Go Lean Commentary
Numbers don’t lie!
Especially if those numbers are the balance statements of bank accounts. Either one has the money, or they don’t.
Increasingly in the casino/gaming industries, the money is not there.
Why?
Despite the fact that the “house” always wins, the number of gamblers have declined! It is what it is!
- 87% of Baby-Boomers gamble when visiting Las Vegas
- 78% of Generation X-ers gamble when visiting Las Vegas
- 63% of Millenials gamble when visiting Las Vegas
The following news article/VIDEO depicts that change is afoot. There are less and less gamblers participating in “games of chance” at casinos. These establishments can complain or change along with the demographics. This VIDEO portrays an attempt for Las Vegas casinos to change, to adapt to the indisputable societal factors. See VIDEO here:
VIDEO Title: Vegas casinos place bets on video game gambling http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/vegas-casinos-place-bets-on-video-game-gambling/
October 7, 2015 – Casino revenue on the Las Vegas strip dropped nearly 5 percent in August [2015]. That’s the third straight month of declines. This comes as Sin City tries to lure the next generation of gamblers. While slot machines are still one of the world’s best moneymakers, casinos are having a tough time getting young people to sit down at them. Ben Tracy reports on what casinos have planned to appeal to millennials. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).
This is a very important issue for Caribbean consideration, as casino gambling has often been associated with Caribbean resorts. Even now there are new casino projects under development. In a previous blog, this commentary posited that “doubling down” the bet on casinos was a flawed strategy for the region’s governments and business institutions.
Alas, there is the potential for a lot of money to still be made in the casino/gaming industries if only the product can evolve to keep pace with the changing demographics of the marketplace.
Enter “technology-based” games.
This article aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which calls for the elevation of Caribbean economics and an embrace of more technology. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to better manage change and emerging technology in the Caribbean region. This is a big deal for the Caribbean, as technology (internet and communications technologies) is being pitched in the Go Lean roadmap as an equalizing element for the Caribbean region in competition with the rest of the world. This hope was identified early in the Go Lean book (Page14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:
xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.
The Go Lean book posits that there is a need to re-boot and optimize the engines of commerce so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. The tourism product, the mainstay of Caribbean economy, used to depend on certain amenities (i.e. Golf) that have now come under attack by the social and demographic changes depicted in the foregoing VIDEO. It so appears that the future for Caribbean commerce in the hospitality and gaming industries will not only depend on factors like “sun, sand, surf and smiles”, but now also on “systems”.
This is a changed world and changed marketplace. Likewise, our communities must change to keep pace … and get ahead!
The Go Lean book also addresses the realities of gambling, in that it advocates the adoption of a regional lottery for all 30 member-states of the Caribbean.
The Go Lean/CU roadmap seeks to elevate all of Caribbean society, including the “games people play” to remain competitive and consequential in the future. This is a matter of technology, education, marketing, planning, and econometrics. This is the heavy-lifting of shepherding a progressive region of 42 million people, 10 million Diaspora, 80 million tourists, and 4 language groups across 30 member-states. The CU’s charter is to effectuate progress in this region with these 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and marshal against economic crimes.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.
The foregoing article-VIDEO helps us to appreciate that there will be sustained economic activity in the gambling-gaming industries; a tourism industry mainstay in the Caribbean. This means future jobs. The quest to create the jobs (and work force) for the near-future is paramount in the Go Lean roadmap. Early in the book, the responsibility to monitor, manage, and plan for new jobs were identified as an important function for the CU with this pronouncement in the same Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13):
xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism… – impacting the region with more jobs.
The Caribbean must contend with the challenges of demographic change. There are 3 kinds of people in the world:
- Those who make things happen
- Those who watch things happen
- Those who wonder “what happened?”
Whereas, this latter description may have been our disposition in the past, we can no longer afford this status. Our situation is quite dire now, as we have lost vast numbers of our populations to societal abandonment because as a community, we have failed to keep pace of change. Our society is now in desperate need of reform and reboot to insulate from many demographic changes. On the one hand, we must diversify our economy and avail other high job-multiplier industries, away from tourism, but on the other hand, we must double down in the tourism product, as the economic principles of “supply and demand” just cannot be ignored. (During the winter months, our Caribbean destinations are the “best addresses on the planet”).
The Go Lean… Caribbean book details this quandary. It qualifies the community ethos to adopt to diversify our economy and proactively mitigate the dire effects of the changed demographic landscape; plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:
| Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives | Page 21 |
| Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future | Page 21 |
| Community Ethos – Job Multiplier | Page 22 |
| Community Ethos – Lean Operations | Page 24 |
| Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) | Page 24 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future | Page 26 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – STEM Career Options | Page 27 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship – Incubators Role | Page 28 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property | Page 29 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development | Page 30 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide | Page 31 |
| Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good | Page 37 |
| Strategy – Vision – Best Address on the Planet | Page 45 |
| Strategy – Vision – Integrate Region in a Single Market | Page 45 |
| Strategy – Mission – Embrace the Advances of Technology & Incentivize Participation | Page 46 |
| Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy | Page 64 |
| Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy | Page 67 |
| Tactical – Separation of Powers | Page 71 |
| Implementation – Ways to Deliver | Page 109 |
| Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better | Page 131 |
| Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008 | Page 136 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy | Page 151 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs | Page 152 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism | Page 190 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events | Page 191 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology | Page 197 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce | Page 198 |
| Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Lottery – Regional Caribbean Option | Page 213 |
This commentary is not advocating betting on casino gambling, (this practice is considered a vice), but rather betting on technology.
The Go Lean/CU roadmap calls for fostering industrial developments to aid tourism, incorporating best practices and quality assurances to deliver the best experience in the world. This must also include creating technology products to make gaming more appealing for the millennial generations. The realities of technology is that these developments can be produced anywhere in the world. So why not here? We have a lot at stake already.
If we successfully incubate a gaming technology industry here at home, we would create jobs right here at home. If, on the other hand, if we incubate gaming technology and the world is not receptive to our creations, we would have still created a workforce with very marketable skills, looking for opportunities to ply their trade. This is win-win! The Caribbean “house” will only win.
This commentary has previously related details of the changing macro-economic factors that affect where and how jobs are created. The following are samples of earlier Go Lean blogs:
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6089 | Where the Jobs Are – Futility of Minimum Wage |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4240 | Immigration Policy Exacerbates Worker Productivity Crisis |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3694 | Jamaica-Canada employment program pumps millions into local economy |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3050 | Obama’s immigration tweaks leave Big Tech wanting more |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2857 | Where the Jobs Are – Entrepreneurism in Junk |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2800 | Where the Jobs Are Not – The Geography of Joblessness |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126 | Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2003 | Where the Jobs Are – One Scenario (Shipbreaking) |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1698 | Where the Jobs Are – STEM Jobs Are Filling Slowly |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596 | Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’ |
According to the foregoing VIDEO, there is new hope for casino gambling, based on technology. For a community, this is not a gamble; this is a sure bet; by embracing technology, the Caribbean region will surely win. This position is based on some reliable economic principles, the principles of money multipliers and job multipliers:
Casinos can create money “from thin air”, getting cash while giving nothing in return (Page 22). As for job multipliers, this principle explains how certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line for each direct job on a company’s payroll. (.i.e. The automotive manufacturing industry was a choice selection with a job-multiplier rate of 11 – Page 260).
So this advocacy to embrace gaming technology is more than a bet; it’s a sure formula for success. This is a “play” that the Caribbean must make and cannot lose. The “house” always wins.
The Caribbean can be the best destination on the planet, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂