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Barona Casino Turns Guests into Friends for Life with Plastic Club Cards
BARONA CASINO, SAN DIEGO’S CASINO TM , is one of the largest casino operations in California, with over 125,000 square feet of alcohol-free gaming and hospitality space. Just 30 minutes from downtown San Diego, the casino boasts over 2,000 new hi-tech slot machines as well as gaming tables for blackjack, poker and other card games. Add to that a friendly atmosphere, fine dining and more than $7,000,000 paid out every day and you can see why Barona Casino has been consistently voted "San Diego’s Best." Located on the Barona Indian tribal lands, 30 miles northeast of San Diego, the casino is governed by the Barona Gaming Commission, comprised of tribal members, responsible for regulating casino activities. When the Casino decided to upgrade its Club Barona membership program in 1999, the decision was made to encourage everyone visiting the casino to become a member by issuing them personalized membership cards as they arrived. Club members earn valuable points good for cash back, free meals, and merchandise as well as other the membership cards as quickly and easily as possible. The solution was to install several dozen Eltron P310 plastic card printers, equipped with magnetic encoders, at each of the Casino’s host stations in the entry area as well as other strategic locations throughout the casino. Upon becoming a member each guest receives a plastic “credit” card with his or her name and membership number printed on the front. The cards are magnetically encoded for accepting and recording data and automatically accumulates points as the cards are used. Accumulating points is fast and easy. Members just insert their card into any slot machine they play. Players earn two points for every dollar played on the slots and video keno machines, and one point for every dollar played on video poker. The cards can also be used at any of the table games. The Casino not only uses the cards to reward members it also tracks each card to determine the popularity of individual machines, types of games, the number of transactions per card, and much more. This information is used in determining the popularity of the various types of games members prefer, which in turn helps the Casino provide the gaming service members want. The colorful credit card-sized plastic cards are the key to tracking literally millions of gaming dollars, with all the information stored in the Casino’s centralized computer system database. “From the customer’s perspective it’s quite simple” says Lee Skelley, assistant general manager, casino operations. Upon arrival guests fill out a brief form or merely use their driver’s license for application. The host or hostess enters the information via a PC keyboard, then prints a personalized membership card and provides the guest with instructions on how to us it. “The whole process takes just a minute or two,”said Skelley. Initially the Club used blank plastic cards that used a bar code. With the installation of the new gaming machines, magnetic striped cards were required. The Club also decided to upgrade the appearance of the cards at the same time. It was decided to use cards with a preprinted design. “This saves us valuable time,” says Skelley, “When you have people arriving by the busload you need to process and issue the cards as quickly as possible. We chose to use preprinted cards because it would take 25 seconds to print the entire card in color, but it only takes five seconds to print the personalization in one color on the preprinted card.” Also, the per card cost for preprinted cards is considerably less than the cost of individually printing each card in full color due to the large volume of cards. “We are proud to be the first casino in California to have 2,000 brand new Las Vegas machines” said Skelley. Using Eltron P310 card printers saves the Casino time and money in several ways. Fast, instant issue card printing permits guests to join quickly. The printers are not only fast; they are simple for operators to use. The personalization of each card means that cards lost or left in machines, can be returned to the front desk to be returned to the member. After an extensive evaluation of various plastic card printers the Eltron P310 was the clear choice. Not only were they the most economical, they proved to be the most trouble-free and easiest to use. Club Barona issued over 250,000 personalized membership cards in the first year. With the Casino’s on-going $150 million dollar expansion, the new Barona Valley Ranch Resort and casino will feature over 78,000 square feet of gaming and resort facilities, including a championship golf course. The Casino also found another valuable use for the card printer. They use them to produce photo ID badges for hundreds of employees, as well as the service contract vendors, used by the Casino. Capable of producing full-color, edge-to-edge printed cards, the Eltron P310 provides ultra-sharp print resolution for ID photos, graphics and text. The unit prints a full color card in just 25 seconds. The printer’s low-maintenance design includes self-cleaning card handling, and automatic ribbon synchronization making it easy to use and service.
A resounding success, the club membership program has led Barona to plan more uses for the Eltron printers including gift and stored value cards. “Rewarding frequent and loyal customers is something other types of businesses have been doing for years,” said Skelley. “Why not implement the same type of programs for the casino?” With the development of the new Casino, Golf Club, Resort and Spa well under way there are plenty of new opportunities for card applications. Thanks to the success of its membership card program and the Eltron P310, Barona Casino is poised for growth and ever more success in the future |
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Issuing Personalized Club Cards for Gaming the Fast and Easy Way