Question: Business Analytics for Gaming Firm
Penn National Gaming, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates more than 25 horseracing and casino gaming facilities throughout the United States and in Canada. It is the operator of the popular Hollywood Casinos around the country plus the M Resort Spa Casino and Tropicana Las Vegas. In aggregate, its operations include some 33,000 gaming machines, 800 table games, 4,500 hotel rooms, and 10 million square feet of property.26 Millions of patrons visit Penn National Gaming facilities each year.
The firm is considering developing a large database to capture the data generated at each property. This will be augmented with data about each patron-their demographics, purchases, gambling preferences and habits, and the services they request as a guest. The data will be used by the firm's management to make quick, well-informed decisions to maximize Penn National Gaming's income while packing more entertainment value into each patron's visit. The data will also be used to develop targeted direct mail campaigns, customize offers for specific customer segments, and adapt programs for individual casinos.
Review Questions
1. Collecting and analyzing all this data will draw Penn National Gaming in to the realm of big data and business analytics. How would you define the term business analytics?
2.Penn National Gaming will also need to recruit new kinds of human resources including data scientists. What do data scientists do?
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Identify three data sources that might be tapped to obtain the desired data about its patrons.
2. What sort of data privacy issues might be associated with the establishment of its patron database?