Six Things Poker Managers Can Do Right Now to Improve Their Rooms

Competition is everywhere, even in cardrooms. Establishing and maintaining primacy in the marketplace is seldom easy, and often requires capital investment as well as new and different ways of doing things. Not everything is expensive, however. Here are six things cardroom managers can do right now, at little or no cost, to improve the level of service provided to customers.

1. Keep the cardroom clean: Some cardrooms are neat and tidy, while others – let's face it – are pigsties. When a room is dirty, it's only going to get dirtier. Left alone and untended, a dirty cardroom will reach its nadir, and will begin to resemble a New York City subway station restroom.

While people are generally responsible, most take their cues from the environment. When a room is dirty, players think, "OK, this place is a dump. No one cares where I toss my trash; even the floor is OK." So, they do it, and the room looks worse. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The place becomes dirtier because it looks dirty. If management saw to it that trays were bussed in the first place, and kept things clean, it would look good and management's expectations of a clean room would engender better player behavior. This same tune can be sung about the condition of cards, the felt on the table, and a host of otherwise trivial matters that make a cardroom look presentable. While cleanliness does cost some money, it doesn't cost all that much – and it's worth it.

2. Eighty-Six the troublemakers: Why cardrooms put up with unruly behavior from players is beyond me. Are they really that hard up for business? If they are, it's a flawed philosophy. After all, we've all watched players leave one casino to play at a competing room because the place they left permitted surly, churlish, and boorish imbeciles to continue playing. Fixing this problem is simple. Just toss the bad element out in the street. What are they going to do? Players need the cardroom a lot more than the room needs a cadre of thoroughly obnoxious customers.

Although poker was originally an American game, this is one area where the Europeans are far ahead of us. Casinos on that continent simply do not accept bad behavior. Profanity is verboten, as is intentionally tossing cards on the floor, berating dealers, and arguing with everyone who sits down at the table – players and dealers alike.

Managers, please heed the request of the vast majority of your players and ban the troublemakers – for a day, for a week, or forever. Offending players will get the message, believe me. Right now, however, they're getting the wrong message. Some players believe that unless they pull out a bowie knife and do a number on another player, they will never be banned.

3. Support your dealers: It's important to remember that dealers are the employees with whom customers have the most contact. Because of that, it's nice when your dealers have positive attitudes about their jobs and working environment, and are supportive of management. But support is a two-way street. Dealers need management to stand up for them when harassed by rude and obnoxious players. Casinos might be the only business where employees are expected to show a positive face even when routinely harassed by customers. All too often, they receive no support from management whatsoever. With poker's phenomenal growth, skilled dealers are in short supply, and management would do well to realize that a good dealer is a major asset, and a key component in retaining their customer base.

4. Educate your players: Educated players make better customers. Players who have no chance of winning will probably not continue to play. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would stop playing if they never won. It's easy to educate players. Hold seminars, or offer classes for beginners. They need not be long; a one- or two-hour seminar by any noted poker player or poker author would suffice. Expose new players to poker books and videos. The school of hard knocks is not the only way to learn about poker, and it's certainly not the best.

5. Expand your player base: Too many cardroom managers think expanding their player base means devising a way to lure players to their room from the casino down the street. That's not a bad idea, but it's not the best one, either. After all, there are many more people in this country who have played poker at home but never ventured into a casino than players you can steal from the joint next door.

As long as the frontier is still open, and there's a huge untapped reservoir of potential players who need only be given a reason to play poker in a cardroom instead of the kitchen, that should be where marketing efforts are focused. Sure, advertise your tournaments, special events, and promotions in Card Player and on your website, but put time, money, effort, and creativity into attracting new players.

If cardrooms are unable to expand their player base, poker will turn into horse racing, and that's a dying sport. The average racetrack attendee is a 58-year-old white male. What happened to the next two generations who should have become aficionados of the Sport of Kings? They're not out at the track because the racing industry did nothing to attract a younger, more diverse customer base. Now they're paying the price. Cardroom managers will also pay the price if they don't focus their marketing efforts correctly.

6. Standardize rules, please: My colleague Bob Ciaffone has written so eloquently so many times about this subject – as have Mike Caro, Roy Cooke, and others – that I feel like I'm stealing his words. Sure, local variations in certain rules are sometimes necessary, but why is it so tough to agree on standardizing the vast majority of them when there's no real downside, and it is so clearly beneficial to all concerned?

Cardroom managers: There is so much more to be gained from compromising on a consistent set of rules than resisting it, that I'm absolutely astounded it has taken this long and the answer still isn't in sight. You are fiddling while Rome burns.

I could have expanded this list to 16 items, or even 60. These are simply the six that came immediately to mind as I wrote this column. If you have other suggestions, please send them to me and I'll revisit this topic at a later date. Cardroom managers, the glove has been dropped and the challenge announced. Make your room a better place for customers to play and for employees to work, and your business will grow in the process – guaranteed!