Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data – Credit/debit monitoring or manipulation
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-01
2001-02-06
Sager, Mark A. (Department: 3713)
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
Credit/debit monitoring or manipulation
C463S029000, C463S042000, C705S014270
Reexamination Certificate
active
06183362
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of systems for tracking customer activity at casinos, and in particular, to systems for tracking customers' gaming and non-gaming activity across affiliated casino properties, for use in customer recognition and marketing programs.
2. Background Art
Substantially all casinos have implemented some form of customer tracking to identify and reward their valuable customers. These tracking programs often use the betting activity of a customer as the basis for awarding the customer complementary rooms, meals, event tickets, and the like (“comps”). Typically, these tracking programs are implemented by providing each customer with a casino membership card which includes a machine readable identification number specific to the customer. Each identification number has an associated customer account that is stored in the casino's computer system and updated to reflect customer activity. Customers need only insert their cards in slot machines or card readers associated with gaming tables or give their cards to a casino employee to have their betting activity monitored and reflected in their accounts. Customer cards may also be used to track customer activity at casino venues, such as special events, showrooms, and hotels, through card readers and computer terminals manned by casino employees.
The growth of the gaming industry has created new challenges to the way in which customer tracking programs are implemented. Many states and territories have recently legalized casino gambling, and companies have built casino properties at these new gaming locations to meet the demand for gaming facilities. Despite the increased number of casino properties affiliated with a company, conventional casino management practices continue to treat these casino properties as autonomous, decentralized entities that compete with each other for valuable customers. In particular, customer tracking at each casino property is typically controlled by local management, and few if any attempts have been made to coordinate customer information across affiliated casino properties. For example, each casino has its own system that tracks betting data on the casino's customers. The property treats this betting data as confidential, in order to prevent competing casinos, including those affiliated with the property, from luring away valuable customers. Thus, customer tracking programs at affiliated properties remain fragmented, and conventional management practices provide little incentive to coordinate data accumulated by these tracking programs.
Even if a casino company was to attempt some coordination of customer tracking programs at its affiliated casinos, the systems currently in place at various casino properties are too localized to integrate easily. Casino management systems are typically custom designed for each casino property, the customer data is limited to selected customer activity at the specific casino property, and the customer data accumulated by different computer systems within the same casino is often in different, incompatible formats. Thus, while each casino has useful data for its regular customers, there is no ready means for consolidating this data or making it available conveniently for use at other casinos. In short, there are both operational and technical barriers to coordinating customer tracking programs at individual casino properties into national, company-wide tracking and marketing programs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a system and method for implementing a customer tracking and recognition program that encompasses customers' gaming and non-gaming activity alike at all casino properties affiliated with a casino company. Customer information is input to a management system associated with each affiliated casino property, updated to a patron database, and made available to each casino property as needed. This provides casino employees at each property with on-line access to the customer data necessary to implement cross-property incentive programs and to provide personalized services to customers, independent of which casino property the customer regularly visits. Marketing personnel have access to a more complete database of customer activity for developing and monitoring marketing programs, including offer management and redemption programs. The present invention allows customer data to be accumulated across all casino properties and made available at any casino property without overburdening the individual casino properties' computer systems with unnecessary data.
A system in accordance with the present invention comprises a local area network (LAN) at each affiliated casino property and a wide area network (WAN) for coupling data among the casino LANs. A management system associated with each casino LAN receives customer data from card readers, workstations, and dumb terminals, located at various venues throughout the casino and couples the received data to a database that is accessible to all affiliated casino properties. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a central patron database (CPDB) comprising customer accounts from all of the casino properties is supported on a central LAN that is coupled to the casino LANs through the WAN. In this embodiment, the management system may be a single, centralized system supported on the central LAN, a distributed system comprising local management systems associated with each casino LAN, or a hybrid system including both centralized and distributed components. The preferred configuration for the management system will depend on the data capacity of the WAN and the sizes of the various casino properties.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the management system further comprises a casino management system to handle the day to day gaming transactions at various casino venues and hotel and event management systems to handle transactions relating to lodging and events, respectively. Data accumulated by the management system is updated to the CPDB, where it may be accessed by personnel at any of the casino properties through the WAN. When customer information is required at a casino property, the management system first checks a data store associated with the property, and if the data is not available there, it is retrieved from the CPDB. On-line access to a customer's activities at all of its casino properties allows the casino company to implement cross-property incentive programs, manage customer offer programs more effectively, and provide more personalized services to its customers. Data is available for a customer's gaming and non-gaming activities, giving the casino a more complete picture of the customer's expenditures while at the casino.
For example, the system of the present invention facilitates and expands comping. By tracking customers' gaming activities at all of the company's casino properties, the present invention provides more complete data on which to base comps and provides the same, complete data to each casino employee, regardless of how frequently the customer visits their property. This allows valued customers to be recognized at any casino property affiliated with the company, regardless of which casino they patronize regularly. It also makes comping more consistent across different casino properties.
In addition to comping, the present invention implements a point system that awards points to customers based on their tracked activity at all casino properties. Customer points earned at any of the affiliated casino properties may be redeemed for gifts or services at any of the affiliated casino properties. In effect, a customer's points represent a monetary value of the customer's activity, and may be used in place of cash at any affiliated casino, independent of where the points were earned. The point system may be used to target various properties or venues by weighting point awards according to the venue, the time period, or the casino propert
Fenwick & West LLP
Harrah's Operating Co.
Sager Mark A.
LandOfFree
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