Overall, Las Vegas-based Harrah’s estimates its customers spent about 43 percent of their annual gambling budgets at Harrah’s properties in 2002, up from 36 percent when the program began. It tracks customers’ casino play and offers them powerful incentives to consolidate their gambling with Harrah’s, boosting same-store revenues and earnings. According to executives, the cornerstone of Harrah’s growth strategy is the now-renamed Total Rewards program, its IT-powered customer loyalty program. It sought not only to identify its best and most loyal customers it also wanted to use that data to reward them in ways they hadn’t been rewarded before. While recognition cards aimed at boosting customer loyalty had been in the industry for some time, Harrah’s wanted to go one step further.

The relaxation of state gaming laws only intensified the rivalry among casinos. When Harrah’s first started its Total Gold loyalty program in 1997, it was during a time of rapid expansion of casinos in hot spots like Las Vegas and Atlantic City, N.J.