“There’s a 20% leak of table-game revenue today.”
That line, delivered late in the day during a panel at the Indian Gaming Association conference, landed with a thud. Bennie Mancino, chief gaming officer at Tavolo Tech, didn’t sugarcoat the message. Half the leak is from staff productivity issues. The other half? Advantage players — the sharp-eyed card counters and bet hedgers who know how to milk the margins.
Everyone in the room knew it wasn’t news. But hearing it said so plainly hit differently.
‘We Don’t Know What’s Going Out the Door’
The session, moderated by longtime table-game analyst Maulin Gandhi, turned into more than just a panel — it was more like an intervention.
Gandhi, president of Tangam Systems, didn’t pull any punches. He asked the room, “What’s the cost of not having better data from our table games?” It was rhetorical, but Jay Bean, VP of Gaming Strategy at Seminole Hard Rock, answered it anyway.
“We absolutely don’t know what’s going out the door,” he said.
His point? The fundamentals of blackjack and craps are well understood. But modern casinos run dozens of specialty games, optional side bets, promotions layered on top of promotions. Tracking them is a mess. The data, if it exists, is fragmented. And worse — it’s too late by the time anyone notices a problem.
Table Games: The Forgotten Tech Frontier
Slots are easy. You plug them in, connect them to a network, and you’ve got a waterfall of data to work with. Table games, not so much.
In many casinos, table-game data is still collected manually. Floor supervisors record numbers with pen and paper. Decisions are based on estimates, not real-time figures.
This creates a few big problems:
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Pit bosses can’t react fast when tables underperform.
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Marketing teams can’t accurately target high-value table players.
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Casinos can’t see which dealers are driving or dragging revenue.
This lack of transparency leaves decision-makers blind. And where there’s fog, there’s always leakage.
Productivity Slips That Add Up Quietly
Of the 20% leak Mancino flagged, 15% is directly tied to productivity.
What does that mean in plain English? Dealers not dealing fast enough. Tables sitting dead during peak hours. Too much downtime between hands. All of this eats into potential profit.
Now multiply that across a 50-table floor on a Saturday night.
Even a small dip in hands per hour can turn into six-figure losses over time. Mancino emphasized that productivity metrics aren’t just “nice-to-haves” anymore. They’re essential — if casinos want to stay competitive.
One panelist cited that increasing a dealer’s hands per hour by just 5% can boost annual table revenue by as much as $20,000 per table.
One sentence says it all: “Small fixes scale fast.”
The Rising Cost of Advantage Players
And then there’s the other 5%.
Advantage players — a mix of professional card counters, hole-carders, and team play strategists — continue to exploit game vulnerabilities. They aren’t cheating, per se. They’re just better at the math than most casino staff.
In many properties, surveillance is still catching up. By the time someone realizes a player has cleaned out three tables, it’s too late.
The industry doesn’t agree on how big the problem is. Some say it’s overblown. Others, like Mancino, say it’s significant.
Either way, it’s a leak that isn’t closing itself.
The Data Arms Race Is Coming
Panelists agreed: whoever solves the table data gap stands to win big.
AI and machine learning have started making inroads. A few casinos are testing camera systems that track every card dealt, every chip moved, every hand played. Others are using RFID-enabled chips to track betting patterns in real time.
There’s a long way to go. But it’s coming.
One table operations manager from Nevada, who asked not to be named, said his casino recovered $2.3 million in just eight months after rolling out automated dealer tracking software.
“Data turned into dollars overnight,” he said.
Why This Isn’t Just a Tech Problem
But it’s not only about technology. That was clear throughout the session.
Jay Bean warned that new tech won’t fix old thinking. “If you can’t get your team to buy into it, it won’t matter,” he said.
The real issue is cultural. Table-game operations have been running on instinct for decades. Transitioning to data-driven decisions is uncomfortable. It requires retraining, rethinking roles, and sometimes — admitting that the old way doesn’t work anymore.
Some casinos are ready for that. Others aren’t.
What’s Next? Accountability and Action
The session ended not with a solution, but a wake-up call.
If the average casino is losing 20% of its table-game revenue — and doesn’t even know where it’s going — that’s a red flag no one can afford to ignore. The whispers in the industry are growing louder. Operators want answers. And they want tools that work, not more talk.
There’s no silver bullet. But the panel made one thing crystal clear: ignoring the leak is no longer an option.
