Our Services

Spectrum Gaming Group has marshaled an impressive array of resources to provide bondholders, bank lenders, investment bankers, creditors, buyers of existing properties and incumbent management with an independent, outside-the-box expertise to evaluate critical financial, legal regulatory and operational issues. We provide a wide variety of casino-related services, all of which share a common goal: to provide our clients with the best possible advice to help meet their strategic objectives or improve the financial performance of the business. Our expertise can be used to facilitate a restructuring, turnaround or acquisition of a business.

Spectrum’s executives and associates offer an unparalleled depth of experience in identifying opportunities and challenges. Our services are distinctive for several reasons:

• Spectrum has a well-deserved reputation for integrity. That means telling our clients what they need to know, and not what they want to hear.
• Spectrum professionals have operated for decades in the public and private sectors. We understand the political and regulatory challenges that operators must confront.
• Spectrum offers a 360-degree range of services for existing and prospective operators and investors. Our team includes experts in every field to address every line item in the P&L statement, from personnel to food and beverage, and from marketing to energy savings, as well as financial, business, legal, and integrity due-diligence.
• Spectrum professionals are equipped to protect the interests of investors and owners in any situation, to ensure that management is operating optimally and in the best interests of investors and owners.

Our fundamental belief is that our clients deserve analysis that is objective and comprehensive. Every part of an operation must be examined. That is why we address all disciplines. A Spectrum analysis looks beyond the past and present to provide a blueprint for future operations.

Spectrum Senior Vice President Harvey Perkins and Special Advisor Steve Brammell, formerly General Counsel with Harrah’s Entertainment, lead this effort.

As with all of Spectrum’s services, integrity and transparency is our central mission. Our services include:

• Interim general management
• Labor engineering
• Product pricing and portion management
  • Food
  • Beverage
  • Retail
• Yield management of:
  • Slot Floor
  • Hotel Rooms
  • Food
  • Beverage
• Process reviews
• Back of the house review
• Employee benefits review
• Marketing business practices review
• Loyalty programming
• Customer reinvestment
  • Align to marketplace
  • Align to profit improvement
• Employee service training
• Legal and Transactional
  • Legal spending and risk management analysis
  • Identification and management of appropriate legal counsel
  • Acquisition due diligence
  • Specialized support for restructurings, acquisitions, and other transactions
• Compliance
  • Internal controls
  • Regulatory
  • Rules of the games
• Audits
  • Cash handling
  • Revenue
  • Purchasing
  • Inventory
  • General ledger
• Mystery Shopping
  • Employee theft detection gaming
  • Selling of comps
  • Employee service
  • Quality of product
• Market Research
  • Guest satisfaction
  • Influential attributes
  • Competitive reviews
  • Awareness
    • Aided
    • Unaided
• Due diligence
• Surveillance Services
  • Audit
  • Employee skill assessment
  • Policy and procedure review
  • Technical capability
  • Supervisory assessment
• Purchasing & Warehouse
  • Business practice review
  • Transfer procedures
  • Par values
  • Inventory liability
  • Alcohol inventory control
  • Bidding process review
  • Purchasing contracts review

Download our October 15, 2009, audio conference: Distressed Gaming Properties: State of the Industry

When projections and impacts count, count on Spectrum Gaming Group. Developers and investors have relied on Spectrum to determine the feasibility of building multibillion-dollar projects on the Las Vegas Strip, as well as in Atlantic City and Macau. We have worked in dozens of other markets around the world, from Pennsylvania to Vietnam, and from Louisiana to Canada. Wall Street repeatedly turns to Spectrum when weighing gaming investments of hundreds of millions of dollars. Our clients know that our reports are conservative in their projections and comprehensive in their approach. We combine quantitative and qualitative analyses that result in a thorough, independent and reliable analysis. Spectrum stands out in this field because we combine reliability and transparency with a comprehensive approach that includes assessing political and competitive risks. Our economic services include:

• Feasibility studies
• Market analyses
• Reasonableness tests

Spectrum principals have been studying the impacts of gaming for three decades, and indeed we take pride in pioneering this particular discipline. We have experience in producing economic-impact analyses in the following states, territories and foreign nations:

• New Jersey
• Pennsylvania
• Delaware
• Massachusetts
• Connecticut
• New York
• Louisiana
• Kansas
• Guam
• Puerto Rico
• South Korea
• Illinois

Each Spectrum project is customized to our client’s specific requirements and developed from the ground up. Our findings, conclusions and recommendations are based solely on our research, analysis and experience. While any reputable firm will use such quantitative models as REMI or RIMS, Spectrum extends far beyond such required standards. Our economic-impact studies stand out for several key reasons:

• We spend considerable research meeting with a variety of crucial stakeholders, from legislators and regulators to small business owners and labor leaders, among others.
• We recognize that economic impacts are not static, and that the impacts can differ based on public policies. Where appropriate, we will recommend policies that could enhance the economic benefits and minimize the negative impacts.
• Spectrum approaches all such studies with a combination of candor and experience. We analyze impacts as they are – or could be. We never tailor our findings to benefit a client.

Government agencies and regulatory commissions routinely engage Spectrum Gaming Group for myriad services when introducing or expanding casino gambling. Spectrum’s team of former regulators, enforcement agents and attorneys collectively has decades of experience in all aspects of regulation. Our services include:

• Licensing investigations
• Drafting of legislation and regulation
• Anti-money laundering controls
• Drafting and implementing minimum internal control standards
• Compliance auditing
• Investigations relating to cheating, swindling, fraud and abuse
• Establishment of investigative procedures
• Evaluation of public policy

When the government of Singapore needed investigations of the applicants for its two gaming licenses, it turned to Spectrum Gaming Group. We perform detailed background checks and investigations to provide both regulators and operators with the information they need to make critical decisions concerning approvals and associations. Such due diligence services include:

• Corporate entity investigations
• Vendor licensing investigations
• Employee licensing investigations
• Country evaluations
• Business intelligence
• Operational review and financial forecast of acquisition targets

Regulators, prosecutors and gaming operators turn to Spectrum Gaming Group and its decades of experience in areas such as support for criminal prosecution, gaming enforcement, game protection and security. Spectrum’s array of legal support services includes:

• Review of gaming statutes to ensure comprehensive statutory structure
• In-service training for police, prosecutors and casino security
  • Overview of casino crime
  • Investigative techniques
  • Evidential issues
  • Bank Secrecy Act/Money Laundering
• Litigation support – civil and criminal
  • Review evidence
  • Trial preparation/strategy
• Expert witnesses and litigation services
  • Research
  • Testimony

Spectrum executives and associates have decades of casino operational experience at senior-management levels in multiple jurisdictions. Whether managing the entire gaming operation on an interim basis, gauging guest satisfaction or correcting performance metrics, we can provide solutions to improve your gaming operations. Our services include:

• Labor engineering, adjust staffing levels to volume levels with mathematical credibility.
• Gaming compliance audits.
• Employee theft and fraud investigations.
• Customer loyalty reinvestment programming design.
• Onsite review services of business processes and practices with profit enhancing change recommendations.
• Guest service program design and measurement.
• Business planning and analytical services.
• Operating distressed casino properties or casinos operating in conservatorship
• Evaluating and remedying the operations of underperforming gaming operations

Spectrum has established a history of working with Tribal Governments and Tribal Gaming Commissions in many ways over the years with the highest degree of integrity, confidentiality and professionalism. Managing Director Fredric Gushin served multiple terms over a 10-year period as a Commissioner with the Oneida Indian Gaming Commission in Verona, NY. Spectrum has been retained by more than 25 Indian Nations to evaluate overall operations of gaming facilities and gaming commissions, perform compliance audits pursuant to the Minimum Internal Control Standards on an outsourced basis, and help focus the tribe’s overall approach to operational and regulatory issues. We have conducted feasibility studies and strategic planning services on behalf of Tribal Governments, and offer an extensive menu of services including:

• Performing operational audits
• Evaluating the performance of casino management
• Conducting evaluations of gaming commissions
• Performing casino compliance audits under the MICS on an outsourced basis including Title 31 independent audits
• Strategic Planning
• Preparation and upgrading of all aspects of casino controls
• Conducting due diligence and background investigations
• Conducting Surveillance Department evaluations and audits
• Preparing Compliance Manuals for use by gaming commissions
• Budgeting for Gaming Commissions

Technology is revolutionizing casino floors around the world, from cashless systems to server-based gaming. Spectrum Gaming Group is continuously positioned at the cutting edge of new technology, providing services for equipment manufacturers, gaming operators and regulators. Among our services in this field:

• Technology concept or implementation review and analysis
• Technology concept operational impact
• Network security review
• Electronic revenue analysis, procedures and implementation
• Regulatory compliance of manufacturer’s new concepts and designs
• Server-based and server-supported concept review and implementation