HOW CASINOS HOOK YOU

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Sharon Willman was what the folks who run the local riverboat casino called a good customer. She played often, and she bet big. She lost many thousands of dollars. So when she stopped cruising on the Station Casino riverboat off St. Charles, Mo., the folks were naturally concerned. They sent her lots of nice invitations to parties and get-togethers to try to get her back. They kept at it. They even sent her a personal invitation to an exclusive "cocktail party" at the casino, where she and other "big winners'" would "become part of the action" in the shooting of a TV commercial. "The cameras will be looking for your big smile," the letter chirped, "and listening as you tell them why you play at the casino."

That may seem like an innocent enough come-on. But the unfortunate fact is that Willman, 53, is a compulsive gambler who lost so much money at Station Casino that to protect herself, she arranged to be legally barred from entering the riverboat and taken off its mailing lists. In spite of these efforts, the casino continues to send her a steady stream of solicitations--even though it is now exhorting her to commit an act of criminal trespass. "The mailings just keep on coming," she says. She was told by the management of Station Casino that its computerized database would not, for some unfathomable reason, allow her name to be deleted. Call it compulsive marketing.

Willman's plight is more than just a bit of local promotion gone haywire. It is a direct result of the gambling industry's frenzied competition for players at a time when saturated markets are putting sharp downward pressure on gaming companies' earnings. In overbuilt markets like Atlantic City, N.J., Tunica, Miss., and St. Louis, Mo., the ability to win now the real, revenue-generating gamblers from the $50-a-day dilettantes has become nothing less than a matter of survival.

So casinos are, as never before, making it their business to know who their customers are, building vast databases and utilizing the techniques of direct-mail marketing to zero in on specific consumers. As the gaming industry cranks up these sophisticated new techniques to seek out new customers, it's coming under scrutiny for targeting--knowingly or not--pathological gamblers like Willman. Indeed, a federal commission will soon start hearings into just such marketing practices.