Local casinos are mimicking the classic Las Vegas playbook and building glittery kid-friendly attractions, the idea: If the whole family is having fun, Mom and Dad will spend more time and money at the casino.
Regional and tribal casinos are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop kid-friendly attractions like water parks, large gaming floors and go-kart tracks in response to an increasingly competitive landscape. The stakes are high. Commercial gambling revenue continues to rise in most states where it's legal.
But the growth of sports betting and online gambling far outpaces that of brick-and-mortar casinos, according to data from the American Gaming Association. Meanwhile, new casinos are popping up across the country.
Guyot projects it will draw about a million additional guests to the resort annually. He expects the water park to be especially popular during the frigid New England winters.
Noujaim and his wife may escape for a while to the adult sections of both resorts here and there, leaving grandparents and their older children to supervise the younger ones. But ultimately, the focus is on family time. In addition to attracting out-of-town visitors, these offerings appeal to local residents. Building an entertainment complex or water park is expensive. And parents may just want a place to leave the kids.
Mike Theisen, director of marketing for Kids Quest, attributes the growing demand for child care services at casinos to younger parents who don't want to leave their children at home, "forcing the casino industry to adapt," he says. His company offers supervised play areas for children, along with game rooms for older children, inside casinos. There are now more than a dozen of these kid-friendly facilities across the country, with a new one set to open at the Black Oak Casino Resort in Tuolumne, California, this fall.
Larry Sieg, CEO and president of Visit Atlantic City, says travelers there increasingly view gambling as a mere convenience rather than the primary reason to visit. “There’s gambling all over the country. You must have other things for people to do.” For many years, Las Vegas sought to reinvent itself as a family-friendly destination with amusement park-style attractions and more wholesome shows. Today, Sin City’s marketing has refocused on attracting the adult audience,
Gambling remains by far the biggest revenue driver for casinos across the country.
The new generation of family attractions may work to attract more visitors, but those visitors may not gamble as much. The extra features could end up hurting the bottom line. Plus, those looking to gamble are more likely to go to the facility closest to where they live, experts say, even if it doesn't come with as many amenities.
