The Chinese and Gambling
Introduction
The literature review included a brief history of Chinese gambling and the impact of the Chinese on Las Vegas, as well as Chinese culture, Chinese gambling characteristics, Chinese communication styles, and casino customer service.
The Chinese are known worldwide for their high interest in gambling activities, and a quick look through Chinese history shows that the Chinese people have a long documented history of gambling. The first record of gambling can be traced back to the Xie dynasty and the Shang dynasty, about 4,000 years ago.
The oldest form of gambling game in China is the Keno, similar to the modern-day lottery. China’s first modern casino emerged in the Shanghai International Settlement and Shanghai French Concession. Many popular games such as Pai gow, fan tan, and mahjong that are now played worldwide are believed to have originated in China.
Despite this long history, there have also been times when public commercial gambling has been banned by authorities that recognized the damage that of pathological gambling could cause to society, but shortly after, it was legalized again, due to the financial importance of gambling to the economy.
Even in 1949, when the newly established government of the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) completely ended commercial gambling in Mainland China, a state-run lottery system was established about 20 years later, generating billions of dollars every year to fund government organizations (“Mainland China,” 2008).
The Chinese traditionally enjoy and cherish gambling as a social activity. For a long time, regardless of the official attitude of the government towards commercial gambling, the majority of Chinese considered gambling an accepted practice at home and a social event, even among the young, that brings people together for excitement and interaction.
Games like Mahjong, deeply ingrained in the Chinese, that people play with their family and friends, often for money, can be found playing in every corner of China is not considered gambling.
In 1999, after almost 450 years of colonial administration in Macau, Portugal handed the administration of Macau back to the Chinese, making Macau the only entity on the Chinese mainland where gambling is legal (Portal do Governo da RAE de Macau, 2004). In 2002, the new Macau government ended Stanley Ho’s 40-year monopoly concession; five outside gaming licenses, three from America, were granted to build competing resorts and casinos.
Along with the growing Chinese economy and the P.R.C government’s eased entry for the Chinese to Macau, in 2006 Macau surpassed Las Vegas in gambling revenue as the biggest gaming city in the world. “It took 50 years to build Las Vegas, and this little enclave surpassed it in four,” said Philip Wang, MGM’S president for International Marketing.
It’s hard to put an exact number on the tremendous amount of money contributed by the Chinese every year to the gambling industry around the world. According to the China Center for Lottery Studies at Beijing University, an estimated more than 600 billion yuan-- about 87.84 billion USD-- in gambling money goes overseas from China every year.
Many countries near the Chinese border, such as Myanmar and Vietnam, are building large-scale casinos to attract Chinese gamblers to spend their money while forbidding the locals to enter. In Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia, Chinese gamblers are the major overseas visitors for their casinos.
A spokesperson from Marina Bay Sands told China Daily, “With its growing middle-class population, China is an attractive market for us. We consciously cater to the needs of Chinese guests, from the way they like to be greeted to the way they like their food served”. The Chinese reputation for being gambling enthusiasts is growing all over the world.
The Chinese and Las Vegas
Because of many Chinese gambling movies and TV dramas, in which Las Vegas was frequently featured as the final destination, the paradise, and the ultimate city of gambling; Las Vegas is very well known among the Chinese.
However, the relationship between the Chinese and Nevada actually can be dated back to the early 1860s, when Chinese immigrants made up two-thirds of the workforce that built the Pacific Central Railroad, which helped to connect Nevada to the rest of the country. Now, 150 years later, Chinese people still play a very important role in the Las Vegas economy.
For decades, the city has gone all out to celebrate Chinese New Year, the most important holiday of the Chinese. The holiday ranks among the busiest times on the Strip, after only the Super Bowl weekend, bringing thousands of domestic and international tourists to Las Vegas and generating millions of dollars in the city’s economy, particularly in gaming. The celebration of the holiday attracts higher-end customers from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, who spend more than the average tourist, especially on the casino floor games like baccarat.
That’s why while properties like Caesars Palace have celebrated the Chinese New Year for more than 35 years, newer properties like the M Resort have started to celebrate the holiday as well. Two decades ago, when Baccarat was first played in Las Vegas, there were few tables to choose from.
During the 1970s, there were reportedly only 15 tables in all of Las Vegas, and most of these tables were open only part-time, during busy shifts. Today, it is easy to spot a baccarat table in casinos throughout Las Vegas, and even the smaller-scale local casinos are offering mini-baccarat.
This is significant because baccarat is extremely popular in China, and is the favorite game of high rolling Chinese tourists in Las Vegas. Baccarat players wagered $10.7 billion in 2010 on the Strip, a 24% increase from 2009, making baccarat the only Nevada game that is growing despite the economic downturn. Its revenue has grown by $280 million since 2007. In March 2010, on a same-store basis, while the total gaming revenue declined by 8.0%, baccarat and mini-baccarat revenues were up 57.2%, peaking at $1.2 billion. For the first time last year, baccarat generated more revenue than blackjack, the most-played table game in Nevada casinos.
With the increased recognition of the importance of Chinese customers and their preferences, several changes have been made in recent years. The MGM Grand changed their main lion mouth entrance only a few years after building it in order to avoid a Chinese bad luck symbol. Other properties have redesigned a large portion of casino floors, adding Chinese furniture.
Caesars Entertainments imported carved wood from China to house hundreds of baccarat tables and Pai Gow poker, which is based on ancient Chinese dominoes games. In the Encore Las Vegas, red is the dominant color on the casino floor. Butterfly patterns are everywhere, and the floor numbers in the elevator panel from 40 to 49 are missing as a concession to Chinese superstition.
Gambling Across Cultures
According to Per Binde's study of gambling across cultures, extensive ethnographic, and historical evidence strongly suggests that gambling is not a universal phenomenon and does not exist in all cultures in a similar way. Gambling is a social, cultural, and economic phenomenon, an extremely flexible way of redistributing wealth, which is embedded in the socio-cultural systems of societies.
Factors like the presence of commercial money, societal complexity, type of social and economic system, risk and uncertainty, religion and belief systems, cultural diffusion, and contiguous areas of gambling and non-gambling can promote or restrain gambling activities.
Types of social and economic systems play a remarkable role in explaining why people gamble. Friedman’s savage utility function explains that people wish to use the cost of, for example, a lottery ticket to win the extra money to help them move to a higher social class.
However, others have argued that Friedman’s savage theory ignores the utility value of gambling itself, such as the excitement of winning and risking, entertainment, buying a dream of wealth and prosperity, and showing possession of wealth.
Lenski argued that an environment in which there exists a high degree of uncertainty would imply a higher probability of the appearance of games of chance; but Pryor argues that many cultural groups, such as the Australian Aborigines, have little control over the environment they live in, but no games of chance exist in their culture. The hardness of the environment has no correlation with gambling.
It is suggested that, theoretically, gambling is encouraged in societies in which people’s individual risk taking behavior is culturally construed as a positive characteristic.
Gambling and religion are often believed to be opposed; however, that is not the case, because the relationship between gambling and religion is either a state of concord or of conflict.
However, most of the time, gambling and religion go well together because there are several factors, such as mystery, fate, the unknown, destiny, getting something valuable from mysterious higher powers, and the wish for a better life.
In some societies with religions, such as Islam and Buddhism, it is more likely the societies will outlaw gambling; however, history shows that criticism and prohibition does not necessarily stop people from gambling.
Gambling has often continued underground.
Townshend suggested that the complexity of a society is closely related to the presence of the types of games and the games of strategy. It is believed that the more complex a society, the more the types of games and games of strategy are present.
It is also believed that societies with indigenous gambling appear to be a cluster geographically.
Tylor also suggested that people from different regions but who have cultural contacts will tend to like to play similar games.
Chinese Superstition Culture
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, superstition is “unreasoning awe or fear of something unknown, mysterious, or imaginary, especially in connection with religion.”
The Chinese tend to be superstitious, and many of these superstitious beliefs have existed for thousands of years. Common superstitions associate colors, numbers, animals and objects with good or bad luck.
Studies about superstitions and how superstitions can influence people’s behavior show that traditional Western superstitious beliefs do not apply to the Chinese. The ideas and values in different cultures may result in superstitions that take different forms and have different influences on people’s lives.
In the study done by Li & Ching of the Chinese superstitious belief scale, six dimensions: homonym traditional customs, power of crystal, horoscope, feng-shui, and luck for gambling, were rated, along with 25 superstitious thoughts, none of which were cross-loaded on another.
The results show that all six factors’ values of Cronbach α were above 75. This strongly supported the idea that many Chinese superstitions affect the daily lives of Chinese people in various ways. Below is a brief introduction to the common superstition practices among the Chinese.
Feng-shui
Feng-shui literally means wind (feng) and water (shui). It refers to the ancient Chinese art of creating harmony between inhabitants and their environment. Feng-shui has gone global in the business world as many Western companies have employed feng-shui experts as consultants.
For Chinese people, it is believed that the position of a building and the interior design and arrangement of furniture can influence what happens to the people inside the building. It studies the influence of environment on human fortune.
The purpose of feng-shui is to improve good environmental influences of a living space on its occupants and to avoid the bad ones. As mentioned earlier, MGM changed its lion mouth entry because walking through a lion's mouth is considered bad feng-shui, and will bring people bad luck.
Most Asian visitors were reluctant to enter; and soon the lion was replaced with a more traditional entrance.
Homonyms
Numerical homonyms. Unlike Western cultures, which believe in lucky 7 and unlucky 13, in traditional Chinese superstition the numerical digits 8 and 6 are associated with prosperity and good luck and the digit 4 is associated with death and unlucky. The pronunciation of the word for 8 in Chinese is “ba,” which very close to the pronunciation of the word “fa”(meaning prosperity), and the number 6 symbolizes smoothness of an event and success in Chinese.
However, the number 4 has a similar pronunciation to the word “si” (meaning death), and is unlucky. These beliefs affect the decision of many Chinese people when they choose a telephone number, a license plate, or the floor on which to buy an apartment.
Even in the business world, these beliefs affect the decision when pricing products and avoiding bad digits when numbering the floors and rooms of apartment buildings.
This explains why, in Encore Las Vegas, the floor numbers from 40 to 49 are missing.
Word homonyms. In Chinese superstition culture, many Chinese words symbolize good or bad luck. For example, during the Chinese New Year, people eat fish to represent the Chinese saying of “nian nian you yu” meaning that you will have more than you need it in the coming year, because the pronunciation of fish (“yu”) means extra in Chinese.
And one should never give a clock as gift to someone, because in Chinese clock is pronounced “zhong,” giving the word for clock a pronunciation similar to that of “song zhong,” meaning handling the funeral affairs of seniors, which is an unlucky term for people still alive.
Some people who buy lottery tickets eat “zongzi,” because “zong” sounds like the word for “win.” These superstition beliefs are all generated from homonyms between Chinese (Mandarin) words, and people are very careful when using the specific homonyms to pursue good luck or avoid bad luck.
Traditional customs
Some practices in Chinese culture are considered to represent good luck and bad luck as well. For example, people worry about bad luck and put a mirror at the front door to reflect bad luck away. It's also said that a bed should never face a mirror.
Houses should be completely clean before Chinese New Year’s Day and on the Chinese New Year’s Eve, all brooms, brushes, dusters, dust pans and other cleaning equipment need to be put away. Sweeping or dusting should not be done on New Year’s Day for fear that good fortune will be swept away.
The color red color represents luck and fortune; during Chinese New Year, wearing red cloth and decorating living space with red will bring happiness and fortune to the coming new year.
Luck in gambling
Similarly, gambling luck is associated with specific practices in Chinese superstition culture. As the chance of winning in gambling can’t be controlled physically, Chinese gamblers look to the metaphysical solution promised by many of their superstitious beliefs.
Even though not all who practice them necessarily believe in them, they are nonetheless accepted either because of mere superstition or as a cultural tradition.
Many gamblers believe that picking the right numbers can affect their fortune when gambling.
For example, they purposely avoid hotel room numbers ending with 4 (sounds similar to death in Mandarin) and 58 (sounds similar to “won't prosper”). Instead, gamblers select auspicious hotel room numbers like 84 (similar to “prosperous till death”), 1388 (similar to “prosper for a long time”), 168 (similar to “prosper all the way”) and 998 (“prosper for a long time”). However, picking the wrong number or combination of numbers can be a source of misfortune and very unlucky.
For example, if a gambler takes a bus with the licenses plate of 1358 (similar to “won't prosper in one's lifetime”) or carrying cash in the amount of 9958 (similar to “won't prosper for a long time”) can be a reason to blame when they lose money in the casino.
Not only numbers, but certain words are considered unlucky to say to someone before they go to gamble or during any gambling event. For example, book (sounds like “lose” in Chinese) or read book (sounds similar to “lose in gambling”) are words that need to be avoided for many superstitious Chinese gamblers.
Many baccarat players shout out loud the word “ding” in Mandarin when peeling cards to stop bad cards from appearing. They also shout out other words like “cheui” or “jin” in Cantonese to blow away the number they don’t want or reduce the size of the number(s).
Chinese gamblers sometimes also preform ritual practices to get as much blessing and luck as they can from their gods, especially the fortune god. Offering fruits, lighting up a joss stick or making prayers are some of the practices they do before gamble.
Wearing red underwear to gamble is a practice that is commonly believed to bring good luck to the gambler, since red represents good luck and happiness. Going to urinate or wash hands is believed to help change someone's luck who has been losing money, but one who has been winning should definitely not wash their hands, because it can wash the good luck away.
Shoulder touching is inappropriate when someone is gambling, because it is believed to bring bad luck to the gambler.
Many Chinese gamblers also avoid entering casinos from the main gate as they believed it has been blessed by the Feng-shui expert to favor the casinos. Some gamblers are also very careful about which seat they choose to sit down at around the tale, because they believe the Feng-shui of each seat is different which can seriously affect their luck. Also important to consider are which direction the table is facing, the surroundings of the tables (close to the entrance, next to the toilet, etc.) and the design and decoration of the casino.
Gambling Characteristics of People from the Chinese Culture
Several studies on gambling motivation across cultures have indicated that compared with players from the Western culture, players from the Chinese culture have their own characteristics. It is believed that Chinese gamblers often take a higher risk compared with players from Western cultures.
Ozorio & Fong, using a Macau sample, found that the average bet-to-income ratio among the Mainland Chinese was 0.72, significantly higher than other groups of visitors even though the Mainland Chinese spend less money per gambling visit.
The reason behind this is suggested to be that, because of China’s emerging focus on capitalism and the economic booming, there is a positive relationship between gambling risk taking and investment risk taking. People participating in gambling believe that these risks are instrumental to the realization of profits to improve their living conditions in the shortest possible time.
The Chinese take gambling seriously. When money is involved, there is less interest in the process of gambling but more concern with the result.
This supported by the study done by Raylu & Oei about cross culture gambling motivations, which indicated that the Chinese group showed significantly higher levels of anxiety and stress than did the Caucasians, and lower levels of fun and excitement.
Additionally, for most Chinese, the point of gambling is to use their mastery of the games to show off their gambling skills and gain monetary excitement.
Chinese gamblers also show a greater illusion of control as compared with players from Western cultures.
This is most likely a result of the Chinese luck-oriented culture. They believe that certain practices during the gambling process, for example, sitting at tables which they believe to be lucky, comparing predictions and real outcomes to test their skills, and trying to peel cards to change gambling outcomes or get the number they want. Belief that gambling results can be predicted and controlled is common among the Chinese.
Chinese gamblers prefer intellectual and highly engaging games, games that can provide the players with social values, such as baccarat-- rather than individual games such as slot machines.
This behavior is believed to stem from a communal background that emphasizes social interaction and their culture’s views of luck, fate and destiny.
Even the few Chinese players who prefer slot machines like the ones based on chance rather than those that, like video poker, require some decision making.
In sum, Chinese players tend to show a higher illusion of control; more risk-orientation, influenced by Chinese luck-oriented thinking instead of probabilistic thinking; less need of emotional satisfaction in gaming; lower levels of pursuing fun and excitement, higher levels of avoidance of stress, anxiety, and depression; and less desire for learning and accomplishing.
Chinese Communication Style
China is a high-context communication style culture. A high-context culture communicates with implicit messages whose meaning can only be inferred from the context, and the receiver of the message reads between the lines.
Research conducted by Gao and Ting-Tommey on Chinese communication has shown that there are five distinctive characteristics of Chinese communication: implicit communication (hanxu), listening-centered communication (tinghua), polite communication (keqi), insider-communication (zijiren), and face-directed communication (mianzi).
“Hanxu” means to contain and to save. It suggests an implicit and indirect Chinese communication style. To be hanxu, one does not spell out everything but leaves the unspoken to the listeners. “Tinghua” refers to a listening-centered communication style.
To the Chinese, not everyone is entitled to speak, thus a spoken voice is equated with seniority, authority, age, experience, knowledge, and expertise. “Keqi” generally means polite, courteous, modest, humble and well-mannered. The polite communication style is a basic communication principle in Chinese everyday communication.
“Zijiren” means insider, as opposed to “wairen,” outsider; the Chinese tendency is to become highly involved in conversation with the insider, but rarely speak to strangers (outsiders). The insider effect suggests that the type of relationship determines what is communicated and how information should be transmitted. “Minazi” is the face or image of a person’s in-group moral reputation as well as his or her prestige. The Chinese relationshiporiented culture determines that face permeates every aspect of interpersonal relationship in Chinese communication.
However, China’s enormous economic development and direct contact with foreign technologies, cultures and lifestyles during the past three decades have significantly affected Chinese values, behaviors, and communication style. Nevertheless, neither the traditional Chinese cultural values nor communication characteristics have disappeared. Rather, both the traditional and new cultural values and communication characteristics are more and more visibly coexisting in today’s Chinese society.
Casino Customer Service
It is widely recognized that high quality of service and enhancing customer satisfaction are important factors in the success of companies in the hospitality industry. Other studies also indicate that customer satisfaction and service quality are the two main factors of customer behavioral intention to recommend and repurchase In the gambling industry, games offered by the casinos represent the core service that casino players seek. However, it is hard for casino players to differentiate between casinos at the same level, especially in a mature market like Las Vegas.
The games and amenities offered by same-level casinos are similar. What one large casino has, all other large casinos have as well. For the world best online casinos to stand out and prosper in an environment of increased competition, they must provide a better guest experience. Apart from the games offered, all the other services, such as the service delivery provided by the employees and physical service environment, can work to enhance the service experience of customers in a casino.
In high-contact settings such as the service market, it is common that customers consider supplemental services, such as the physical service setting and the service delivery process, to be more important than the core service. Furthermore, these service–related elements also play an important role in allowing a firm to differentiate its value from others and provide a special position among their customers.
Research suggests that the main reason for the Chinese to visit casinos is gambling. However, according to the study done by Wong & Fong examining service quality in Macau, while Chinese customers perceive the game service as the fundamental element to their gambling experience, comfort and hospitality are crucial as well.
Thus, offering a variety of games is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for service satisfaction. Chinese casino customers regard a superior service environment as valuable, and intimate interpersonal interaction from the service they received could surpass their customer service expectations and thus, enhance their satisfaction level.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for casino management or staff to have little knowledge of their Chinese customers, for example, offering cocktail services during the peak of the games, expressing displeasure at some superstitious baccarat behaviors such as shouting “ding” when peeling cards or rudely forbidding them to squeeze the cards.
Despite the money to be made from Chinese high rollers, in Las Vegas, except for the Asian gaming pits and restaurants at several casinos and Asian inspired décor at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore, no public marketing effort has targeted the Chinese in recent years.
There are no Chinese character signs at McCarran International Airport to welcome Chinese tourists, and no casinos have gone out of their way to hire Chinese-speaking hosts or other casino employees who can better converse with the Chinese. The result of this lack of knowledge will only creates a negative image, reflect poor customer service, and show an absence of cultural sensitivity.
Conclusion
The literature review shows us that financially, Chinese customers are extremely important to the Las Vegas gaming market. Chinese cultural factors such as superstitions, gambling characteristics and communication styles demonstrate that Chinese customers have different needs, expectations, and service requirements than those of the customers from Western cultures.
In order to increase the satisfaction of Chinese guests and in turn, increase patronage among the Chinese customers, learning how to adjust the customer services offered by casinos to meet and or surpass their different needs, expectations and service requirements is the key.