
Casinos and event organisers have more in common than either might expect. Both move large crowds through big rooms, both identify people with a card or a tag, and both care a great deal about queues, data and what guests do next. Many of the largest trade shows are held at casino resorts, and the gaming industry runs major expos of its own.
This section looks at casinos, sports betting and poker from an event technologist's point of view: RFID chips, player cards, cashless wallets and sportsbooks at stadiums, as well as the practical side of running a show in a resort. It is written for readers in the events trade who are curious about how the gaming floor solves problems they face themselves.
Casinos put radio tags inside their chips long before most trade shows put them in badges. What the two worlds share.
Good poker players think in expected value, not single results. The same arithmetic can change how a booth team ranks leads.
G2E and ICE draw tens of thousands of visitors to halls full of casino equipment. Why their access rules are stricter than most.
Slot clubs learned long ago how to turn a small plastic card into useful data. What event organisers can take from that history.
Las Vegas resorts have some of the world's largest meeting spaces. What changes for badges, signal and routes when the hall is next to a casino.
Trade shows experimented with badges that could pay for things. Casinos are now moving their slot floors the same way.
Legal betting has moved into arenas and onto phones. What marketers running fan activations can learn from sportsbook data habits.
Photos on this page via Wikimedia Commons: Andrew Milligan sumo (CC BY 2.0); David Condrey (CC BY-SA 4.0); Logan Ingalls from South Boston, MA, USA (CC BY 2.0); Zarateman (CC0); Jim G from Silicon Valley, CA, USA (CC BY 2.0); Zyrckonicks (CC BY-SA 4.0); FASTILY (CC BY-SA 4.0); Daniel Lobo (CC0).