When we still lived in the lower 48, while our kids were young, they favored Dave and Busters for their birthday parties. It was an interesting set-up; a restaurant where the food was only fair, but attached to the restaurant is a big gaming arcade, with a bar in the middle so bored fathers can go have a beer or three while the kids play a wide variety of arcade and console games. The chain seemed to be successful, at least in Denver, because it sure always seemed to be full of patrons.
Now the chain is working out how to allow 18+ patrons to place bets on the games.
Dave and Buster’s customers can soon make a friendly $5 wager on arcade games like skeeball and basketball.
The arcade company recently partnered with Lucra Sports, a gamification software company. The new betting feature will be available to users 18 or older and will debut within the next few months.
“We’re thrilled to work with Lucra to bring this exciting new gaming platform to our customers,” Simon Murray, senior vice president of entertainment and attractions at Dave & Buster’s, told CNBC.
“This new partnership gives our loyalty members real-time, unrivaled gaming experiences and reinforces our commitment to continuing to elevate our customer experience through innovative, cutting-edge technology.”
Some of the details have apparently not yet been worked out.
Details on how the new app feature will work weren’t disclosed, but many have assumed that users will be betting against their friends rather than the house.
For example, when someone loses, their friend gets $5, not Dave & Buster’s, which didn’t return KTLA’s request for comment.
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Presumably, Dave and Buster's will get a cut as well. There's always a vigorish in places that allow gambling. How else would Las Vegas pay for all those bright lights, fountains, and enormous hotel-casinos? While the announcement doesn't specify, it seems likely that the house will get its "vig" from the whole deal.
Cuts for the house aside, one would presume that this will be implemented in different ways in different states; gambling is an issue that is, rightly, regulated at the state level, and what may work for a Dave and Buster's in Reno may not work across the border in Salt Lake City.
Bear in mind the model that's being proposed here; some mechanism for allowing people who have reached the age of majority to place a friendly wager on a game, the size of that wager being limited to $5. While some may argue that the establishment shouldn't be facilitating gambling, it's easy to point out that these same people can make this same wager without the house, between themselves, and for larger amounts, to boot.
The main argument I can see against this is that it might prompt discord among patrons. But then - and I'm speaking as someone who worked as a bouncer one summer - any place that serves alcohol runs that risk, betting or not. And the same argument applies; customers are even now free to make wagers between themselves.
In fact, it's difficult to see what Dave and Buster's hope to gain from all this.
This new plan by Dave and Buster's will likely be a flash in the pan. It's not offering customers anything they can't already do between themselves if they are so inclined.
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