What Stays in Vegas (41 page)

Traditional Shopping

If you are making a sensitive purchase that you do not want recorded for posterity and potentially shared with other merchants, go in person and pay in cash.

Data Vaults and Form Filling

Personal.com
allows you to encrypt and store important personal documents and details on Dropbox. Gordon Bell, the author of
Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything,
suggests, for example, that people embrace health logging, keeping track of all their medication information.
Personal.com's
browser plug-in Fill It allows you to use some of this data to fill out online forms. Abine also has a good password and form-filling plug-in, and allows you to create multiple identities so that not every site needs to know your real name.

More Information

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (
www.privacyrights.org
) offers many useful detailed background papers on issues such as online privacy and technology, Social Security numbers, and privacy for in-store shoppers. It also has a series of sample opt-out letters for companies, financial institutions, charities, and others asking them not to share your information.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center lists various privacy tools at
epic.org/privacy/tools.html
. Another list of suggestions is at
www.cotse.net/privacytools.html
.
DataBanker.com
also has helpful links on privacy.

                  
NOTES

Introduction

1
. California data broker Infocore tracks a huge volume of international dossiers for its US clients. At present the company tracks more than 7.6 billion records from more than 1,100 separate datasets owned by more than 720 data companies around the world, according to CEO Kitty Kolding. Email to author, January 1, 2014. For more information on her company, see Adam Tanner, “U.S.-Style Personal Data Gathering Is Spreading Worldwide,”
Forbes.com
, October 16, 2013.

2
. James Glanz, Jeff Larson, and Andrew Lehren, “Spy Agencies Tap Data Streaming from Phone Apps,”
New York Times,
January 27, 2014.

3
. “Rovio Does Not Provide End User Data to Government Surveillance Agencies,” Rovio press release, January 30, 2014.

Chapter 1: What Happens Here, Stays Here?

1
. For example, James McElroy, who started working as a Las Vegas dealer in 1973, says he would address important clients only by the first initial of their last name, such as “Mr. C.” or “Mrs. S.” “Maybe the person did not want to be known,” says McElroy, who rose through the ranks to become the assistant casino manager at Caesars Palace. “I very seldom call a person by their actual name, unless I know them very well.”

Chapter 2: A Harvard Professor Comes to Vegas

1
. The cost of attending HBS has risen steadily since Loveman's years there. The class of 2016 faces total costs of more than $95,000 a year, although many receive some form of financial aid. See
www.hbs.edu/mba/financial-aid/Pages/cost-summary.aspx
. Students often interrupt careers in which they earn more than $100,000 a year, some with base salaries of
more than $135,000, not including bonuses, according to statistics from the school. See
www.hbs.edu/about/facts-and-figures/Pages/mba-statistics.aspx
. Naturally, students have high expectations for their professors.

2
.
Harvard Business Review
still sells his cases today at
hbr.org/search/gary+loveman/4294958507/?Nao=30
. He also coauthored a book about economic changes in post-Communist Eastern Europe.

3
. “An Assessment of the Productivity Impact of Information Technologies,” Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, June 1990. Asked about the paper today, Loveman says, “It didn't necessarily say computers weren't important, it just said it didn't seem to lead to productivity. . . . Since then everyone agrees that technology has been applied in ways that are dramatically improving productivity rates.”

4
. In 1992 Bob Metcalfe, publisher of
InfoWorld,
described Loveman as “the probable father of the Paradox—the devil himself.” “Productivity Paradox ‘Devil' Slides Data Past the Debunkers,”
InfoWorld,
August 24, 1992, 43. In 1994,
CIO Magazine
referred to Loveman's “now-infamous macroeconomic study” and concluded, “Reports on the dearth of IT impact may have been greatly exaggerated.” “Bye-Bye Productivity Paradox,”
CIO Magazine,
October 15, 1994, 42.

5
. “Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work,”
Harvard Business Review,
March 1994.

6
. Author interview, January 17, 2013.

7
. Author interview, January 2, 2013.

8
. “Harrah's to Merge with Rio,” press release, August 10, 1998.

9
. Author interview with former Harrah's executive Rich Mirman, January 3, 2012, and confirmed by Loveman.

10
. Because slot machines are so profitable, they dominate most casinos. There are about one million slot machines in the United States, according to Patti Hart, CEO of slot machine maker IGT (author interview, November 12, 2012). Nevada Gaming Commission statistics show there were about 155,000 slot machines in Nevada alone as of the end of January 2014. See “Gaming Revenue Report,” Nevada Gaming Commission, January 31, 2014, at
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=8701
.

11
. In 2004 Harrah's Entertainment agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment for $9.4 billion. After concluding the deal the following year, it became the world's largest casino company. In 2010 Harrah's Entertainment
changed its name to Caesars Entertainment Corporation, giving center stage to the name of the best-known property in the chain, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. I refer to the company as Caesars today and Harrah's in references before 2010. There are some references to Caesars Entertainment before 2004 in this book about the company centered on Caesars Palace at the time. The corporate picture became even more complicated in late 2013 as part of restructuring efforts amid its massive debt load. The main company became Caesars Entertainment Operating Company, and it created Caesars Entertainment Resort Properties and Caesars Growth Partners. “Confused? Card counters likely have an easier time keeping track,” Spencer Jakab wrote in
The Wall Street Journal
about the related companies and their finances on March 11, 2014.

12
. Nevada State Gaming Control Board statistics for the twelve months ending January 31, 2014, show an average hold percentage at Las Vegas Strip casinos for the prior year at about 7.5 percent. Penny slots returned the least amount, only 88 cents per dollar, whereas $100 slot machines offered the best odds on average, returning 95 cents for every dollar wagered. See
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=8701
.

13
. The big-picture estimate comes from Gary Loveman: “That has allowed us to re-price slot machines over the years very dramatically and has made us hundreds [of millions] if not billions of dollars over that period. And the whole industry has followed us and done the same thing.” Author interview, December 12, 2012.

14
. The mean is the average payout across the cycle of spins. Yet there will be a variance of results. So some people will win more money and others will lose more money than average during their time at the slot machine. Greater variance makes it harder to accurately assess the distribution from repeated observations.

Chapter 3: Loyalty

1
. Binion quotes recalled by John Acres. Author interview, May 23, 2013.

2
. In 2013, slots and related devices brought in 65 percent of total Nevada gaming revenue for casinos making at least $1 million, according to the 2013 Nevada Gaming Abstract put out by the State Gaming Control
Board. On average, each casino resort earned $156 in daily slot revenue per hotel room, compared to $76 per room daily for pit games. See
http://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=8566
.

3
. James Nagle, “Trading Stamps: A Long History; Premiums Said to Date Back in U.S. to 1793,”
New York Times,
December 26, 1971.

4
. The company had introduced a more rudimentary version of the loyalty program some years before that. Caesars, then a separate company from Harrah's, introduced the slot players loyalty program, called Emperors Club, in 1992.

5
. Jamie McKee, “Believing in the Brand,”
Casino Journal,
March 1997.

6
. Many years later Booz Allen Hamilton made international headlines when Edward Snowden, one of the firm's employees who was working as a contractor for the National Security Agency, leaked information about the government's covert surveillance program that monitored private communications and traffic on leading websites such as Google and Facebook as well as phone logs. Mirman said he worked on the commercial side of the consulting business, not the government side.

7
. Author interview with Mirman, January 3, 2013. Nowadays, Caesars set up special lines for top-tier members in some of their restaurants, much as airlines check in first- and business-class passengers before others.

8
. “Harrah's Entertainment Unveils New Customer-Loyalty Program,” press release, April 4, 2000.

9
. Author interview, December 4, 2012.

Chapter 4: Casino Data Gathering in Action

1
. The buffet price sometimes changes during holiday periods, when demand spikes. There are also some restaurants in big properties not owned by Caesars that do not offer preferential prices for Total Rewards members.

2
. “Of course we have surveillance if we need to go back and check our judgment; we can do that with surveillance. And we rate you,” Loveman says.

3
. In the episode Franklin falls to his death from his hotel window. In an eerie twist, Everett Sloane, the actor who played Franklin and who had
appeared in the movie
Citizen Kane
, took his own life in desperation five years later, in 1965.

4
. Casinos also distribute informational brochures on addictive gambling and invite gambling addicts to put themselves on an excluded list so that they will not be allowed to wager in the future.

5
. The
Hangover
series is popular enough to lure a steady stream of guests who rent the duplex apartment that inspired the suite shown in the film. Sometimes they damage the room. Unlike in Hollywood, there are real consequences. For most fans of the movie, however, it is enough to jokingly ask the receptionist, “Did Caesar live here?” as the Zach Galifianakis character does in the film, or just buy a
Hangover
T-shirt in a lobby gift shop.

Chapter 5: A Celebrity, a Private Eye, and a Hit Man

1
. In this case I used Accurint, which is part of LexisNexis.

2
. Details provided from Criss Cross advertisement, at
http://digitalcollections.mypubliclibrary.com/digital/13/16708/1/120.pdf
.

3
. Author interview, June 7, 2013.

4
. Author interview, July 9, 2013.

5
. Cullotta's debriefer, Dennis Arnoldy, was an FBI agent from 1971 to 1997. He moved to Las Vegas in 1980 during the end of the mob's era of widespread influence. He investigated Tony Spilotro and ended up overseeing Cullotta when he decided to work as a cooperating witness. Arnoldy envies the amount of personal information law enforcement officials can acquire today. “There was a lot of the stuff we would have to get, like to subpoena telephone records from the telephone companies and all that,” he said. “Nothing, but nothing, like they have now. I mean, I think it would be so nice to be an FBI agent now.” For private investigators, the huge increase in personal information facilitated by the Internet turned out to be a double-edged sword. “Times changed, and along comes the computer. They are the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened,” LaRue says. “You could look up everything. The problem is that everyone who owns a computer thinks they are a detective. Business has dropped off somewhat.”

6
. Nina Bernstein, “On Line, High-Tech Sleuths Find Private Facts,”
New York Times,
September 15, 1997.

7
. Another example: more than four times more couples marry in Vegas than in Seattle and its surrounding county, an area with an almost
identical population. Comparative statistics from 2013 at
www.clarkcountynv.gov/depts/clerk/Pages/Statistics.aspx
.

8
. The search page for marriages in Clark County is at
https://aivitals.co.clark.nv.us
.

9
. Wynn sought the same records from two different offices about the same weddings because about 3 percent of those who get a marriage license do not go through with the marriage. The recorder's office registers those who do actually wed, but the license application contains more personal information.

10
. I contacted Terry Murphy, the outside consultant to Wynn who had worked on the campaign. “It's a matter of guest privacy,” she told me when she declined to talk about the marketing campaign.