A few weeks ago, i went to the casino for the first time. Although its a local casino (Sky City Auckland if you care), and aint exactly Las Vegas., most of the marketing principles are the same. These guys literally are doing everything within their power to get you to sit down and play games non stop, without thinking about the money, without thinking about the time you spend in there.

The first thing you have to know. Is that of all the casino games available, Slots/Pokie machines have the worst odds for the general player. Just for the record, I stuck in about 60NZD into those things and didn’t win once. No free spins, not even like winning $2. Although by law over here, Slots have to pay out around 70% of what they take in. I think it could be lower, and in places like Vegas it is far lower then that. So if you stick in $100, you are expect to get out $70. Although that usually wont happen, and it will all be pooled till some lucky SOB wins everything that the suckers put in.

Game’s like Roulette or Blackjack, although still fairly shitty odds. IMO, they have a better chance of winning for a casual player. I played Blackjack for a bit, and gained like $100 in the 10 minutes i played. And then i walked away happy. The main difference is that Blackjack, you have small wins and loses, and you can play there for hours holding about even. But slots will chew $20 up in 5 minutes. So with that being said, the casino managers want as many people playing slots as they can.

So as soon as you walk into the casino, the first thing you notice is all the lights are dimmed. Its almost like a dank place. Hardcore gamblers will tell you its to do with people gambling away their families home and not wanting to be seen, but in all reality, its to brighten up the Slots. You see the slots have neon lights all around the things, and they are crazy bright. Not only that, but when you walk in, there is walls and walls of slots before you can get to the regular gaming tables. They are literally trying to force you to play a couple of games.

I ofcourse avoided these and kept walking to the tables, but after a few games i decided to get something to eat. Now here is the thing, the casino has like a fully functional restaurant RIGHT in the middle of the slot machines. You can buy things like mashed potato, steak, sausages, anything that you would cook at home, to feel at home, you can buy here. There is two reasons the restaurant is in the middle of the slots.

1. You don’t leave the casino to get food. Seriously the amount of choices (You could get chinese, indian and italian food) you have you would never leave the casino. Leaving the casino at 3am, would usually mean your not coming back. Even if you thought you were, by the time you get food in you, usually you cant be bothered walking back to the casino/bar (Trust me!).

2. You can hear “Cha-Ching” all around you.

That’s something else about slots. They are quiet as hell when your playing them. Just the ticking noise of the bars rolling over. But when you win, even if its only $2. You and everyone else within a 20 foot radius of you knows about it. And so while your sitting there eating, all you can hear is “winners” all around you. Making you think that it is the easiest game to win and play.

Ofcourse there is the usual ploys aswell. There is obviously no windows in a casino, they don’t want you knowing how long you’ve been there. So when you see the sun starting to rise your like “O shit been here too long”. And ofcourse no clocks either. Ontop of that, they do little sneaky things. They have TV’s all around (albeit no sound), so if your bored and want to have a beer, you can sit and watch a sports game. But the channels shown are ALWAYS non time specific. By that i mean, that you know the News is on at 6pm every night. So if you saw that, you know what time it is. Obviously they wouldn’t be showing the news in the casino. But they make sure that the TV channel gives no indication of what time it is.

What’s this all got to do with landing pages? Well two things really.

1. Dont give any reason for your visitor to leave your site/landing page. Just like the restaurant in a casino, they make everything available so you don’t have to leave. Hell they even have cheap cheap hotel rooms so you don’t have to go home.

2. Always funnel your visitors to your most profitable package. Give them the choice of the most profitable first, and then give them cheaper packages. You still want to get a sale of any type, but the more you focus on them buying the most profitable, the better off you will be.

If you really want, head over to your local casino and check it out. Don’t go in there to gamble hard, just to take a look around and see how they maintain/control their customers actions extremely well. There is a bunch of smaller things that i haven’t written in here that are still integral to a casino’s profitability. But check em out for yourself.