Resisting pressure

You’ve been in the industry for over 30 years; I’m sure you’ve learned a lot! What would your biggest takeaway points or advice be? 

I could spend all day talking about some of those things but for me, personally, it’s very gratifying to work in Indian Country because you can see who your shareholders are. You can see that the revenue you’re generating is going to build homes and provide education, food security, water security and things like that for communities, and it’s vitally important. The Osage Nation has well over a thousand years of documented history in the Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas regions. So that, of course, predates the US by a long ways. 

But I’ve worked for four different Tribes and been CEO or COO for all of them. The lessons are all very similar: that sovereignty and self-determination are vitally important, and if it wasn’t for gaming and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that was signed into law by the late President Reagan back in 1988, the Tribes wouldn’t have these capabilities to be more economically interdependent and have the ability to improve quality of life for their membership; so it’s very gratifying. 

I think it goes without saying that Tribal gaming, or gaming in general, has changed in the time since you entered the industry… but what are the most notable ways in which it has changed? 

You know, every Tribe is different. They have different histories, different objectives, different cultures and tolerances for things, and it takes time for all of them to find their own way. I think an important message and takeaway, at least from my experience, is that my family is Irish on both sides and so I’m not Native American, but my wife is. I know that I’m a guest in these communities and so it’s important and incumbent upon me, when I come into a Tribal environment, to earn trust, show that I’m here for the right reasons: to help them make good decisions that make sense to further the quality of life for their membership and create security and stability. I have to earn trust. 

Just because I have a title or a position, that doesn’t give me the authority to venture outside what my job duties and responsibilities are. I’m a guest in the community and I have to show respect for that. By taking that approach, I’ve built long-lasting, quality relationships with Tribal leaders and Tribal employees over time, and they’ve become my best friends over the years. While I enjoyed commercial gaming, there is a tendency not to be able to forge those relationships because the focus is so different. 

That’s consistent with what we’ve heard from people who worked in both and it’s a very humble perspective that you take. Can you tell us what you discussed at your first IGA panel this year? 

Cashless gaming is evolving. I think at some point in the future, it will be a significant part of the gaming experience that everybody has right now. There are only eight to 10 states in the US that have approved cashless gaming. There are a lot of issues with technology and things like that. It’s also an education issue. Everybody has to understand how it works and why money handling in gaming, whether it’s credit or a cashless type of gaming, is very much about security and convenience. But people have to trust in the processes and how it works. 

You know, we were laughing on the panel yesterday, talking about how there’s some of us like me that I still hold on to my chequebook, right? I enjoy handwriting checks because I’m touching the paper; I feel it. I see it and it’s the same thing with counting currency. Right now, the operators can go and pull a can out of a machine, they can take it to a soft count and they count it down and see the dollars; they record it and it runs through a counter, you can touch it and you know exactly what’s happening with your business. 

“So then you get in the cashless environment and everything is automated: you lose that comfort and that touch”

So much about this is getting comfortable with the technology, understanding that you’re not going to have that kind of physical reassurance with some of it and that it’s not going to be for everybody. Nonetheless, the technology has to be seamlessly integrated, it has to work well and it has to be auditable. That gives people comfort. So, overall and in time, I think it’s going to take root in younger people that are more technology savvy, who are much quicker to accept changes; but as time goes on, we think it will become an important part of how Class III gaming works across the US. 

Sure, and then a word on the panel you had later in the week? 

So the next panel we’re talking about is improving guest experience – how do you do that through data collection and gathering information, and how do you measure it? Some of the thoughts I’ve been sharing and putting together questions on is the concept that our customers, our players, are not created equal, right? It’s interesting in the gaming environment, as it’s really based on value, worth and contribution. So just like you have to prioritize your players, you have to prioritize the feedback you get. You want to be proactive and responsive to the feedback you’re collecting and using it to make improvements. While most players will give you feedback, some won’t, and in that case your employees are the best source of that information, so take time to stop and listen, break that information down, communicate it back but prioritize it and then make good on the suggestions, and the feedback they’re giving you. 

We’ve got a lot more data we can share on that. There are a lot of interesting biases when people get information. How has it been influenced? Social media is certainly an issue, but it’s just like focus groups, right? You get into a focus group and you can have one very vocal person that ends up artificially steering the dialogue, and it changes some of the data you’re going to collect – it’s the same thing with social media. But when you’re surveying people one on one, you get a more specific look at what their perceptions are, you can still use that and measure it. It’s still good to have the social media side of things, but understand the value that it brings, as well as some of the potential limitations with it. Nevertheless, it’s critical to listen to your guest and then be responsive to what they’re telling you. 

Data is still very relevant to this next question… in your Tribe, you’ve got an upcoming digital optimization strategy. Can you tell us a little bit about that and just how important it is for Tribes to stay ahead of digital trends? 

This is a really important issue for us and we’re hoping it is for all of the Tribes in Native American gaming. Our digital optimization strategy is about sitting down and developing a master specification in terms of how all the automated touchpoints, systems and services that you provide all interact in one ecosystem. But they also have to have all the data sovereignty, data security, controls and things in place that really safeguard the information properly, all while still providing frictionless, seamless services. If it’s convenient and easy and it inspires trust, people will use it, and that’s why it’s so important to stop and develop that digital optimisation strategy or specification. Once that spec is in place, you just keep going back to it and make sure at every stage of your development and your implementation of these resources, it matches up. 

There’s a lot of pressure on operators to generate more revenue and keep up with the Joneses, and ‘everybody else is doing this so we should too;’ but that’s not always the right pressure to succumb to. You really need to stop, think through it: “Hey, we’re going be a little more disciplined. We’re not going to be first to market with it, but we will be the best once we execute it and people will migrate to us;” because if the technology doesn’t work and all the other components don’t fit well together the way they need to, customers aren’t going to use it anyway – and you’re not going to get the return on investment. Instead, you’re going to be spinning your wheels and frustrating your team and guests in the process. So I think it’s a great discipline to have. It means you slow things down a little bit, but in the end, you’ll accelerate to a better result. 

Kirk Geller

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