Casino Design, inside the process of casino design

Stumbled upon a great article on Casino Design, which is something I really never considered before. Although I have been fascinated recently with the amazing design of the Venetian Casino in Macau. Macau seems to be taking casino design to a whole new level. Easily eclipsing Vegas as the casino capital of the world on many fronts.

A prodigious amount of thought goes into the design and layout of a casino’s gambling floor. The layout of slot machines and card tables is carefully designed in order to maximize the casino’s profits and lure customers into the games. Casinos are generally designed so that patrons must walk through or at least around the periphery of several slot machine blocks to move around the casino, to maximize the customers’ exposure to the exciting sights and sounds of the slot machines, and especially of others winning on the machines.
An important tool used in designing a casino’s layout is the adjustment of how easily or often a slot machine gives a payout. Machines with a relatively high payout rate are known as “loose,” while more conservative slot machines are called “tight.”

Casino planners know that slot players love to see and hear other people winning on nearby machines, because players hold it as evidence that money can be made on the machines. Thus casinos are designed to have the loosest machines in prominent areas deep within the gambling floor. Areas such as the ends of long rows or near walkways or elevated sections are generally where loose machines are placed. As people walk through the gambling floor, the sights and sounds of people playing on these more liberal machines draw other customers deeper into the slot machine block, where the machines are tighter.