Vol. 5, No. 10, October 2008
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Q&A with John Pasqualoni
Chief Operating Officer, Resorts
John Pasqualoni’s return to Atlantic City, where he started in gaming, took many years. A slot executive for most of his career, Pasqualoni left the Trump organization in the 1990s to join Foxwoods in Connecticut, where he spent many years running one of the most profitable slot floors in the world. Later, he joined the Seneca Gaming Corp. and became its president in 2005. He was appointed to lead Resorts in August, taking over a struggling property owned by Colony Capital subsidiary Resorts International.Pasqualoni spoke with Casino Connection Managing Editor Marjorie Preston about Resorts’ iconic role as the first casino in Atlantic City, its place in the Atlantic City of today, and its game plan for the future.
Casino Connection: What keeps people coming back to Resorts?
Pasqualoni: Customer service is a major issue—as far as keeping people coming back, it’s as important as anything we do. Personally, I’d rather go to Cheers than some high-end establishment that doesn’t know who I am or care who I am, who just takes my money and see you later. I like to think of us as Cheers, where everybody knows your name, as the song goes.
Do you intend to target young customers and bring in that new demographic?
Our demographic is everybody. It’s not old. It’s not young. If you look at Boogie Nights, our nightclub where we play up the disco theme, sometimes on a Saturday night I see people from 21 years of age to 60. It’s an interesting demographic, but that’s us. We’re just giving people a reason to come here.
You’ve come from an organization, the Senecas, that’s still expanding, to a market that’s fending off competition from other states. Are there principles for growth that you developed in New York that also apply to Atlantic City?
As for something that would change the landscape in Atlantic City, my initial answer would be no. We were lucky up there. We had a favorable market. Our competition was across the river in Canada—it was a beautiful billion-dollar property across the river, and I would love to have had some of that Canadian business, but it’s difficult getting across the border, especially with cash in your pocket. There’s a huge Asian population in Toronto that we couldn’t tap into, so we concentrated on the local market, the Buffalo market and points about 150 miles south of us. We concentrated on the bottom line. We developed the business slowly, watched our margins, watched what we were spending on programming, and brought in some great entertainment. We gave Western New York something that had been missing along the way.
What kind of entertainment?
Pretty similar to what you see in Atlantic City—a lot of headliners. We were lucky, because a lot of performers would come through Buffalo on their way to Canada. Take Alice Cooper. We picked him up on Halloween night.
Good timing.
Our theater at that time only held about 400 people, but for $7,500 we had Alice Cooper on Halloween night with the snake, the whole deal. It was unbelievable.
The snake is still performing?
We had the snake. It was unbelievable. We had Cyndi Lauper up there, same thing. We had great entertainment, but it wasn’t a competitive market. When you look at Niagara Falls versus Atlantic City, from a competitive standpoint I couldn’t compete here with the Borgata, for instance. The cost of acts is really out of our control. It’s the environment that drives the price.
When you left Atlantic City last time, Borgata was not here. Now people hold it up as the standard. Do you consider yourself Borgata’s competitor?
Everybody is a competitor. We compete with the Taj, Showboat, Borgata and everyone else. Every property has something different to offer. If you walk around the casino and watch people playing slots, there isn’t one card on their keychain. There’s five or six or seven. We’re sharing our business in this town, and we need to develop that business further. Unfortunately, some of the mid-week business has been siphoned off by the Philadelphia, New York and Scranton markets.
Does gaming still take precedence over dining, shopping, etc., as the thing that drives people to visit here?
Yes. It’s a combination of everything, but gaming is our business. Entertainment and shopping give people other options, and you can’t expect somebody to come here two or three days and game 24 hours a day. It’s good to do a little shopping, eat in a great restaurant, walk the Boardwalk, enjoy the ocean and the weather. We need more than gaming here, but gaming is still the primary attraction. Otherwise we might as well all take the word “casino” off our buildings.
About Boogie Nights. Is that lightning in a bottle or the result of some demographic study?
It’s lightning in a bottle. It’s flat-out fun. People love to dance, and if you look at today’s music, there’s nothing wrong with it, but you can’t dance to it. At that club, from 10 o’clock on, the dance floor is full and people are having just a fun time.
If I could take Boogie Nights onto the casino floor and Boogie Night the whole casino and have that same kind of fun and action, that would be a major home run.
Do you have the right game mix here at Resorts? Do you feel you need to increase the level of poker or table games?
We’re not a poker house and we don’t pretend to be. So yes, the game mix is where it should be at this time. We’re always refining our slot product, dedicating capital each year to make sure we have the newest and best equipment.
Resorts is the oldest casino in town. How do you change your marketing to make it seem new and fresh? Is that even your goal, or do you like to consider yourself a classic?
First of all, we’re not the oldest casino in town. Maybe part of the building is, but there’s also the Rendezvous Tower, which is only four years old at this point, and a good portion of the casino also is new. So we like to think of ourselves as a property that’s been in business a long time but also offers the newest amenities. An example is the slot equipment. And table games, same thing. We’re up to date on everything we do here. We don’t like to think of Resorts as classic. That sounds old. We pride ourselves on the upkeep of this property and our goal is to make sure guests have a memorable experience every time they visit us.
In years to come, will you expand into the former Chalfonte site?
That’s tough to answer because of the economic mood. Plans come and go and change. Something could be on one day and off the next. Look at Revel, which now plans to build one tower, and Pinnacle, which is holding off on building at all. Then look outside the jurisdiction at Las Vegas and major projects that have been suspended out there. There are reasons why you don’t do master planning today for two or three years from now. It’s because the market is going to change in two or three years.
Even if you don’t make a firm plan for the future, do you pencil something in?
Let’s just say you think about it. Right now, I see this city working on the conference and convention business. That’s what’s going to put people in the rooms. More cash business. We’re looking for all kinds of ways, and in essence, it makes us all a little more creative and keeps us on our toes. We have to continually strive to drag that down to the bottom line. That’s what it’s all about today.
