JANUARY RESET: THE ESSENTIAL GAMING FLOOR CHECKS
I love structure in a gaming department. It ensures there’s a regular plan to check that your gaming room and service levels are working at their best for customers. So many of the little things that can be detrimental to how you present your gaming floor are very subtle, but over time it can add up to bigger problems. Here are a few of the annual “January Jobs” I do as a fresh start to every year.
- Industrial blindness is a real thing
When you walk into your gaming area many times every day you start to miss the small things that can make your venue look tired. The smallest rips or dirty gaming stools, small chips on machine benches, cracks in walls, holders for promotional flyers that are still attached to walls but no longer used, dirty machine screens, old signage, and torn carpets all make your club look tired and unclean. And that’s not an impression you want your customers to notice. And when 60% of your top-level players are female… those gaming floor bathrooms must be spotless! This is the time of year for a really thorough look at what you need to clean, fix, paint or reupholster before everything gets rolling again.
- Brush up on your regs
OK, it’s not an interesting job, but January, when the office is quiet, is a great time to read through your relevant gaming / marketing regulations. Doing this just once a year ensures we haven’t missed anything and is a great review process to jog your memory and refresh your legislative knowledge. At least they are easier to read these days! Also check out the Gaming and Liquor websites for your state for any updates, and the AUSTRAC website for the new compliance requirements. It’s the only time you have all year to do some valuable reading.
- Operating Vs Carded Percentages on games
This is a good annual job for this time of the year because you can look at January – December as a block and compare the expected profit games should have earned based on the percentage you brought the games in at, to the percentage they operated at over the year. Any older games, where the operating percentage is really low (low net profit) is prioritised on my trade out list for the year.
- Update policies and procedures
It’s a great time of year for house-keeping your staff policies and procedures. They can become out of date quickly and there are always a few minor legislations changes in gaming areas that need to be added to staff handbooks and procedures.
Taken together, these January tasks form a practical reset for your gaming department. They help you see your venue through fresh eyes, confirm your compliance footing, assess the true performance of your machine mix, and ensure staff guidance reflects current requirements. Investing time now prevents small issues from becoming costly problems later and sets a clear operational baseline for the year ahead. A disciplined start in January creates momentum that carries through every month that follows.
Justine Channing – Gaming Specialist
Justine is an experienced gaming specialist working with many clubs and pubs across NSW/QLD. She assists venues to plan their gaming strategy by interrogating and analysing gaming and membership data, mentoring young managers into the gaming portfolio, and planning machine purchase strategies and capex budgets to improve gaming results.
