The gambling industry just got caught on tape—and the receipts are damning.
Leaked audio obtained by the Daily Caller reveals how casino insiders use new technology and carefully tailored strategies to keep gamblers hooked, minimize their ability to walk away, and squeeze every dollar from so-called “biggest fish.”
Thousands of gambling professionals gathered at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1. Behind closed doors, they discussed strategies to trap first-time gamblers and ensure they keep coming back—no matter the cost.
“Five to ten percent of your top players are bringing in about eighty [percent]. We’re really trying to keep those ten percent around. If they do leave, then we’ve got some issues.”
That’s CC Griffus, Director of iGaming & Sports Betting Operations at Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Michigan, admitting during a panel titled “From First Play to VIP: Creating Loyalty That Lasts” that casino revenue is concentrated among high-value addicts—and the industry is laser-focused on keeping them trapped.
Griffus stressed that making strong first impressions is critical, pointing out that “every VIP starts as a new player.”
The panel also featured casino influencer Kelly Koffler and Josh Duffy, co-creator of Slotaholic, a content channel devoted to slot machines.
Duffy described the casino as a gambler’s “second home”—a place operators engineer to feel friendly, fun, and impossible to leave.
“This is their second home,” he said. “And so how are you gonna make this environment friendly, fun, something you wanna return to?”
Duffy also revealed that casinos break up “free play” promotions into three periods per week—a tactic designed to drag players back more frequently.
Koffler argued that casinos must offer compelling reasons to keep losing gamblers on the property instead of letting them cut their losses and leave.
“You shouldn’t want us to say, ‘Oh, I’m losing, I wanna go home,'” she said. “You should want us to maybe go to the spa.”
Translation: keep them spending, no matter how much they’ve already lost.
The panel discussed a laundry list of perks casinos deploy to trap players—extremely friendly hosts, free drinks, personalized loyalty tiers, and cashless payment systems that eliminate what Griffus called the “friction of financial transactions.”
Griffus highlighted the ease of transferring money from a gambler’s smartphone directly to a gaming terminal—no ATM fees, no second thoughts, no barrier between impulse and financial ruin.
“It’s kind of scary,” she admitted.
A separate Sept. 29 panel, “What VIPs Actually Want From Your Platform,” featured Steve Fezzik, a professional sports bettor, and Mike Lavin, a three-time World Series of Poker winner and BetMGM ambassador.
Their remarks shed light on how sportsbooks and casinos push gamblers toward high-margin “sucker bets” designed to drain their accounts. They also appeared to acknowledge that casinos target the worst players—the “biggest fish”—with tailored incentives better players cannot access.
“Selective bonus offers … to some players and not others.”
Fezzik argued that poker operations should focus on incentivizing the weakest players to keep them in the gambling environment. Lavin responded that while he couldn’t directly confirm specific practices, operators present “selective bonus offers … to some players and not others” and that “some part of” what Fezzik described is “correct.”
Lavin cautioned against pushing gamblers toward continuous wagers when the odds are drastically stacked against them.
In that scenario, Fezzik said, operators are simply trying to extract “every ounce of blood from a turnip.”
The recordings expose an industry built on exploiting addiction, eliminating barriers to compulsive spending, and treating human beings as revenue streams to be drained dry.
None of the panelists—Griffus, Koffler, Duffy, Fezzik, or Lavin—responded to requests for comment.
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