Park Place to offer multi-casino card

David Strow

Thursday, Jan. 3, 2002 | 10:44 a.m.

Park Place Entertainment Corp. of Las Vegas is the latest company to introduce a multi-casino players' card, announcing this morning it would launch such a system in Las Vegas on Jan. 8.

"Park Place Connection" will initially cover Caesars Palace, Bally's Las Vegas, Flamingo Las Vegas, Paris Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Hilton. In its first phase, players will be able to earn points for play at all five properties. These points can then be redeemed for cash rebates at any one of the properties.

Points for complimentaries will continue to be accumulated individually at the five properties, though Park Place said it will link comp programs together as well later in the year.

"With Park Place Connection, we're giving our customers yet another reason to experience all of our resorts and to become personally acquainted with the remarkable range of benefits and incentives that can only come from a large, diverse resort enterprise," Park Place Chief Operating Officer Wallace Barr said.

Park Place is the latest to join what is a growing trend in the casino industry. Harrah's Entertainment Inc. was the first to launch such a system more than a year ago with its "Total Rewards" card, which can be used at all 25 Harrah's casinos across the country. Station Casinos Inc. quickly followed with its "Boarding Pass" card, which works at six of its Las Vegas-area casinos.

Mandalay Resort Group introduced such a program on the Strip in November, with the "One Card," which can be used at the company's properties on the Strip, Laughlin and Jean. To date MGM MIRAGE has not introduced such a card, but the company has said it plans to do so soon.

"It makes good sense," Larry Klatzkin, gaming analyst with Jeffries & Co., said. "If you have a group of diverse casinos in the (Las Vegas Strip) market, it makes sense to do that."

But whether a system that's helped keep customers loyal to Harrah's and Station properties will be as effective on the Strip is not yet known, Klatzkin said.

"We don't know, because no one's really done it," Klatzkin said. "It can be effective."

Harrah's has been the most effective with such a program, since it uses Total Rewards to encourage customers from one market to visit casinos in other markets, Klatzkin said.

"Harrah's is at a whole other level these guys (Park Place, Mandalay and MGM MIRAGE) aren't even thinking about for some period of time," Klatzkin said. "That's something these casinos aren't really doing at this stage at all."

But that could soon be coming. Park Place, which operates 19 casinos in Nevada, Mississippi, New Jersey, Louisiana, Indiana and Delaware, said it plans to seek regulators' permission to introduce the card at other Park Place properties around the nation later this year. Mandalay has indicated it will do the same thing; outside of Nevada, Mandalay has casinos in Reno, Mississippi, Illinois and Detroit.

Park Place has the best opportunity to duplicate Harrah's national strategy, since it has casinos in so many different markets, said CIBC World Markets gaming analyst William Schmitt. It would be less effective for MGM MIRAGE and Mandalay, which are concentrated heavily in Las Vegas, he said.

But there is more to such programs than merely linking together casinos, Schmitt said. A key to the Harrah's system is using the data gathered on players, tailoring marketing to each customer using this data, and driving customers from one Harrah's casino to play with the company in other markets.

"That's really the key to their system," Schmitt said. "It's not just tying them all together."

But even just linking its properties could produce some benefit for the company, Schmitt said. A regular Paris Las Vegas customer who likes to visit the Bellagio, he said, might be convinced to gamble at Caesars Palace instead because of the card.

"If they (Park Place) can capture that incremental dollar, it will be beneficial to them," Schmitt said.