a GameSense Information Center, and about two-thirds interacted with a GameSense Advisor. In terms of the reason for visiting, Latent Class Analysis (LCA) revealed three distinct classes: Comprehensive Interests, RG Interests, and Focused Interests. As for those who have yet to visit, LCA two classes emerged: RG Proficiency Beliefs and Tempered RG Proficiency Beliefs. Engaged employees were more likely to refer players to GameSense, highlighting the need for targeted approaches addressing the diverse interests of player-facing employees for engaging or not engaging with GameSense. These findings underscore the importance of have player-facing casino employees engage with RG programming, and targeted approached for engagement, to enhance the efficacy of RG initiatives, and contribute to a more robust RG framework within the gambling industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macau, an internationally renowned gambling city, has experienced rapid growth in casino space expansion and tourism since 2002 when the new Macau SAR government liberalised gambling. Despite the impact of COVID‐19 on the city's economy over the past three years, infrastructure construction and remodelling of casino resorts continue. This study focuses on the spatial production of casino resorts and tourist identity in Macau's Cotai Strip. Methodologically, the study conducts an assemblage analysis to interpret the data collected mainly through participant observation and in‐depth interviews. The research findings show that the Cotai Strip homogenises the human and non‐human elements through the repetitive rhythms of buildings and multi‐tiered enclosed territorialisation. The identity of Macau casino tourists emerges from their interactions with other components within the Strip assemblage. The emerging identity is defined as a post‐postmodern flâneur, characterised by their programmed and controlled tourist activities and their intensified visual sensations and photographic gazes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Career-related emotional contagion has been investigated in many sectors, including healthcare and journalism. However, the gambling sector remains unexplored, despite frontline casino employees' frequent exposure to the fluctuating emotions of gamblers, especially those who experience gambling problems. This study fills the research gap by investigating the impact of long-term exposure to gambling on frontline casino employees. The data were collected from 46 interviewees. Analysis revealed three themes: dealers' emotional responses, 'dirty work', and the impact on dealers' private lives. In the first theme, the interviewees' responses indicated that exposure to gambling led to various emotional outcomes, including indifference, sympathy, perplexity, and worry. The second theme, 'dirty work', covers observations concerning organizational malpractice and negative social impacts. The various 'impacts on dealer's private lives' identified in the data ranged from negative to positive. This study reveals the complexity of workplace emotional contagion and the emotional costs for frontline casino employees. The implication for gambling companies is that emotional support with – and training in – emotion management are necessary to maintain and retain a healthy workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With commercial casinos proliferating over the past two decades, gambling-related harm has attracted attention in terms of both research and development of treatment strategies. A problematic relationship with gambling has major consequences for gamblers, families, communities, and society. This paper aims to present a better understanding of Chinese migrants' experiences of responding to casino gambling harm in New Zealand using an interpretive phenomenological approach. Sixteen recent Chinese migrants were interviewed: eight people who self-identified as gambling problematically and eight affected family members. Data analysis incorporated a thematic approach involving multiple readings of interview transcripts and iterative processing of developing themes. The key findings are organized into a model involving four stages: misconnection (pathways into excessive gambling), disconnecting (moving away from casino gambling), reconnection (settling into their new social environment), and rebuilding a 'natural life' (a Chinese cultural conception of recovery). This process model helps understanding the Chinese migrants' experience of responding to gambling harm in a broad social-cultural-historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

4E approaches to affective technology tend to focus on how 'users' manage their situated affectivity, analogously to how they help themselves cognitively through epistemic actions or using artefacts and scaffolding. Here I focus on cases where the function of affective technology is to exploit or manipulate the agent engaging with it. My opening example is the cigarette, where technological refinements have harmfully transformed the affective process of consuming nicotine. I proceed to develop case studies of two very different but also harmful affective technologies. Casinos and electronic gambling machines deploy computationally intensive scaffolding to shape the onset and continuation of gambling episodes. High-heeled shoes affectively engineer wearers' relationships to their own embodied capacities and are predominantly expected to be worn by women. I conclude with a discussion of the need for study of affective technology to focus other-directed applications, some of which will serve competing or antagonistic interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to establish a service efficiency-oriented framework for training design and evaluation as a pivotal service procedure in the workplace to fill the gap between training and organizational performance in a service context. Design/methodology/approach: A semi-structured interview was first employed to confirm the primary indicator for training programs and criteria design as the pivotal factor for operational efficiency. An observation experiment was subsequently conducted to reveal that the training program can be redesigned according to the concrete operation effects and influencing factors for operational efficiency in the workplace. Findings: The proposed service efficiency-oriented training model is suggested to underline and guide the activities for training requirements, training methods, training criteria and training evaluation for the service sector. Training auditing, analyzing and redesigning based on service efficiency could help to integrate service efficiency so that service organizations can readjust their specific training needs and concise the training program in the human resource management practice. Research limitations/implications: This study only conducted an on-site observational experiment on one of the casinos in Macau. An observational method assessed the conceptual model in the context of table game operations. More quantitative approaches like AI-assisted systems may be employed in the future. The representativeness of the sample is somewhat limited. In addition, the service efficiency-oriented training concept model is an open system that any organization could extend by incorporating more elements in each part that can be developed to meet their human resource management needs. Finally, other service-oriented organizations like airlines and banks can learn from the theoretical model proposed in this article. It is suggested that non-profit organizations would be a better research area. Practical implications: The finding can provide organizations and practitioners with insights and tools on how to provide and evaluate service efficiency and assess employee performance. Social implications: The proposed service efficiency-oriented training model provides a theoretical foundation for training and organizational performance for service organizations. Originality/value: This study is the first to develop a service efficiency-oriented training framework with training needs, methods, criteria and evaluation. A service industry sample was used to verify the framework in the context of casino game pace and dealer training for table games. Suggestions for a combination of management are provided for casino operators to redesign and evaluate the dealer training program for service improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work is primarily the product of the first listed author, who completed it as a student under the direction of the second and third listed authors. In this paper we analyze three progressive betting strategies, each applied to three casino games. The betting strategies considered are Martingale, Paroli, and Fibonacci, each applied to the casino games blackjack, craps, and roulette. The aim of this analysis is to try to identify optimal betting strategies for each game with a given or maximum number of bets placed that pay 1:1. The purpose of this work is not to try to discover methods for “beating the house,” which are already known to not exist, but rather to search for methods for advancing gameplay through a given or maximum number of bets while retaining the possibility of earning a profit. Programming in the computer algebra system Maple, more specifically through the use of a Maplet, which is like an applet but uses (and requires) Maple’s engine, will be used for calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, we aimed to provide a comparative examination of at-risk gambling and four types of gambling activities from the standpoint of socioeconomic, demographic and psychological factors. Using data collected from 7,385 adults aged 18–64 from Serbia, we investigated how specific variables contribute to the likelihood of participation in lottery playing, sports betting, casino games, and slot games across the three time frames (lifetime, last year, and last month), and at-risk gambling. Logistic regressions revealed that male sex, ages 18 to 34, drug use, harmful alcohol use, and elevated levels of distress were significant predictors of participation in any point of life in sports betting, casino games, and slot games, and at-risk gambling. Secondary education, residing in an urban area, and harmful alcohol use predicted – across three time frames – the engagement in lottery playing, sports betting, and slot games playing, respectively. Smoking, and specifically heavy smoking, was shown to be predictive of lifetime participation in all types of gambling, while having single marital status and being unemployed emerged as the factors increasing the odds for the last-month slot games playing. Notably, the 18 to 24 age cohort turned out to be the most vulnerable part of the population, as they displayed the largest odds for at-risk gambling, and both lifetime and last-year involvement in sports betting, casino games, and slot games playing. This highlights the necessity of targeted public health interventions for the young adult population and people who experiment or already experience problems related to substance use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gambling-related harm is a public health issue requiring market regulation and efforts aimed at prevention and treatment. An important consideration for the regulation of gambling is whether certain types of gambling are intrinsically more harmful than others. The present study was a comprehensive investigation of this issue in a nationwide sample of 10,199 Canadian adult gamblers that included 1346 individuals with problem gambling. We investigated (a) the univariate cross-sectional association between individual types of gambling and problem gambling; (b) the cross-sectional association between individual gambling types and problem gambling when controlling for breadth of gambling involvement; (c) the prospective/lagged relationship between participation in different gambling types and future problem gambling; and (d) the self-reports of people with gambling problems concerning the types and modalities they consider to be most problematic. Our collective results indicate that breadth of gambling involvement is a stronger predictor of gambling problems than involvement in any particular type, but that involvement in certain types (electronic gambling machines in particular, and casino table games and online gambling to a lesser extent) does confer additional risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a gambler may occasionally win, continuous gambling inevitably results in a net loss to the casino. This study experimentally demonstrates the profitability of a particularly deceptive casino game: a two-armed antique Mills Futurity slot machine. The main findings clearly show that both non-random and random two-arm strategies, predetermined by the player and repeated without interruption, are always profitable for the casino, despite two coins being refunded for every two consecutive losses by the gambler. We theoretically explore the cyclical nature of slot machine strategies and speculate on the impact of the frequency of switching strategies on casino returns. Our results not only assist casino owners in developing and improving casino designs, but also guide gamblers to participate more cautiously in gambling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the annual Avalon Harbor Underwater Cleanup (AHUC) dive that takes place on Santa Catalina Island in California. The event, which has been running for over four decades, involves hundreds of scuba divers cleaning up debris in Avalon Harbor. The article also provides historical information about the island, including its Native American occupation, Spanish colonization, and development as a tourist destination. The Casino building, a prominent landmark on the island, is highlighted for its role in the diving industry and its historical significance. The article concludes by mentioning the success of this year's cleanup and the funds raised for the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber and the Casino Point Dive Park improvement project. [Extracted from the article]