Are there REALLY any difference between casinos within a group?

[Westland Bowl]

A number of casinos groups have 4 or more casinos. Does each casino within a group have their own staff and separate cash reserves from other casinos within the same group?

For example, Vegas Partners has 5 casinos listed in the accredited list. Is Vegas Partners really ONE casino but with 5 different "skins?" With the pending decision of Microgaming to not accept new US players this coming Monday, does it make any difference to whether I sign up with ALL 5 casinos or just one of them? (I already have an account with 777 Dragon.)

[pubjoe]

I'll have a go at a reply seeing as no one else has, but I have no knowlege of the groups beyond being a customer myself.

I'm pretty sure they are just slightly different skins of the same casino. I know that casino rewards, belle rock and vegas lounge state that a welcome bonus cannot be claimed again at a partner casino within their groups. If you contact CS, they can serve you on any issue involving any of the family of casinos and they have access to all history. Some partner sites (ie: canbet & iasbet) even carry incomplete WR over from one casino's account to the other!

I'm not sure why they do this. Tax reasons? Broader customer base? Baiting re-sign-ups by problem gamblers who have previously closed a "partner" account? Maybe it makes the brand appear bigger? Maybe researchers have found that some people will only play at "palace" themed casinos, some only at "ruby" themed casinos, some at "mummy" and some at "pig" themes???

Whatever the reasons are, it must be pretty easy to knock up a new logo and a flash animated splash screen and call it a new casino, so I suppose the small outlay quickly pays for itself if it means that "joe (gambling loving and pig loving) public" can now combine his two favourite things!

[kimss]

Originally Posted by pubjoe

Whatever the reasons are, it must be pretty easy to knock up a new logo and a flash animated splash screen and call it a new casino, so I suppose the small outlay quickly pays for itself if it means that "joe (gambling loving and pig loving) public" can now combine his two favourite things!

There are several aspects here which we simply do not know the facts for, mainly if MG gives a rebate on their licensing for the different casinos. Also, does different installations require seperate servers, I would suppose so. Anyways, easy to do some IP checks where traffic goes - however it doesn't change anything for the players.

I would suspect the reason for having more casinos is to to have different styles. A typical scenario could be:

1. Main casino for average players.
2. Second casino promoting high rollers, and bonuses made for this kind of players
3. Third casino promoting bonuses for all, to get the bonus whores.
and so on.

There are so many casinos out there, so surely having more than one is better - since if we loose much we want another - if we win much we want another! Point is - having atleast 2 is good! Also, if we like the main one, we most likely will deposit in their others aswell!

Obviously MG charges a heavy license for each casino, otherwise we would see alot more casios popping up all over the place.

I personally believe each casino run on their own servers, so that all history pr player is unique to the casino installation. After this - the CS people has access to all the different casinos from their different backend logins, so in reality you have the same CS people serving all customers in the group at all times if you like. However, if you have broad customer base and take CS seriously you would make sure each casino has their own personel.

This is really business ABC, and is no different from a McDonalds franchise in my opinion - atleast there are no reason for it to be.

[pubjoe]

I'd like to hear an official response actually.

I know what you mean about the high roller/low roller/bonus whore separation but in my experience, IE: palace group, all the bonuses are near enough the same and all the bet limits are exactly the same, there really is no difference between the casinos other than the "skin".

Would it be much more expensive to add an additional server as it is to increase a single server's capacity? I thought that microgaming's own servers are used to generate game outcome.

I can't think of any extended periods of downtime at microgaming casinos (apart from a short lived game crash/kickout). Do they run a large multiple array of servers as backup to maintain this efficiency? Having this hardware already in place, would it take much more for a group's own resources to add another "skin"?

I think the expense to add another partner must be relatively small, because there really is a quite large amount of such partners.

[kimss]

Originally Posted by pubjoe

I think the expense to add another partner must be relatively small, because there really is a quite large amount of such partners.

Just for the argument, just because you purchased one Windows Server license doesn't mean you could install as many as youd like... Just like CM, I am pretty sure he puchased the license for this vBulletin board - and if he installs the board at another website he has to pay a new license...

I do not thing MG is in the rebate business, after all - why should they?

But as noted, we need people in the industry to answer theese questions as they are the only ones that know. But just as MG never responded to my enquieries, I suspect the people in the business have no interest in answering theese questions here. After all - we are customers - and we have no interest in nosing around in how they run their franchise,

I would have to eat my hat if someone accually responded to this.

[pubjoe]

Originally Posted by kimss

Just for the argument, just because you purchased one Windows Server license doesn't mean you could install as many as youd like... Just like CM, I am pretty sure he puchased the license for this vBulletin board - and if he installs the board at another website he has to pay a new license...

I do not thing MG is in the rebate business, after all - why should they?

But as noted, we need people in the industry to answer theese questions as they are the only ones that know. But just as MG never responded to my enquieries, I suspect the people in the business have no interest in answering theese questions here. After all - we are customers - and we have no interest in nosing around in how they run their franchise,

I would have to eat my hat if someone accually responded to this.

Me too. All we can do is guess atm. But it is fun being nosey.

God knows if microgaming do a discount on purchases of several licences. But it just seems that every microgaming customer opts to make various casino skins within their group.

I reckon there is a deal on multiples of 4 licences.

[Luigi810]

I use to play 3 different casinos with RTG, everytime I went to chat I had the same person for all 3 casinos..
As for MG casinos, you need to sign up with all the casinos you want to play at, not just the one..Hope this helps

[KasinoKing]

Originally Posted by Luigi810

I use to play 3 different casinos with RTG, everytime I went to chat I had the same person for all 3 casinos..

As for MG casinos, you need to sign up with all the casinos you want to play at, not just the one..Hope this helps

I totally agree.
There have been quite a lot of changes & mergers of casino groups over the last 12-months, and even several MG casinos closing down completely.

This latest move will only lead to far more of this IMHO, so if I was in the USA I would be registering accounts at every single available MG casino before Sunday (no need to deposit or play), just in case my personal favorite(s) gets closed down or pulls out of the USA completely in the near future...

[AudiManinBoro]

I actually have a sneaky suspicion that ALL mg casinos run thru the same server ( at least initially) Reason for this? LAst night i tried to log onto a mg casino, it wouldnt connect. So i tried a second. Same. tried a third. No connect. I tried 6 mg casinos and not one of them would get past the initial connect stage. Half an hour later, they all worked again. If theirs no kind of central server for all Mg, how does this possibly explain? And no my internet connection was fine, web browising, playtech, rtg and rival would all connect, justthe mg which wouldnt.