The world's oldest casino, Casino Di Venezia, had a record year in 2006, despite much of the rest of Italy's casino industry enjoying only slight profits or, in some cases, a loss of two or three per cent.

Carlo Pagan, Managing Director of the casino, says that the turnover for the casino went up by an incredible 16% up to 220 million Euro.

Carlo says that the reasons for this outstanding result is because they have added new table games to the casino, and overhauled 70 per cent of the slot machines. Table maximums have been raised, and there is apparently a 97 per cent payback for slots, creating an extremely attractive proposition for players.

The casino also benefited from a promotion, which promised people free entry plus a welcome drink and a snack on arrival. From 1.4 million invitiations, they had a 9 per cent redemption, which is excellent. The locations for the invites included hotels, large events, supermarkets and the like.

Carlo elaborates: "We also did a very big advertising campaign, this was classic advertising but also sports sponsorship. We tried to convey an image of the casino linked in to the sport, bringing all the positive values related to this sport.

"We have a lot of new projects in waiting, because we are the first in Italy to have a license for online in the Italian market because online is still forbidden. Even if this license is only for skill games and sport betting, we have already started the project involving Poker, Texas Hold ‘Em, as the product that we would like to push and communicate to potential players. So this is one project and also, because there is a new approach to gambling by the government, we have bid to open mini casinos in Italy, and we are going to open mini casinos in Padua, Bologna, Parma, Cortino Del Prezzo…"

Exciting times are ahead for this casino and its ambitious directors – watch this space.

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