Preface by Larry L. Lewin

When I look out across the international gaming landscape of today, I see things I could never have imagined when my father – Henri Lewin – was running places like the Flamingo and the Las Vegas Hilton in the 1970s. Vegas-style casino gaming is spreading into markets that didn’t even exist then – dozens of American states, several Canadian provinces, South America, several European nations and, of course, Asia.

Giant corporations run multiple casino and resort properties across the globe worth billions of dollars. The casino businesses of today are no longer run by individuals or families. They are major companies with high profiles on Wall Street.

Sophisticated electronic technology has permeated almost every aspect of the business – security, surveillance, slot machines, cages – even the cards and chips themselves are like something out of a science fiction movie. I often wonder what our slots players in 1975 would have said if they had suddenly received a small white piece of paper with some lines on it instead of a tray of shiny tokens when they cashed out! There is a rigorous emphasis on compliance and social responsibility in most markets that I, for one, welcome wholeheartedly.

In short, the industry is in immeasurably better shape than it was when my father was running those smaller places in the desert 30 years ago. The industry’s unprecedented growth spurt has created an abundance of the very thing that rests at the heart of every free market – choice. Today’s gaming enthusiast has choices in every imaginable shape and size, from a billion-dollar resort in Canada to the native-run giants in Connecticut to sparking new properties in the Pacific rim to the mega-resorts of today’s Vegas.

But customers don’t develop loyalty to bricks and mortar. They don’t care that their $5 chip actually contains a microchip. They don’t care that their casino of choice is owned by the same company that owns 12 more.

They want the same thing the slots player at the Flamingo wanted in 1975 – they want a great experience. The key to that great experience is, was and will always be the one-on-one interaction between the front-line casino employee and the customer. I believe that positive interaction between people is more than merely a human want – it is a human need.

As we push toward ever larger casino and resort properties with ever more sophisticated technologies, we must never lose sight of that basic need. We ignore it at our peril. The gaming organisations that invest in all the amenities and technology without losing sight of that all-important human element – with both their customers and with their staff – will be the ones that succeed despite the explosion of international competition.