New York, NY (Top40 Charts) When it comes to the success of an entertainment venue, music can play a crucial role. The right choice of background tunes will cultivate an atmosphere that encourages customers to engage with everything that's on offer.
That's why, as anyone who's visited the casinos of the world will have experienced, there's a certain type of music played that doesn't really change from casino to casino or even country to country.
Whether you walk into the Casino de Monte Carlo in Monaco or the glittering Bellagio in Vegas, it's highly unlikely that you'll hear your favorite EDM tracks on the gaming floor.
A need to stay relevant
In this digitally focused age, brick and mortar casinos face tough competition from their online counterparts. Much like the impact that technology has had on the music industry -vinyl records became cassettes, then CDs, and more recently, virtual streams - new tech is also transforming real money gaming.
Nowadays, virtual casino platforms like Jackpot Party and online poker rooms are just as popular with gamers as Vegas casinos, particularly the offline casino's target demographic - financially secure 21 to 35-year olds.
Offline casinos need to stay relevant to this highly connected demographic, particularly those that have been open for a few decades.
According to the Press of Atlantic City, several older offline casino operators are modernizing their resorts with extra incentives like luxury spas, trendy restaurants, and bars, and nightclubs.
Newly built casinos, like the spectacular Morpheus Casino and Resort in the City of Dreams, come with these extras as standard, but remodeling an existing venue can cost a lot of time and resources. Instead, the sound design could be used more effectively to optimize existing spaces.
Creating the right environment
The casino floor is a unique environment, filled with sounds that all contribute towards the atmosphere of gaming and wagering. Although a casino can often be busy, with many customers bustling around from table to table, the overall atmosphere still needs to have an element of calmness and serenity, despite its inherent excitement.
On any given night at a casino, you can expect to hear the sounds of dice being rolled, wheels being spun, coins dropping from slot machines, and the very human exclamations of happiness or disappointment as customers win or lose their games of choice.
Whatever music is played on top of this commotion needs to work in harmony, emphasizing the most positive sounds so that customers will want to stay on the floor for longer periods.
How a casino plays music will also affect its efficacy in terms of sound design. According to research, nearly all casinos tend to play the same type of musical genre irrespective of where in the world they are located. Each track will fade into the next one, ensuring that the soundtrack remains constant to fully optimize the gaming environment.
Switching between different genres would be counterproductive since customers would be able to use the tracks as a way to measure time. Instead, playing similar tracks continuously makes it harder to tell when one track has ended and another begun, so customers will be less likely to stop playing and leave. It's also very rare for a casino to not play any music at all on the gaming floor.
Casino-specific musical genres
The music that's typically played in casinos can fall under two categories - fast-paced, or slow, and smooth. Faster paced music, naturally, cultivates a greater sense of excitement and could encourage customers to become more involved with the different games on offer at a casino. On the other hand, smoother music has a different effect, making customers feel more relaxed and secure so they'll likely continue to play for longer.
The ideal music for the casino floor will act as a reinforcement for everything that is happening at the tables and machines. Smooth jazz is undoubtedly the most popular genre played by casinos, it's neutral, in tone and just the right side of familiar. Jazz standards can also work well, as can instrumentals of 'Rat Pack classics' depending on the casino itself and the tempo of the songs.
Whether fast or smooth, however, casino music is never intense or too familiar. Genres like EDM, Metal, and Hard Rock would end up muffling the casino's natural soundtrack, while familiar pop songs or chart-toppers would be too distracting for both players and staff members.
