You're planning a vacation, and figure to
do some gambling. You want to find a
place to play, and factor the costs of lodging
and entertainment into your travel
budget.
You log onto an Internet search engine,
and pull up an address: StatesCasinos.com.
Click on it, and a neatly boxed home page
appears, touting itself with a tagline: "The
Web's Best Hotel Casino Comparisons."
Two dice repeatedly tumble from the lefthand
corner, landing on snake eyes. Go to
the adjacent finder's box and scroll down
and click on any state in the union.Within
seconds, a grid will appear showing key
information for gambling resorts with
lodging in that state or if it isn't one of
the 29 states that has casino gambling
in an adjacent state.
The grid of this free directory lists
names, cities, number of rooms and restaurants,
entertainment, any specials, and the
weather at each resort. Click on these various
categories to get even more information.
For example, is your itinerary taking
you near Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the
banks of the Missouri River? You can
access facts about the Ameristar Hotel
Casino, with its 160 rooms, 10 restaurants
and 3,500-seat Star Arena where if you
plan to be in Council Bluffs on Sept. 8
you can catch that heartthrob balladeer
Michael Bolton. Be prepared, for summer
thunderstorms are possible, although the
temperature still may be balmy. You'll also
be able to click on the link to the
Ameristar's home page, where you can get
the telephone number and other key
details (such as that the Ameristar is the
only AAA Four-Diamond riverboat casino
hotel in the nation).
All this information, just a few keyboard
strokes away.
Great idea? Deborah and David
Schlecht are betting that it is.
Deborah Schlecht is the chief financial
officer for Dades Innovations, which owns
and operates StatesCasinos.com. Dades is
a four-person family operation, including
Schlecht; her daughters, Jennifer and
Nicole, who are part-time data programmers;
and Schlecht's husband, David, president.
He also serves as the technical
expert, and with his wife handles sales and
marketing.
StatesCasinos.com has been up and
running since April. An earlier incarnation
was nv_casinos.html, developed in 1998 by
the Schlecht's DGS Consulting Inc. DGS
provides product, software and Website
consulting for businesses around the world
DGS's site was a single page, with
information manually inserted into a database.
Heavy traffic, Deborah Schlecht says,
precipitated the spin-off to Dades
Innovations, which maintains more than
400 Web pages on the site.
StatesCasinos.com averaged 6,000-plus
daily hits in July and traffic is doubling
each month, David Schlecht says.
Other online casino directories are
geared to cyberspace gambling sites (have
your credit card ready if you want to
wager), or only list brief information about
land-based casinos. StatesCasinos.com has
a special niche: It's a tourist's guide to U.S.
casino properties that include lodging.
And there are no flashing, blinking or
popup windows offering online casino
promotions.
David and Deborah Schlecht answered
the following questions:
What was the genesis of this business
idea?
Nv_casinos.html started as a directory
of hotel-casinos as a service to DGS
Consulting, Inc., Web visitors. The
demand for this page far exceeded expectations.
We investigated other sites on the
Internet and found that none offered sideby-
side comparison. The same investigation
brought to light the stale condition of
data presented by other sites.
How many resorts on average
are listed?
There are currently over 200 hotel-casinos
in 29 states.With the spread of legalized
gambling across America, this number
is growing rapidly and maintaining an
up-to-date database is a high priority. Our
visitors have expressed interest in information
on casinos outside the USA so we will
consider expanding the database in the
near future.
What else is listed on your site?
Information on casinos, hotel-casinos,
riverboats and cruises. Since this site is primarily
geared toward travel, establishments
without accommodations generally
are not listed. Only if requested by our visitors,
we will occasionally add such links.
We also provide links to other sites in the
industry, including travel sites, gamblingpublication
sites, restaurants, other casino
directories and online casino directories.
How often is the site updated?
We update the site daily, five days a
week, and sometimes on weekends. We
check casino specials and entertainment
monthly, but will update a property's information
whenever we receive faxes and emails
with current specials and information
from the establishments.
How do you verify information, and
how often?
Our information is verified by information
on a casino's Website twice a month.
Faxes and e-mails with new information
can be received and updated daily.
Occasionally, verification requires a call to
the hotel-casino's marketing department.
What Web technology was used to
design the page?
This site uses lowest-commondenominator
technology. In other words,
we don't require our visitors to have special
plug-ins, add-ons or interpreters.We
have plans of producing a wide-bandwidth
alternative site in the near future,
which will require Flash.
Overhead and main expenses?
Currently, our main expenses are our
two part-time junior programmers
(our daughters). Compensation for the
executives is "sweat equity" at this point.
Sources of income?
Our revenue model is based on advertising.
The site is built with numerous different
advertising options.We expect to be
in the black by the end of the year. We
have zero income at the moment. We are
not charging our current page sponsors,
but eventually will. Dades Innovations also
is developing a Windows-based employee
time clock, and a snoop detector to foil
hackers.
What are your various ad rates?
Advertising space on our site varies
between $1,200 for a banner ad to $375
for a logo on a comparison listing. These
are monthly rates.We do not have seasonal
rates. We also offer per-click pricing,
if requested.
Typical users of your site?
We will be doing market analysis by the
end of this year.
How do you advertise?
We are very proud of our rankings on
all the major search engines! For most
phrases containing "hotel casinos," we rank
on the first page, and in many cases,No. 1.
We rank No.1 on all the major search
engines using the phrases such as "compare
hotel casinos." We have numerous
travel agencies linked to our site, as well as
major resorts. We have banner space on
some search engines. We also have links
from other Internet sites relating to the
gaming and travel industries.
Your competition?
Primarily CasinoCity.com, and
BigCasinoList.com. Judging from
responses on our feedback page, we are
preferred. Our site is easier to read, has
nice aesthetics and always has current
information.
When, if ever, will you include popup
windows with promotions and prize
drawings?
We are currently working with various
hotel-casinos on adding promotional content
to our site.We hope to never join the
crowd by adding those annoying popup
windows.
Best advice you can give to small business
starting up?
Always believe in your products. Never
give up.Would you, personally, enjoy using
the product? Is it the best it can be? Be
proud to have your name on it. Always be
the best, period!
Anything else?
Avoid using spam to market your product.
