Casinos in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are targeting Asian-American gamblers by focusing as much on buffet tables as on gaming tables. They try to pull customers from Atlantic City, N.J., and tribal casinos farther north.
Dover Downs and Delaware Park are hiring directors of Asian-American player development, expanding dining areas and menus, and considering foreign-language advertising in newspapers and on billboards.
Asian-American gamblers in the region typically have had to travel to Atlantic City or to tribal casinos in Connecticut to play their favorite games, often arriving on buses from major metropolitan areas such as Boston, New York and Washington.
Now, casino operators in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will compete for many of those players, especially from the Baltimore-Washington area.
John Finamore, head of regional operations for Penn National Gaming, which is adding table games at its casinos in Charles Town, West Virginia., and near Hershey, Pennsyvania, said there are roughly half a million Asians in the Baltimore-Washington market who can now gamble closer to home. (Source: Randall Chase, AP, Jun 1, 2010).)