Archive link: http://archive.today/c0FEu
Some key highlights:
Dave & Buster’s [...] recently announced plans to let patrons place real-money bets on the company’s main attraction: its arcade games.
The suburban gaming den’s new betting operation is part of a partnership with Lucra Sports, a technology company that describes its product as “gamification services.” In practical terms, Lucra licenses its software to other businesses, allowing them to integrate certain kinds of betting into their existing apps and websites. Lucra deals in the kinds of bookie-free “peer to peer” bets—say, on the results of a night of bowling or a game of pickup basketball—that might have previously been sealed with a handshake.
The chain is expected to roll out all of this in the coming months, and it will be available only to adults
Beyond that, neither Dave & Buster’s nor Lucra Sports—which both declined to comment—is saying what kinds of betting will be allowed and at what scale.
Gambling on games of skill has a much easier time cruising past legal roadblocks.
Because of these legal distinctions, Lucra Sports—which has financial backing from a host of sports executives and professional athletes, including former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry and former NFL player Emmanuel Sanders—says its services are legal on some level in 45 US states.
Even in their relatively milquetoast skill-game form, these kinds of betting services normalize something that feels a lot like traditional gambling as most Americans now experience it
Kids too young to grasp how football works or what betting on it might mean will soon be able to encounter a version of it at the arcade, potentially priming them to open their own betting accounts once they hit legal age.
That Dave & Buster’s would decide to dive in right now is best read as an indicator of just how nervous traditional entertainment industries have become about gambling and its capacity to devour their customer base and its disposable income. In its 2022 annual report, Dave & Buster’s identified the spread of legalized gambling as an existential threat, even as the company was continuing to grow and its stock price was soaring.
this move feels motivated more by the fear of being left behind while others profit than by a genuine belief in the value of the product itself.
The vision that’s dancing in executives’ heads, I have no doubt, is something akin to the opportunity to be a little Las Vegas in every American suburb. They should probably be more wary of the likelier—and grimmer—alternative: becoming something closer to most of the other casinos in America, where no parent would ever dream of throwing their kid’s birthday party.
I haven't been to a Dave & Busters in ages, but I'd guess that their existing business model may not be in great shape. What did they offer? A restaurant with an attached arcade aimed at adults.
Generally, arcades have not done terribly well. There used to be a lot of video arcades all over out there in the 1980s. Video game hardware has gotten a lot cheaper, and a lot of people just have it at home now.
Last I looked (which was not recent), the kid-oriented Chuck-E-Cheese and the adult-oriented Dave & Busters tried to compensate with hardware that had a high hardware cost and couldn't readily economically be brought home, like light guns, enclosures that enhance immersion (e.g simulated motorcycle seats to ride on on motorcycle games). But for at least some of that, VR setups are probably a partial competitor, and they're a lot more available.
Many of the setups are aimed at letting multiple people play games together, but wide availability of broadband and VoIP and good headsets has made it easier to play games remotely. That won't replace all of the experience of playing against someone else in person, but it is a partial substitute.
They sell alcohol, but young adults -- who l'd guess are most likely to frequent a D&B -- in the US are drinking less than they did in the past.
They focus on people who stay at their premises, but there's apparently been a big shift in consumer use of restaurants towards takeout:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/restaurant-post-pandemic-recovery/677675/
Like, they may not be able to keep doing what they had been doing.
That's a really good point about their business model potentially being unsustainable, but I still question if adding gambling is the answer.
Things that get me to go out (and I know that is anecdotal at best) are things like trivia nights, theme nights, stand up comedy, etc. I don't think I would be very tempted to go out by the opportunity to be hustled in Angry Birds.
I agree that Dave & Buster's needs to develop a more novel niche to not get erased by home entertainment, but I would be shocked if this was the best way to do it.