"Our proudest achievement is the simple fact that our bus programs become a major profit center for the casino."

We began Casino Tours in 1996, to fill what we had determined was a need in the area of Casino Group Sales. With multiple casinos competing in the Chicago land and Northwest Indiana area, we recognized a need for a casino bus partner rather than another bus company picking up the casino’s players on street corners. We wanted to develop a casino motor coach marketing company that would not only provide transportation, but would work to create its own customer base.

Our first client was the riverboat, Showboat Casino in East Chicago Indiana, a casino with approximately 2200 gaming positions. Casino Tours created marketing and promotional strategies to build the riders emotional attachment to the bus service as well as the casino property. Bus depots providing multiple daily runs, seven days per week, were opened offering refreshments and televisions in a comfortable seating area. The East Chicago casino property was purchased by Harrah’s Gaming who sought to implement their celebrated affinity card tracking program.

Working with Harrah’s marketing team, we grew their bus program to a point where we bus consistently 20,000-30,000 players per month, in a competitive market, while tracking at unprecedented levels. It is one of the most profitable casino bus programs in the country, one that Harrah’s describes as “the premier bus program west of Atlantic City.”*

Casino Tours later contracted with Boyd’s Sam Town in Tunica, Mississippi and The Seminole Tribe in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to design and develop line run bus programs. In 2007, we contracted with the newly built land-based casino, Four Winds Casino and Resort in New Buffalo, Michigan to develop and manage their group sales program. (Visit our website at www.fourwindscasinoshuttle.com) We added to our team an individual who had managed casino Group Sales Programs for over thirteen years. In our first year we averaged over 20,000 passengers per month and again tracking at record levels.

What makes Casino Tours unique is the partnership we have with the casinos. We regularly meet with casino marketing and finance executives to analyze individual tracking data, as well as, the program’s revenues, costs and profitability. Our proudest achievement is the simple fact that our bus programs become a major profit center for the casino.

* from Harrahs “Jackpot” by Robert L. Shook