Carlton Saffa
CMO, Saracen Casino Resort

Originally from Oklahoma, Carlton Saffa fell in love with northwest Arkansas, graduating from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He currently lives in Little Rock with his wife and children, and serves as the chief marketing officer for the Quapaw Nation's Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff.

Saffa was Saracen’s first employee and oversaw the licensure of the enterprise in all forums, including the property’s casino gaming license. In addition, he served as a representative in the construction of the Saracen Annex, a facility that features 300 slot machines and which was completed and operational in 100 days.  Saracen’s main property was developed in parallel, and Saffa was onsite daily throughout.

Today, as CMO, Saffa is directly responsible for all outward-facing functions of the property as well as day-to-day management of the property’s 800+ employees, which is co-managed by Saffa alongside two additional senior executives.

Saffa has previously worked under Governor Asa Hutchinson and currently serves on the board of directors for a variety of organizations, including the Arkansas Symphony, the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, and the Historic Arkansas Museum.

Part 1 - Listen to Learn:

• How Saffa helped make Saracen Casino a reality
• About Saffa's work for Asa Hutchinson during and prior to his term as governor
• The steps a casino should take to mitigate harm while serving as an economic boon to the community, and more...

Part 2 - Listen to Learn:

• Anecdotes from working in the gambling industry
• About the scale of Macau, China's casino capitol
• About the work behind the scenes of Bet Saracen's TV commercials, and more...

Podcast Links

• Saracen Casino Resort
• Carlton Saffa, Home at Last | AMP Top Ten
• Carlton Saffa showed grit and tenacity in retrieving Saracen Casino Resort’s gambling license | Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
• National Council on Problem Gambling

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TRANSCRIPT (Part 1)

EPISODE 435

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:08] GM: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of FlagandBanner.com. Through storytelling and conversational interviews, and Kerry’s natural curiosity, this weekly radio show and podcast offers listeners an insider’s view into the commonalities of entrepreneurs, athletes, medical professionals, politicians, and other successful people, all sharing their stories of success and the ups and downs of risk taking. Connect with Kerry through her candid, funny, informative, and always encouraging weekly blog. Now, it’s time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business. 

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:35] KM: Thank you, Son Gray. This show began as a way for me and other successful people to pay forward our experiential knowledge. But it wasn't long before my team and I realized that we were the ones learning. Listening to our guests has been both educational and inspiring. To quote the Dalai Lama, “When you talk, you're only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”

After listening to hundreds of successful people share their stories, I've noticed some reoccurring traits. Most of my guests believe in a higher power, have the heart of a teacher, and they all work hard. Before I introduce today's guests, I want to let you know if you miss any part of today's show, want to hear it again or share it, there's a way and Son Gray, will tell you how.

[0:01:26] GM: All UIYB past and present interviews are available at Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy's YouTube channel, Facebook page, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's digital version, FlagandBanner.com's website, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just ask your smart speaker to play Up In Your business with Kerry McCoy. And by subscribing to our YouTube channel or FlagandBanner.com's email list, you will receive prior notification of that day's guest. Back to you, Kerry.

[0:01:50] KM: Thank you again, Gray. My guest today is Mr. Carlton Saffa, the Chief Marketing Officer for the Quapaw Nation’s Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Carlton has been with the casino since its inception. He was the first employee hired when the business model was still just an idea on paper. Since then, Carlton has been involved and helped oversee much of the casino's construction, expansions, and gaming licenses. The casino broke ground in 2019 among the among the COVID-19 pandemic and managed to open to the public in October of 2020.

At the time, it was the largest construction project of the year. Today, with the help of two other senior executives, Saffa oversees the day-to-day management of the property and its 800-plus employees. He has seen firsthand what his company is doing to breathe life back into historical Pine Bluff, a once-bustling town on the Arkansas River. Saracen Encino Resort boasts to have an 8,000 square foot gaming floor, gaming tables, gaming rooms for high stakes, and Texas hold 'em lovers, and a top-quality red oak steakhouse that is award winning.

In construction now is a 13-story hotel tower with 320 rooms and plans for a 1,600-person concert venue is on the horizon. It is with great pleasure. I welcome to the table the ambitious, hardworking, jack of all trades, and superstar of Saracen Casino, Mr. Carlton Saffa.

[0:03:32] CS: Thank you. You've been doing the show a while, right?

[0:03:34] KM: 2016.

[0:03:35] CS: Well, you about run out of people if you've got me on here or so.

[0:03:40] KM: Very humble.

[0:03:42] CS: No.

[0:03:42] KM: You're not humble.

[0:03:43] CS: No, no, I'm humble. But I am very proud of what our team has done.

[0:03:47] KM: You should be.

[0:03:47] CS: So, let me correct you on one thing, that gaming floor is 80,000 square feet.

[0:03:52] KM: What did I say?

[0:03:53] CS: Eight thousand.

[0:03:53] KM: Oh, yes, thank you.

[0:03:54] CS: Eight thousand, not worth getting out of bed for. It's the size of a football field. It’s bigger than most gaming floors actually in Las Vegas, at least contiguous, right?

[0:04:02] KM: That was a verbal typo.

[0:04:04] CS: You're good.

[0:04:05] KM: I knew that it was the size of a football field because I went there last night.

[0:04:09] CS: Well, if you don’t – thank you. I started there in June of '19, and I feel like I won the jackpot because my job really is managing slot machines and a lot of other things, but slot machines are run by a random number generator. I think my life, it's been a God thing. I think it's a random number generator. If you ran me through simulations a million times, it would never come out again this way. So, only the hand of God can deliver something like this.

[0:04:35] KM: That's why I don't place slot machines, because they're programmed, and I don't know what they're programmed to win and lose at.

[0:04:43] CS: So, somebody won $950,000 the other day at Saracen?

[0:04:46] KM: Should go in and fix that machine?

[0:04:48] CS: No. Believe it or not, we can talk about this, but believe it or not, I would contend, and I would love to be corrected, sincerely. If somebody's watching this, hit the comments and tell me I'm wrong. I think that we're the most regulated business that there is, hard stop.

[0:05:05] KM: Probably.

[0:05:05] CS: Now, a doctor watching this will say, “Well, you don't know anything about medicine.”

[0:05:08] KM: Oh, well, that's true.

[0:05:09] CS: Well, I would disagree. So, all of the folks that oversee medicine, they don't have the regulator in the room. You're not doing surgery with the medical board over your shoulder, but the state regulator is on our site 24/7, 365.

[0:05:22] KM: Really?

[0:05:22] CS: Oh, they can get into more rooms than I can, and they have real time –

[0:05:25] KM: The state regulator is in your place every day?

[0:05:28] CS: Yes, but you said you were there last night. It's there to protect you so that you know the games aren't fixed or rigged. That's not because they think we're going to fix the game.

[0:05:36] KM: So, what is the percentage?

[0:05:39] CS: It's all public. It's all – shoot, I'll tell you anything.

[0:05:40] KM: Okay. What’s the best one to play?

[0:05:43] CS: I'll tell you anything except two things. How much cash we keep there and where the cameras are. Everything else is, I'm an open book. So, we hold about 7% of what goes in a slot machine. So, hold means what percentage of the money that goes through, do we keep and what goes back out. 

[0:05:59] KM: Well, and when you say go back out, it goes out to the Quapaw Nation?

[0:06:06] CS: To the player. We keep about 7% on a gross basis.

[0:06:11] KM: So, you're saying if you play the slot machines, you have a 93% chance of winning?

[0:06:16] CS: Sort of.

[0:06:16] KM: That's not true, because I've played the slot machines and I never win the slot machine. Blackjack, I win, I won $900 in Hollywood last week. Hollywood casino, Blackjack. You always have to play the side bet. For anybody that wants to play Blackjack or Texas hold ‘em –

[0:06:31] GM: You tell mom likes gambling. She’s very excited to get you –

[0:06:34] CS: Here's the deal, you sit down and you see 6-5 get up. If they're not paying 3-2 on Blackjack.

[0:06:39] KM: What’s 6-5? What do you mean?

[0:06:40] CS: Oh gosh, they're cheating you if they don't pay –

[0:06:42] KM: What do you mean 6-5? Where do you see 6-5?

[0:06:44] CS: You hit Blackjack, you should get paid a time and a half, right?

[0:06:46] KM: Oh, yes.

[0:06:48] CS: Yes, people are starting to –

[0:06:50] KM: So, if you hit Blackjack and you get paid –

[0:06:53] CS: Six to five. 

[0:06:55] KM: That's just a little bit. I didn't know they did that.

[0:06:58] CS: Have you seen triple zero roulette? Get up and go. If my friends in Vegas are watching this, you all know you just shouldn't be doing triple zero Blackjack, or triple zero roulette, rather. We can get into all of that.

[0:07:09] KM: You don't have a roulette. You have a machine that knows roulette.

[0:07:11] CS: We've got two roulette tables.

[0:07:12] KM: But they're machines.

[0:07:13] CS: No, we have those two.

[0:07:14] KM: You have a guy that stands there and does roulette?

[0:07:16] CS: We have two roulette tables as well.

[0:07:17] KM: So, here's my theory on roulette for everybody's listening. We are way deep in the show –

[0:07:21] GM: I was about to say, whoa.

[0:07:24] KM: But we’re giving everything upfront.

[0:07:25] CS: We can talk about business. We can talk about casino gaming. We can talk about it all. Anything you want.

[0:07:30] KM: But here's the deal if you want to play roulette. Bet on black, you lose. Double your bet, bet on black, you lose. Triple your bet, bet on black, you lose. Triple and double down, every time you lose on Blackjack because of – I mean roulette, because eventually you're going to hit and you'll make all your money back.

[0:07:48] CS: It's a perfect theory in a vacuum. That's called the Martin Gale strategy.

[0:07:52] KM: Oh, it is.

[0:07:52] CS: Yes, there's a whole thing. The problem is doubling, you can get pretty serious pretty quick.

[0:07:59] KM: Oh yes, but you're going to eventually hit.

[0:08:00] CS: Yes. It depends on how much wallet you have.

[0:08:02] KM: It depends on how big of balls you are.

[0:08:05] CS: Well, that's a better way of putting it. We'll talk in a minute about wallet and watch, which are the two things that are the key to casino gaming in terms of operation. Time and how much money you have. Not how much money you have as a person, how much what you're willing to risk. But a lot of it is about wallet management. So, if you walk in with $500, you should never walk into a casino with anything you're not prepared to completely lose. But if you walk in with $500, you don't need to be betting $100 of pull slot machines because you don't have enough money to have a chance to really –

[0:08:38] KM: So, what's the watch?

[0:08:39] CS: Time. So, my only –

[0:08:42] KM: Oh, how much time you have.

[0:08:42] CS: Yes, so you're thinking I got to go to work morning or I'm going to dinner with my buddies at eight o'clock tonight.

[0:08:51] KM: You've got to play until you get it back.

[0:08:52] CS: Well, you have time. So, I need you while you're there to play as much as you want. And we'll talk in a minute about efficiencies that we've worked through to make sure that when you're on property, if you want to be playing, I can have you playing as long as you want to be playing. Things like jackpot payout times and things like that.

But the amount of money that you're willing to spend is something that you control. And the amount of time that you have with me is something you control. I have to do my best to manage things that you control so that you have a good experience and we can be profitable.

[0:09:20] KM: And come back.

[0:09:22] CS: By the way, it leads to counter-intuitive things we'll talk about, like intentional inefficiencies. We want to win your money slowly, not quickly. I realize that sounds crazy. But what happens, you've gambled enough. You ever walked in a place with a thousand bucks and in an hour you're wiped out and you go, “Damn, that was no fun”

[0:09:41] KM: Right. Yes, I have.

[0:09:42] CS: And you still remember those. I remember vividly playing craps at a place not very far from here where I got my head knocked off. Their table limits were too high. On a Saturday morning, there's my lawyer and me, we were the only two guys, table limits were way too high. I hadn't intended to gamble, we were there for something else. In 10 minutes, I'd burn through $500 or $600, maybe $1,000.

[0:10:06] KM: Oh, yes.

[0:10:06] CS: I still remember it years later.

[0:10:10] KM: So, what, you had to buy in it, what, $50 or $100 or something?

[0:10:11] CS: Yes, the limits were too high. So, what you don't want –

[0:10:14] KM: I do like that about Saracen. The limits are low.

[0:10:16] CS: But we also have very high limits. 

[0:10:19] KM: On the weekends.

[0:10:19] CS: Yes, you can bet $5,000 on Blackjack table if we know you. I mean, we got guys play $2,500 baccarat all night. They're doing it right now as we speak on the afternoon. But the trick is you need to feel like you got your money's worth. Because here's the deal, if you win a thousand bucks like you said you did at Hollywood, you had a good time. I mean, the drink could have been better or maybe something could have been better, but generally speaking, you had a good time.

[0:10:42] KM: Oh, yes, I got the euphoria from winning.

[0:10:43] CS: My job is if you didn't win a thousand dollars to go, that still was fun. I got my money's worth. I want to come back and do it again.

[0:10:52] KM: So, when you said watch, what'd you say? Wager and watch?

[0:10:53] CS: Wallet and watch.

[0:10:53] KM: Wallet and watch. When you said watch, I thought you were going to talk about watching the table that you're going to say that. Because those damn guys smoke cigarettes. I cannot sit at a table where they're smoking cigarettes.

[0:11:03] CS: Just ask for a non-smoking table.

[0:11:05] KM: They got those?

[0:11:05] CS: Oh, yes. 

[0:11:06] KM: Well, I just walk around and go, “Uh-uh, smoking. Uh-uh, smoking. Uh-uh, not going to sit there.”

[0:11:10] CS: Do you ever play slot machines?

[0:11:12] KM: Only if I want to lose money.

[0:11:14] CS: So, here's the trick, very briefly, so I'll tie a bow on this and then I'll shut up about the watch. If you went more than $1,200, the machine locks up, it stops and then they come out and they do what's called a hand pay. That's a term of art internally, but legally a jackpot is $1,200 or more. So, you don't just get it back in credits. There's a stop, right? Someone comes to you. If you've ever won a jackpot, if you might be watching and they know this, there's paperwork because there's a W2G, the IRS.

So, we looked at that and credit to Louis Rosa, who's our slot's guy, who's an absolute genius. He said our slot payout time on jackpots is too long. Let's spend some money and let's get a slot dispatch system. So, when jackpot goes off, our slot attendants are notified. They wear these things on their wrist that look like kind of like iPads and they come straight to you. We've gotten our payout time from about 15 minutes down closer to 5. Well, what does that 10 minutes mean?

[0:12:08] KM: It means you can start gambling quicker.

[0:12:09] CS: Correct, if you only have two hours with me and we take it.

[0:12:12] KM: I want you spending that damn money. 

[0:12:13] CS: And you want to play too. Oftentimes what happens is people win a jackpot, they start playing the machine next to them. Short story.

[0:12:20] KM: That's right.

[0:12:20] CS: Last year, I was in Atlantic City, shout out to Neal Atkinson, he runs our sportsbook and table games. Brilliant guy. We were in Atlantic City and Neal won a jackpot. It was great, it was like $1,300, $1,400, not a huge jackpot, but a great jackpot. This particular casino in Atlantic City took over an hour to pay him. Now, you talk about fumbling, right?

[0:12:43] KM: That is dropping the ball right there.

[0:12:43] CS: He won, and we stood there looking at our shoes for an hour while it took him an
hour to pay. So, that's an unforced error, right?

[0:12:51] KM: Did you go to casinos before you start working in a casino?

[0:12:55] CS: I've always liked to gamble. I grew up going on the horse races with my dad. My dad is a hell of a poker player. I'm not. I have no poker face, which is, for people watching this, if you ever negotiate something with me, you'll know right where you stand. I always tell people at work, if I'm mad at you, you'll know and we'll talk about it and then we'll hug it out. But I got no poker face. But I love to play Blackjack. And I have a dear friend from Morrilton who taught me to play craps. I have this love-hate relationship with craps.

[0:13:23] KM: I love both of those games. Those are my two games.

[0:13:27] CS: It just depends. Craps can be –

[0:13:27] KM: I like Texas hold 'em, though.

[0:13:28] CS: Craps can be the most fun. But there are times, I was at the Aurea not long ago, and I was so excited to play craps. And about five minutes in, I thought, “I'm never playing Craps again.” It's like that drunk hangover. I'm never drinking again, and then –

[0:13:43] KM: Oh, I have that right now. So, you don't have a Texas hold 'em table. You have to go into a room to play Texas hold 'em.

[0:13:48] CS: No, we have both. 

[0:13:49] KM: I didn't see it last night.

[0:13:51] CS: So, ultimate Texas hold 'em is a – this is a term of art. So, you have house bank games and non-house bank games. So, a house bank game is when you win, you're winning Saracen's money. And a non-house bank game is if –

[0:14:01] KM: Say that again.

[0:14:01] CS: So, house banked, house is the bank. So, you're playing Blackjack.

[0:14:06] KM: Against the –

[0:14:08] CS: I'm the dealer, you're the player. 

[0:14:10] KM: That's fun because we're all playing against the dealer. But then when you go in that room to play Texas hold 'em –

[0:14:14] CS: You're playing against other people.

[0:14:14] KM: And that's not fun to me. 

[0:14:15] CS: Right. It's just a different dynamic.

[0:14:18] KM: So, can you play Texas hold 'em out at a table?

[0:14:20] CS: You can. The game is a little bit different. It's called the Ultimate Texas hold 'em, but it is a house banked game.

[0:14:25] KM: I didn't see it last night. I'll look for that table. 

[0:14:26] CS: And it has side bets too. Some of our biggest payouts have been there. 

[0:14:30] KM: That's where they are on the side.

[0:14:30] CS: We had a $400 ,000 side bet payout on an Ultimate Texas hold 'em game.

[0:14:35] KM: People always do the side bets when you're at one of those tables.

[0:14:39] CS: All right, so I know we're all over the map, but if I've got one piece of advice for people who play table games, and you need to pick this like you pick a spouse or anything else like for life, you got to make this decision. If you're going to play side bets, you got to play that side bet every damn hand.

[0:14:56] KM: Yes, absolutely.

[0:14:57] CS: If you're not going to play side bets, never, ever play side bets.

[0:15:01] KM: That's a good advice.

[0:15:02] CS: Because what will happen is if you intermittently play side bets, you'll drive yourself crazy because they'll hit when you're not playing.

[0:15:07] KM: That's right.

[0:15:08] CS: So, either do one or the other and pick it like your religion or your marriage.

[0:15:12] KM: Stay on it. Stay on it. We went down there, ate dinner, turned around, came back. I'm going to go back to the Red Oak. It's won how many awards?

[0:15:20] CS: Gosh, I couldn't even begin to tell you.

[0:15:22] GM: I think the promotional video we watched said four?

[0:15:24] CS: So, I know it's been named best restaurant in Arkansas, four years running.

[0:15:28] GM: Oh, that's what it was.

[0:15:32] CS: Which is pretty cool, because it's only been open four years. So, hey, Wine Spectator just gave it the best rating they've ever given a restaurant in Arkansas, and we're just getting started.

[0:15:39] KM: Well, there's that Pine Bluff guy down there that's such a good chef.

[0:15:42] CS: Well, we've got a bunch. We stole the chef – this is weird. We stole the chef from Alotian. I called and checked first to make sure I wasn't in the cosmos.

[0:15:54] KM: Oh, you better call Warren. I'll make sure he's not mad at you.

[0:15:56] CS: We checked.

[0:15:57] KM: He's now the ambassador of the Great Britain. He might do something.

[0:15:59] CS: Well, I saw him today. I think we're good, but the old chef from the Alotian there, Matthias, is phenomenal.

[0:16:06] KM: How long has he been there?

[0:16:08] CS: He's been there about a year, year and a half, and he's just phenomenal. But here's what's crazy. He's cooking that incredible food, but his passion is pastry. He's not even a savory chef and he's cooking the best food in Arkansas, right? So, here's like a hot tip or a news break. We hadn't told anybody this yet. We're working on bringing back his sidekick who he has cooked with all over the world. And you want to talk about culture clash.

[0:16:35] KM: Matt Bale.

[0:16:35] CS: No. I know Matt. This is a guy named Sebastian. Sebastian is in Kuala Lumpur right now. And before that, he was in Doha.

[0:16:46] KM: I don't even know where that is.

[0:16:46] CS: So, he's in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Before that, he was in Qatar, cooking at the Mandarin Oriental and places like that and we're bringing him to Pine Bluff. I love it.

[0:16:58] KM: You know what, I have one complaint.

[0:16:59] CS: I'm ready.

[0:16:59] KM: All right, because before the show, I had Carlton critique all my commercials and stuff.

[0:17:05] CS: They were great. You look like – I was like Patton, I loved it.

[0:17:10] KM: Yes. So, I want you to do a bigger entrance with a canopy and lights, and you can drive up and let people out.

[0:17:18] CS: So, let's talk about that for a minute.

[0:17:20] KM: So, I just want to tell the listeners, if they haven't been there, you threw this building up so fast, it's crazy. When you get inside, it's all gambling, it's state-of-the-art, it's great. But –

[0:17:33] CS: There's no signage. I get asked that every day.

[0:17:36] KM: There's not even a pull-up where there's lights and you pull up under the lights.

[0:17:41] GM: Like a porte-cochère or anything?

[0:17:42] KM: Yes. Like a porte-cochère. There's nothing like that.

[0:17:45] CS: I will tell you, and this may actually be interesting to the folks watching this. I think life is about expectations, okay? George W. Bush was not a guy that gets quoted a lot, but he had something that he would say periodically. He would talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. What he means is there's a form of bigotry in expecting less out of certain people because of where they're from or what they look like. I mean, as Arkansans, we should understand that, right?

So, expectations are the whole game. And I'm going to get to the sign here in a second. But if I told you, “Hey, I'm going to take you to this barbecue joint "in the middle of nowhere. It's the best barbecue you were ever going to have, ever.” And we get there and like on a 10-point scale, you've given an eight or a nine, you'd be disappointed. Because I had told you definitively it is the best. But if I said, “Hey, we're going to go to this place and it's pretty good. Kerry, you're going to like it. It's one of the better places I've ever been.” And it was an eight or nine. We were going to get in the car and you're going to go, “That ain't pretty good, Carlton. That was freaking awesome.” It's an expectations game.

So, that soft bigotry of low expectations, people expected something in Pine Bluff to be half ass, and it's not. But I will tell you, we built that in the middle of COVID. The first COVID case in Arkansas was in Pine Bluff. We built that place in just over a year. There's about $300 million all in. And I will be the first to admit that it looks like a Lowe's. It really does. It's a blue building. I mean, look, that's my baby. I love that place. But it's not done. There is a 15-story tower coming out of the ground. The top of it, two stories says Saracen. We're changing the highway routing. The building is still not done.

[0:19:32] KM: So, that's my suggestion. When you get ready to do the building again, put in a nice porte-cochère with lighted ceilings so that you pull up and let your girl out and she gets out and her man can walk in.

[0:19:42] CS: So, Kerry, in one year, when you pull up to Saracen, one Saracen resort drive, even the vanity address is there, you can either be dropped off at the hotel entrance and have your car valeted. Or that entrance you walked into, which is just horrible. You walk in, first thing you see is glass wall, right? All that'll be changed. There'll be a porte-cochère, the big drop -off, and signage, and the whole thing.

[0:20:03] KM: So, you're already all over it?

[0:20:05] CS: Oh, yes. Here's the deal. You'll see at the top of that – it’s 15 stories, 13, but 15 levels. Two floors are the sign. The whole thing will be there. So, it's something. But it's only five years old. It feels like we've been here forever. But it's only five years old. All right, I've been all over the map. I'm going to shut up. You probably had some questions. 

[0:20:26] KM: Well, this is great. Well, not anymore.

[0:20:30] CS: Thanks, folks. See you later.

[0:20:31] KM: - You're good. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Mr. Carlton Saffa, marketing director of Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I would say which games have the best payoff, but he's already told you. So, when we come back, we're going to find out how this jack of all trades ended up in Arkansas, Born in Oklahoma, his whole family is generations of Sooners, and now we've got a razor back amongst the Sooners. We'll be right back.

[BREAK]

[0:20:58] GM: You're listening to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy. A production of FlagandBanner.com. In 1975, with only $400, Kerry founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. Since then, the business has grown and changed, along with Kerry's experience and leadership knowledge. In 1995, she embraced the Internet and rebranded her company as simply FlagandBanner.com. In 2004, she became an early blogger. Since then, she has founded the non-profit Friends of Dreamland Ballroom, began publishing her magazine, Brave. And in 2016, branched out into this very radio show, YouTube channel, and podcast.

In 2020, Kerry McCoy Enterprises acquired OurCornerMarket.com, an online company specializing in American made plaques, signage and memorials. In 2021, Flag and Banner expanded to a satellite office in Miami, Florida, where first generation immigrants keep the art of sewing alive and flags made in America. Telling American made stories, selling American made flags, the FlagandBanner.com. Back to you Kerry.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:22:00] KM: Thank you, dear. We're speaking today with Mr. Carlton Saffa, a big chief and a founding employee. I didn't know if you could actually say founding employee, but you were the first employee, as I understand.

[0:22:12] CS: I think they keep me so they can say they have 100% retention from June of '19, right? As you look at employee turnover metrics. And I will tell you this, I wish marketing was all I do, but it is –

[0:22:23] KM: Oh, I know, you do everything.

[0:22:25] CS: Yes. I mean, I kind of think of myself as, my job is to watch the Quapaw’s back as best I can here. I love the Quapaw people.

[0:22:33] KM: How do you work with the Quapaw Nation Business Committee? Do you have to meet them every week or do Zoom?

[0:22:40] CS: We have a lot of Zooms, but I will tell you, you want to talk about a great podcast. I need to introduce you to Wena. So, the chair of the Quapaw Nation is the most ferocious woman I've ever met in my life. I mean, she should be a UFC boxer, fighter. She's probably 110 pounds soaking wet and might be five-foot tall. And I have no doubt she could kick –

[0:23:04] KM: What’s her podcast about?

[0:23:03] CS: – she could kick all of our asses. No, she needs to be on your podcast because Wena –

[0:23:09] GM: That sounds fun.

[0:23:09] KM: Wouldn’t that be fun.

[0:23:09] CS: Wena has one of the coolest biographies of anyone I've ever known. She's Quapaw, was educated in the Northeast, and was a global businesswoman with an international insurance company. So, we're talking about experience in Japan and India, senior executive with an insurance company.

[0:23:26] KM: She live in Oklahoma now?

[0:23:28] CS: She splits time between her house in Florida and in Oklahoma.

[0:23:32] KM: Does she come to Little Rock?

[0:23:33] CS: All the time.

[0:23:34] KM: Well, she needs to come on the show and tell us about it.

[0:23:35] CS: She says she's home when she's here. But our relationship –

[0:23:38] KM: Is she Quapaw?

[0:23:39] CS: Oh, yes.

[0:23:42] KM: Well, they're originally from Arkansas.

[0:23:43] CS: Yes. I tell people all the time when they go, “Quapaw.” All right, pop quiz. Where's the governor's mansion? It's Quapaw Court. What are the Boy Scouts called?

[0:23:52] GM: The Quapaw, yes.

[0:23:53] KM:  And don't we have the Wichita Mountains are in the Quapaw something, aren't they?

[0:23:58] CS: The Quapaw are everywhere.

[0:23:58] KM: Quapaw means downstream people and in 1834 were removed from Arkansas and sent to Oklahoma.

[0:24:05] CS: And there was a quick stop that's even sadder. They were sent to what is basically Shreveport now where they almost all died.

[0:24:11] KM: So, your name is from Lebanon?

[0:24:13] CS: I'm Lebanese, yes.

[0:24:15] KM: Your dad, how'd he get here?

[0:24:17] CS: My dad was born in Lawton, Oklahoma. My great grandparents were immigrants. Oklahoma is a cool state because everybody came to Oklahoma. It's actually the other side of sort of the ugliness we were talking about, about Native America, right? But the land rush was huge. I had family in St. Louis and family in Kentucky. My grandma and my grandpa were both Lebanese.

[0:24:39] KM: I looked up Saracen because I'm like, “Why Saracen?”

[0:24:43] CS: He was a Quapaw leader.

[0:24:45] KM: So, there was a chief named Saracen?

[0:24:46] CS: Yes, and I used the word “chief”. He was a leader, I don't know if he was an official chief or not. I'm going to get myself in trouble here. I should know my Quapaw history better. But he was a very well-respected tribal leader who actually owned land in Arkansas and when folks were sent to Shreveport, he brought many of them back. So, there are things all over Pine Bluff that have Quapaw lineage and Quapaw history. So, Saracen himself, the leader of the Quapaw people is buried in the Catholic cemetery in Pine Bluff.

[0:25:16] KM: Really?

[0:25:17] CS: Yes. So, the casino itself is named for a leader who is buried in Pine Bluff. And long before that casino, was there the lake that abuts.

[0:25:26] KM: I saw that Saracen Lake put in.

[0:25:28] CS: Yes, we didn't put that there. 

[0:25:29] KM: You didn't put that there?

[0:25:30] CS: No. The coolest Saracen story in Pine Bluff –

[0:25:32] KM: Yeah, there's a put in called the Saracen Landing.

[0:25:34] CS: You can Google this. There is a mural in downtown Pine Bluff that says Saracen, Arkansas's original folk hero or something along those sorts. It's a story that's too long to tell that's almost like a Disney story about Saracen saving some French children from a raiding party from another tribe. They teach it in school, but Quapaw history is Arkansas history.

[0:25:57] KM: Pine Bluff is a really weird place, isn't it?

[0:26:00] CS: One side of the coin would tell you there are a lot of people from Pine Bluff, but not in Pine Bluff.

[0:26:07] KM: Yes, I have people working here that are from Pine Bluff.

[0:26:10] CS: The flip side is, Pine Bluff is one of my favorite places in the world and people are going to go, “This guy's a homer. He's just selling” –

[0:26:15] KM: Yes. That's what I'm saying.

[0:26:16] CS: Some of my favorite people on Earth are Pine Bluff people. Shout out to Bill Jones, Ford Trotter. I mean, amazing. The saint of Pine Bluff. That's what I call him. Tommy May is a saint Pine Bluff, right? We forget Simmons Bank and so many other things. Simmons, of course, publicly traded Nasdaq Bank.

[0:26:36] KM: Yes, they're from Pine Bluff. Been there forever.

[0:26:39] CS: You got a 40-story building behind us with –

[0:26:41] KM: And they have really low interest credit card.

[0:26:44] CS: They've got the old axiom build by the Clinton library, but they're corporate headquarters for their NASDAQ stock filings, Pine Bluff Arkansas.

[0:26:51] KM: No way.

[0:26:53] CS: Look it up. The trouble is, there are so many people from there, but not still there, and that is something we're changing.

[0:26:58] KM: So, why did you decide to put the Saracen casino down there? Because they are losing population. A couple years ago, they lost more population than any other city in America. And then shortly thereafter, you decided to put a casino in there.

[0:27:13] CS: Well, so some of it was dictated by the constitution, right? The constitution said there'd be four licenses. Didn't work out quite so well in Russellville and I kind of keep my mouth shut.

[0:27:22] KM: Is that the one we just voted on?

[0:27:23] CS: Yes. Again, right? We wanted it and then we voted that we didn't want it. Pine Bluff was a far more attractive location. So, for all of the realtors out there, what's the old cliché about real estate?

[0:27:37] KM: I don't know. Location, location, location.

[0:27:39] CS: We're in the right spot. Why? What's the closest place to gamble from where we sit? Is it Hot Springs? Would it be Russellville or would it be Pine Bluff?

[0:27:48] KM: It's Pine Bluff.

[0:27:49] CS: On a 75-mile-long –

[0:27:50] KM: And the best freeway.

[0:27:50] GM: By a long shot.

[0:27:50] CS: The best damn road, 75 miles an hour. If you don't know how to get to Saracen, you go like you're going to the airport, you keep going straight on this beautiful road, and you take exit 46 that says Saracen Resort Drive, and you're on our land. You don't even turn.

[0:28:05] KM: So, you can gamble in Hot Springs. You said there's four licenses. Hot Springs, is it West Memphis?

[0:28:10] CS: West Memphis and us, and the fourth license –

[0:28:13] KM: And then they got rid of Russellville.

[0:28:14] CS: Yes. But that's more of the soft bigotry of low expectations, right? People thought we screwed it up in Pine Bluff, and they thought Russellville would do it great. And Russellville has been mired in infighting controversy and Pine Bluff, we're just hiring folks and making money. So, you asked about the annex and I want to tell you very quickly why we built the annex, the little baby casino.

[0:28:37] KM: Making money.

[0:28:39] CS: That was one of three reasons. But yes, we made money, quite a bit of it very quickly. But what was far more valuable was that we were able to get our workforce up to speed quickly.

[0:28:49] KM: Oh, that's a good training. It was a training.

[0:28:52] CS: Absolutely. So, let's say he was working at the bank and now he's going to
work at our cashier, at our cage.

[0:29:01] KM: That's training.

[0:29:02] CS: Let's train in there. I'm a golfer, right? So, the driving range is very important. 

[0:29:05] KM: Oh, what's your score?

[0:29:08] CS: I'm happy if I shoot in the mid-80s. I shot 77 the other day. It was pretty fine though.

[0:29:11] KM: You are a golfer.

[0:29:13] CS: That's not great, but it's pretty good for a fat, bald, old guy, so.

[0:29:20] KM: All right, go ahead. I digress.

[0:29:21] CS: Okay, so you're at the cage, but last week you were working at the bank, right? There's only a hundred, excuse me, there's only 300 machines, right? So, we've overstaffed it dramatically. I mean, the number of FTEs that we had for that facility was incredibly inefficient. By design, we overstaffed it so that everyone got experience, because they were almost all new to the casino business, right? So, if you had a problem, it was like your boss was right there. Your supervisor was right there. We sent many of them to downstream, the other casino, the tri-bones to be trained. But when you've got a building that's so small has 300 machines, you could damn near shout, I need some help over here and your supervisor would come help you.

[0:30:07] KM: Last night –

[0:30:07] CS: So, they learned their stuff in a little building and those people today are our managers at the Saracen property.

[0:30:13] KM: Oh, I bet.

[0:30:14] CS: - But they learned in what you would almost call a safe space, right? Cause you get, you get loose in big Saracen and you're in trouble. You got to radio somebody and figure out the problem. But that little casino with way too much staff was the driving range, where people warmed up and practiced and learned their job. The third thing that it did was money, not just for us, but for the city and immediate infusion and a perceptual change. So, the amendment that legalized casino gaming passed overwhelmingly and it passed in Jefferson County, but there were still people that were like, “I don't know about this. What's it going to mean for our community,” because – 

[0:30:51] KM: Well, it is weird. We're a very conservative state. We don't have abortions. We don't have, what's the other thing we don't have?

[0:30:58] GM: A lot of stuff.

[0:30:59] KM: But we're a very Christian and all that. And then you go out and you put gambling in. So, it is a weird kind of an oxymoron kind of thing. 

[0:31:06] CS: Somebody told me one time, voids of information are rarely filled charitably, right? 

[0:31:11] KM: Gosh, he's just full gloat. 

[0:31:15] CS: So, people go, “What's a casino going to be like?” I don't know. And they immediately assume the worst. Well, guess what happens when we build this place and we start hiring people and they've got 401(k)s and they're making good money and it's a great place to work. Well, those are people's neighbors, cousins, Sunday school classmates. And within about six weeks, people are like, “Damn, I heard that's a pretty good place to work.” And you know what? They built a casino and the sun still rose and it changed the perception in the community. 

[0:31:40] KM: I think the good way outweighs any of the negative. 

[0:31:43] CS: But we got to prove it in a hundred days with a little bitty building where we made money, the city made money, we trained our employees. That was the beauty. The employees are the whole business. That's it. They're the whole business.

[0:31:52] KM: I love your business model, the way you talk about your employees. It's absolutely true.

[0:31:56] CS: I actually don't generally use the word employees. It's team because I think anything that you are authorized and trained to do is your job.

[0:32:06] KM: So, last night there were more employee cars than there were customer cars. Gray kept going, “Are we supposed to park at the back, back here? That's where all the cars are.” And I said, “I think that's the employees.” So, we went to the front and we were like, “There's as many employees. There's an employee for every person there.” You can't see them once you get inside, they're in the restaurants and they're all over. But exactly like you said, it's a lot of good training, a lot of good people, and hiring a lot of people. I mean, I could just see the benefits so much.

[0:32:37] CS: We've got a dozen folks in the training department, and they're incredible. They're so good that the videos they produce, we've been approached by companies who want to acquire them, license them, repackage them, and sell them. We said, “No. We're not in the business of creating educational videos.” Hats off to Will. Our training department's the best. 

[0:32:55] KM: So, you're from Oklahoma. Your whole family's from Oklahoma. You accidentally went to a tour of the Arkansas and Fayetteville and saw mountains for the first time.

[0:33:04] CS: Pretty much, I mean –

[0:33:05] KM: And said, “I got to move here.”

[0:33:06] CS: That was pretty much it.

[0:33:08] KM: Did you break your mother's heart?

[0:33:11] CS: I think I broke my mother's heart when I didn't go to law school. She will forever find me to be something of a failure.

[0:33:14] KM: You do act like a lawyer.

[0:33:15] CS: Everybody thinks I'm a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer.

[0:33:17] KM: I actually put you're a lawyer, and you're red and you're not a lawyer. But you do lawyer stuff.

[0:33:22] CS: I do lawyer-y stuff, but yes.

[0:33:25] KM: You read legalese.

[0:33:26] CS: A lot, and I worked in the Capitol, we used to write stuff. I'm comfortable at it, but you know.

[0:33:33] KM: - Your grandmother's a gifted musician.

[0:33:35] CS: Incredible.

[0:33:36] KM: Is that why you're on the Arkansas Symphony Opus Ball?

[0:33:38] CS: That was it. So, when they approached us about chairing the Opus Ball last year, my wife wanted to do it. Actually, it’s weird. We're in Cuba of all places.

[0:33:47] KM: I've been there.

[0:33:47] CS: I love Cuba. We're in Cuba and I got an email from Christina Littlejohn asking us to chair the Opus Bowl. I don't even told Christina the story. I said, “Kristen, that's a lot of work.” She said, "Well, let's talk about it. We'll see.” She said, “Your grandmother, you should do it for your grandmother.” I said, “Well, let's talk about it.” She emailed Christina said we're in.

So, I was in before I was in and I'm glad that we did it. It was a lot of fun and it's an incredible cause. In addition to that, we've been privileged enough to be able to help with the Museum of Fine Arts of late too. So, yes, for a kid from Southwestern Oklahoma, I'm faking my way into the arts, I suppose.

[0:34:29] KM: Yes, you are. What's the first job you had after college?

[0:34:33] CS: Okay, so after college was the same job I had in college. My dad told me that I was not allowed to play golf every day when I came home. Now, that sounds really sexy. I grew up in a small town in Southwestern Oklahoma. Nice town about the size of Fort Smith. But I played golf every day when I was a kid. I was on golf team in high school. That's just what I did. And he said, “You're not going to play golf every day. You got to get a job.” My dad was in the insurance business.

So, he sent me to the Oklahoma Panhandle to sell insurance with some guys that worked with my dad. I did that for years. I was on scholarship in college and lived in a fraternity house. And I would make commission money selling insurance. That was a lot of – I had a lot of fun on Dixon Street with insurance commission.

So, long about, I guess about a week after my 21st birthday, I met my wife and just love it first sight. We've been together, I'll be 43 next week, we've been together for 22 years. So, over half my life with her. She wanted to get married. My mother wanted me to go to law school. Kristen won, because we got married. I kept doing what I knew how to do, which was the insurance business. The truth is I loved it. I think everyone should have a job in sales. I also think sales is a wonderful career.

It's like old school in New York, and maybe it's on my brain because your shirt says New York and I was in New York yesterday. But in New York people, in New Orleans you see this too, it's a career. I mean, table service and you can make a lot of money, right? But it is a career, it is a calling, there are people who are passionate about it and I respect that, right? Sales is the same way. But everyone should have some time in the barrel as a salesman, because when you have to eat what you kill on commission sales, you know how important it is. You also learn that if you push too hard, you blow it. But if you don't ask for the sale, you don't get it.

I mean, everybody needs that experience in their life and I loved sales. I didn't know so much love insurance, but I loved sales and I loved people and I loved stories. I left that to go work for Asa.

[0:36:37] KM: Yes, how'd that happen?

[0:36:40] CS: Well, I've known the governor for a long time and always respected him.

[0:36:43] KM: But he wasn't the governor. Did you go to college together?

[0:36:46] CS: Well, he's quite a bit older than I am.

[0:36:46] KM: Oh, yes, he sure is. What am I talking about?

[0:36:50] CS: No, I met him when I was in Fayetteville and I had a good friend. This is not worth delving into, but I will tell you, it's funny how relationships turn into other things. I can attribute almost everyone I know in Arkansas to two people that I know. I can think about like a family tree branching. So, I had a guy who was my big brother in the SAE house and about half the people I know I met through him and then a buddy of mine who was a political consultant, about half the people I met through him. And what was really funny was over the course of the last 25 years, those two trees have sort of merged back together.

But it's just funny how life works, but I met Asa through my political friend and helped him a little bit when he was running and he said, “Why don't you come work for me?” And I said, “What do you want me to do?” And he said, “Do you want to work in an agency? Do you want to work in the Capitol? “I said, “I want to serve at your pleasure wherever you think, Governor.” And he said, “You'll be born to death in an agency. Come to the Capitol.” We had a lot of fun.

[0:37:46] KM: You got some good legislation passed. 

[0:37:48] CS: We did some cool stuff. I will tell you this, I said earlier that I'm humble but I am going to boast on one thing.

[0:37:54] KM: Bat in a thousand. I know what you're going to say.

[0:37:55] CS: That's it. I quit. I quit while I was ahead. We never tried to kill a bill that we didn't get killed, and we never tried to pass a bill that we didn't get passed. But as good as I thought we were, there was one better. The greatest of all time I've ever seen at the Capitol is a guy named Vu Ritchie. And Vu's working with Warren Stevens over at Stevens now. And Vu is the best. I thought we were good, but –

[0:38:22] KM: The best at what?

[0:38:25] CS: Politics. He can figure anything out. Anything. You ever worked around someone truly brilliant?

[0:38:29] KM: Yes, God, it makes me – you just want to be with him all the time.

[0:38:32] CS: You think you got it going on and then you're like, “Holy hell, that guy is playing 40 chess and I'm playing – I'm not even playing checkers. I'm flipping coins.” And I worked with some other incredible people. Government, and this is going to sound ugly, but government is full of some incredibly brilliant people. Yes, I'm not going to lie. There are a lot of people that just kind of phoned it in and worked just hard enough to not get fired.

[0:38:57] KM: It's surprising how many really smart people are in politics. I guess they're just bored and they got to do something that's really challenging.

[0:39:04] CS: It's counterintuitive though, because in government, risks are not awarded, right? But smart people are drawn to it. I mean, the funny thing about government is there's more zeros on anything you ever do than in any business, sort of maybe Amazon or Walmart, right? So, everything is the ability to change lives and huge dollar sums. I mean, these massive policy decisions. And you have many people who are some of the most brilliant people you will ever meet.

One of the Public Service Commissioners, a guy named Justin Tate. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. Vu Ritchie. I mean, there's a number of these guys I worked with that just run circles around everyone in the room and I loved it. But after a while, I felt like – I had a friend who said, “You don't have anything to prove anymore.” And it wasn't enough action for me. I loved it when the legislature was in. But when I had this opportunity to go to the casino business, not knowing anything about how the casino business runs, I was promised that I would never have a boring day, and that promise was absolutely true.

[0:40:06] KM: How did you go home and tell your wife I'm quitting this job and I'm going to go work for this place? It's just a bean field out in Pine Bluff.

[0:40:13] CS: Well, it actually was almost quite the opposite. So, the Quapaws have a gentleman who works with him, a dear friend. He's like family to me, named Don Tilton, who has worked for the tribe forever. Don went to the governor and said, “I'd like to talk to Carlton about coming to work.”

[0:40:30] KM: So, he asked for his permission. That was nice.

[0:40:32] CS: It's a classy way. Don's old school. He's one of the great, great lobbyists. I mean that's institutional knowledge for Arkansas. So, Don and I visited and the plan was essentially that I'd watch their back while the place was being built and it was essentially that you know Carlton knows Arkansas and he's a straight shooter and he'll watch. I guess I didn't screw it up because they didn't fire me. But I called my wife and I said, “So, here's the deal. I've been offered this”, and I want to say this because there's a lot of women that do this and they don't get the credit for it. When I was in the insurance business, I was the breadwinner. When I worked in government, government pays almost nothing, even at a senior level, it pays very little, especially in the Capitol. So, she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but she went back to work as a public accountant so we could pay our bills. 

[0:41:23] KM: Your wife did that?

[0:41:25] CS: Yes, for me. She's the best. So, for five years, five years, she was the breadwinner. I mean, I was working full-time, but she made more money than I did. When I approached her about this and I told her the details, she said this, and if this doesn't at your core, nothing else wrong. She said it with love. She said, “You do everything for everyone. You'd give them the shirt off your back.” I said, “Oh, thank you.” “Do this for us.” In other words, I want to stay home with the kids. I can tell you're getting restless and bored. Make the leap.

[0:42:00] KM: You did it.

[0:42:02] CS: So yes, I didn't have to explain it. She asked me to do it is the best decision I ever made and it is an honor every day. I tell people that I want to die at my desk but not tomorrow. But I'm an action junkie and I will tell you if you want to work in an action-filled environment, the casino is absolutely it. No two days or ever the same.

[0:42:18] KM: So, you started BetSaracen.

[0:42:22] CS: We started BetSaracen. There was a crew of us that did and –

[0:42:26] KM: Talk about successful. It's a lot of fun. I will tell you –

[0:42:30] CS: All right, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about BetSaracen. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Mr. Carlton Saffa, Marketing Director for Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. As you can hear, he's a lot more than just the marketing director. We'll come back, we're going to talk about BetSaracen, how you can get involved, and how successful it's been. We'll be right
back.

[BREAK]

[0:42:52] ANNOUNCER: Dancing into Dreamland 2025. It's fast approaching, Friday, February 15th right there at Taborian Hall downtown, the home of FlagandBanner.com. Listen, we need your help with the Silent Auction donations too. Silent Auctions is a really fun part of Dancing into Dreamland every year. If you have a product or a service that you'd like to promote, the Dancing into Dreamland crowd is a dedicated group of Little Rock lovers who are eager to support your local businesses, local artists, local service projects. Your donation is greatly appreciated and it's tax-deductible. Contact Matthew McCoy at (501) 255-5700 or you can write to him at friends@dreamlandballroom.org with anything you'd like to contribute. Don't forget to buy tickets for the event too, Dancing into Dreamland, February 15th.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:43:41] KM: We're speaking today with Executive Mr. Carlton Saffa of Saracen Casino in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. We did talk about gaming and which games to play and all that, but now I want to talk about BetSaracen. That is the smartest thing y'all done down there. Go ahead.

[0:43:56] CS: It's a scary business.

[0:43:57] KM: Why?

[0:43:58] CS: It's extremely volatile.

[0:44:00] KM: Because you never know who's going to win. Well, don't they use algorithms for that to figure it out?

[0:44:07] CS: We do.

[0:44:09] KM: Even the algorithms are – AI is not perfect. Oh, who knew.

[0:44:14] CS: Who thought Georgia Tech would go all those over times with Georgia, right? No AI model would ever put that out, right? That's what I mean by volatility. So, let's talk for a second about what volatility means. In a slot machine environment, we know that we are going to traditionally keep about 7% of the money that goes through the machines. That doesn't necessarily mean you, but it means enough play over the course of a month and they'll be in a month, $150 million go through those slot machines.

[0:44:45] KM: Well, and you can program them the way you want them to be.

[0:44:48] CS: And they're programmed –

[0:44:48] KM: You can’t program football.

[0:44:50] CS: Correct. But I'm an open book and I will tell you that those machines on average return about 93% of every dollar back to the players.

[0:44:58] KM: I’m just shocked to hear that.

[0:45:00] CS: Let me tell you very quickly how this works. Imagine a room with 10 people in it, playing 10 machines, each put $100 in. One wins $1,000. Nine folks lost, one won, and it wasn't even a huge win. Here's how a slot machine works. It's no different than an ATM machine. I want you to think about this for a minute. I explained this to a banker once this way.

We have 1,500 ATM machines on the floor and he said, “What?” And I said, “No, they're the same thing. They're computers with currency collectors and a screen. I mean, they have bells and whistles and buffalos and but they're the same thing.” He said, “No, they're not.” I said, “They are. At your ATM, you can choose how much you want to deposit and you can choose how much you want to withdraw.” He's like, “That's an ATM.”

I said, “Here's how a slot machine works. You can choose how much you want to deposit and for the opportunity to withdraw significantly more, you're going to pay a fee.” That fee tends to be about 7%. It's almost like an interchange fee. So, here's what happens over the course of a day at Saracen. There's millions that go in the machines and there's millions that come out, but they're distributed in all sorts of random, it's like snowflakes, right? It's not like you put $100 in and you get 93 out. You might put 100 in and get 110 out, or you might put 100 in and lose it all. 

[0:46:28] KM: Well, like you said, the nine lost and one guy hit the jackpot.

[0:46:30] CS: That's how it works. Okay. So, let's talk about sportsbook. Volatility.

[0:46:35] KM: Volatility. Oh yes, we're back at that.

[0:46:36] CS: So, the tables have volatility because there's swings, right? There's very little volatility in the slots. You've got 1,500 machines with a dependable return. Okay, you're really not going to lose money on any given day. With the tables, if the cards are coming wrong or the dice are going wrong, the casino can lose money. In sports, we can lose a lot of money very quickly. Here's a real-world Saracen example. In the last Super Bowl, if Kelsey had caught that ball and gone into the end zone, that event, not the game outcome, that single event of him crossing the line and scoring a touchdown would have cost us $900,000. Kelsey stepped out at the four. So, there was that much money on him to score what's called an any time touchdown.

[0:47:25] KM: Do you just watch sports constantly?

[0:47:27] CS: Oh, it's like watching CNBC now. I mean, it's like – but here's the thing about sports betting, and then I'll shut up. We can lose a massive sums in short periods of time.

[0:47:39] KM: It sounds like it. I had never thought of that.

[0:47:41] CS: So, here we are in –

[0:47:42] KM: So, you're scared to death every Super Bowl?

[0:47:45] CS: Oh, I just assume we'll lose money every Super Bowl, especially if the Chiefs are there. Here's the thing, if you want to be in sports betting as a casino, you have to make a decision very early are we going to be scared money or are we going to be in this?

[0:47:58] KM: Never scared.

[0:47:59] CS: If you're going to be scared money, you can make money, but you're going to limit the hell out of your players and you're going to run many of them off. I never want to be perceived as scared money. So, we take big bets, which means we lose a lot. But when we win, we win.

[0:48:12] KM: Did you have a ceiling of any kind?

[0:48:16] CS: Well, for an average player, yes. What I mean by that is and I signed up for BetSaracen, we don't know him. He wants to bet a million dollars on a game. We're not going to take that. There's something strange, right? But if you're a known player with a history with us, absolutely, and that's the same on the floor, right? I mean, we have posted limits, but it just depends. I mean, I have a friend who will bet upwards of $100,000 on Razorback, team wins, games. But he's got a long track record of wagering with us, right? But some guy on the street, you worry. We subscribe to every service there is that monitors this. The best one, they monitor wagering all across the globe, and any time something strange happens, it pops up on their radar and we get an alert.

[0:49:05] KM: So, I want to talk about your business style. You said, “The culture of Saracen is far more important in the strategy. Organizational culture is slowly built but hard to change. At Saracen, we work together and grow together in a space where office politics are simply not tolerated.”

[0:49:21] CS: Yes.

[0:49:22] KM: I love that. I feel like it took me a long time in business to learn. Fire the ones that are stirring it up quick. Three strikes you're out. I mean, I used to try to fix them and fix them and fix everything around them and then finally one of my really great employees said you're spending all your time on the C student. Would you spend your time on the A students and get rid of the Ds?

[0:49:45] CS: I don't want to work around anyone who doesn't want everyone to succeed. I realize that sounds very like children's storybook.

[0:49:52] KM: No, it's so true.

[0:49:53] CS: But I assume that you run your business this way. Everyone that is here will help each other. There are businesses. Politics is perhaps one of the worst environments where someone assumes if I knife the guy down the hall and he fails, then I'll shine a little bit brighter.

[0:50:13] KM: So, every time I do an interview, I do the research on the person and learn a little bit. I always learn something that I like and I carry forward. So, this is a quote of yours that really got me thinking and it's going to make me do a time study all my life. You're saying, when we choose to work on something, we are also choosing to not work on something else.

[0:50:37] CS: That's right. We chose to be here together. You were kind enough to invite me. I accepted. But there are things you could be doing right now instead of sitting with me. There are things I could be doing instead of sitting with you and we both decided that this was a good use of our time. Right?

[0:50:50] KM: Yes.

[0:50:51] CS: But I think where I said that was with respect to the sportsbook, because we invested in an inordinate amount of time and money in the sportsbook. And I'm proud to tell you that BetSaracen is today's the 13th-largest sportsbook in the country.

[0:51:04] KM: I know. I meant to mention that. Thank you.

[0:51:07] CS: And it's also our second largest revenue stream. By the way, that doesn't just have to do with business, right? I have a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old and there are times that I choose to work on business stuff and I'll start typing around on my computer. Actually, I did it yesterday on an airplane with my daughter. I was writing emails and halfway through, I thought these can wait. I shut it and I chose to sit and see if I could help Stella study for her exams. Because when you choose to do something, you choose not to do something else. Those emails can wait. They weren't urgent, but she's got exams right now, and I got to spend some time with my daughter. Opportunity cost is what an economist would call it.

[0:51:44] KM: So, this'll be our last quote from you. “So much of life is just showing up, and I believe you make your own luck in life. Who you know may get you in the room, but what you know gets you the job. The best part of this life is showing up and giving your darndest. It is who you know.”

[0:52:02] CS: That's only half of it. Who you know is very important that gets you to the table, that gets you in the room. But if you think that knowing somebody is enough to get you there, you're sorely mistaken. I'm not one to network really. I've never been that way.

[0:52:19] KM: Whatever. You're like on a thousand clubs.

[0:52:22] CS: Yes, but here's the deal. I do them because I care about them. I don't do them to meet people.

[0:52:25] KM: Well, you're accidentally – you're an accidental networker.

[0:52:27] CS: Yes. But I'm going to tell you this is ugly. The quickest way to give me to not go to something is call it a networking event. Because I'm like, I don't want to go to a thing for a bunch of people that just want to meet people.

[0:52:38] KM: I don't want to go to things that say fundraiser. That takes the fun, right out of fundraising.

[0:52:43] CS: I know we're out of time but I got to tell you when we're done, I got to tell you about my fundraiser idea. I think you're going to love it. It might work for the Ballroom.

[0:52:48] KM: Oh. So, you open seven days a week?

[0:52:50] CS: Seven days a week, 365.

[0:52:53] KM: And how many hours? All night long?

[0:52:56] CS: Twenty-four hours a day, 365, we’ll be open.

[0:52:57] KM: Oh, my God, that is – wow, that's a lot of people. No wonder you have 800-plus employees.

[0:53:04] CS: But the thing I miss most is when we only had 300 employees, because I knew everyone by name and I knew their stories and their people. 

[0:53:08] KM: You’re good at names. 

[0:53:10] CS: I've lost it with 800.

[0:53:12] KM: So, this is your gift for being on here. It's a desk set. Gray, when he leaves today, will you go down and get him an Oklahoma flag?

[0:53:19] GM: Yes, absolutely.

[0:53:20] KM: You’re going to have an Oklahoma flag to put in your office at Saracen.

[0:53:22] CS: Wow, thank you so much.

[0:53:24] KM: You're welcome. 

[0:53:25] CS: This has been fun. Thank you.

[0:53:26] KM: This show was recorded in the historical Taborian Hall in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas and made possible by the good works of FlagandBanner.com, Mr. Tom Wood, our audio engineer, Mr. Jonathan Hankins, our videographer. Daughter, Ms. Megan Pittman, production manager, and my co-host, Mr. Grady McCoy IV aka Son Gray. I'm Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on the radio. Until then, be brave and keep it up. 

[OUTRO]

[0:53:53] GM: You've been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. For links to resources you heard discussed on today's show, go to FlagandBanner.com, select radio and choose today's guest. If you’d like to sponsor this show or any show, contact me gray@flagandbanner.com. All interviews are recorded and posted the following week. Stay informed of exciting, upcoming guests by subscribing to our YouTube channel or podcast, wherever you like to listen. Kerry’s goal is simple, to help you, live the American dream.

[END]

---

TRANSCRIPT (Part 2)

EPISODE 436

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:09] GM: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. Through storytelling, conversational interviews, and Kerry's natural curiosity, this weekly radio show and podcast offers listeners an insider's view into the commonalities of entrepreneurs, athletes, medical officials, politicians, and other successful people. 

[0:00:27] TW: Last week's guest on Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, Carlton Saffa from Saracen Casino in Pine Bluff, had so many interesting things to talk about in the world of casino gaming that we are now going to present part two of that conversation. Much of it edited out from the first episode and landed on the cutting room floor. But it's good interesting information and we present it today in part two of Carlton Saffa on Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. 

[0:00:55] KM: Thank you again, Gray. My guest today is Mr. Carlton Saffa, the Chief Marketing Officer for the Quapaw Nation’s Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Carlton has been with the casino since its inception. He was the first employee hired when the business model was still just an idea on paper. Since then, Carlton has been involved and helped oversee much of the casino's construction, expansions, and gaming licenses. The casino broke ground in 2019 among the COVID-19 pandemic and managed to open to the public in October of 2020.

At the time, it was the largest construction project of the year. Today, with the help of two other senior executives, Saffa oversees the day-to-day management of the property and its 800-plus employees. He has seen firsthand what his company is doing to breathe life back into historical Pine Bluff, a once-bustling town on the Arkansas River. In construction now is a 13-story hotel tower with 320 rooms and plans for a 1,600-person concert venue is on the horizon. 

It is with great pleasure I welcome to the table the ambitious, hardworking, jack of all trades, and superstar of Saracen Casino, Mr. Carlton Saffa.

[0:02:21] CS: Thank you. I started there in June of '19, and I feel like I won the jackpot because my job really is managing slot machines and a lot of other things, but slot machines are run by a random number generator. I think my life, it's been a God thing. I think it's a random number generator. If you ran me through simulations a million times, it would never come out again this way. So, only the hand of God can deliver something like this.

[0:02:46] KM: That's why I don't place slot machines, because they're programmed, and I don't know what they're programmed to win and lose at.

[0:02:54] CS: Somebody won $950,000 the other day at Saracen?

[0:02:57] KM: Should go in and fix that machine?

[0:02:58] CS: No. Believe it or not, we hold about 7% of what goes in a slot machine. So, hold means what percentage of the money that goes through, do we keep and what goes back out. 

[0:03:10] KM: So, you're saying if you play the slot machines, you have a 93% chance of winning?

[0:03:14] CS: Sort of.

[0:03:15] KM: That's not true, because I've played the slot machines and I never win the slot machine. Blackjack, I win. I won $900 in Hollywood last week, Hollywood casino, yeah. 

[0:03:24] CS: We'll talk in a minute about wallet and watch, which are the two things that are the key to casino gaming in terms of operation. Time and how much money you have. Not how much money you have as a person, how much money you're willing to risk. But a lot of it is about wallet management. If you walk in with $500, you should never walk into a casino with anything you're not prepared to completely lose, right? But if you walk in with $500, you don't need to be betting $100 of pull slot machines. 

But I want to say something quickly about the wallet too, on side bets. We manage very closely the hold. And I want to talk about hold for a minute if we've got time. Hold is essentially what's our margin, right? Some games have a very small house edge, a very small margin. Some games have a bigger margin. Baccarat has about a 1% house margin. 

[0:04:15] KM: I don't know – what do you call it? Baccarat? 

[0:04:18] CS: Baccarat. Yeah. 

[0:04:18] KM: I see it, but I don't ever know what it is. 

[0:04:19] CS: It's a very popular game at Sarasen. And it's sexy. James Bond played it. It's the whole business in Macau. Macau does, by the way, in a quarter, what Las Vegas does in a year. 

[0:04:30] KM: What's Macau? 

[0:04:31] CS: Macau is the former Chinese colony. Well, or Portuguese colony, I think. 

[0:04:37] KM: That started the game? 

[0:04:38] CS: No, it's where all the big casinos are. Sheldon Adelson, the late Sheldon Adelson, who built the Venetian, got very rich in Las Vegas and became one of the world's richest people in Macau. 

[0:04:49] KM: From gambling? 

[0:04:49] CS: From running casinos. 

[0:04:51] KM: Oh, from running. Yeah. 

[0:04:52] CS: Like the Venetian Macau, the Wynn Macau. The biggest casino on earth is the Venetian Macau. 

[0:04:58] KM: Have you been there? 

[0:04:59] CS: I've not. It's on my bucket list. But the side bets are something to watch. I mean, I mentioned, they're all the same thing. Triple zero roulette, side bets, all of them are the same thing. We don't put anything on the floor. This is going to sound self-serving, but it's true, and I think you'll understand why here in a second. We don't put anything on the floor that's going to knock your head off. And some of those side bets you will see – 

[0:05:20] KM: In a good way or a bad way? Knock your head off in a good way? 

[0:05:24] CS: In a bad way. This is what I talk about, that we want to win your money inefficiently and slowly. If I put something on the floor that has a 20% or 30% margin for the house, we're going to knock your head off. Some side bets at the blackjack table have ridiculously terrible odds to the player. Your likelihood of winning versus what you put up is awful. Some are great. They're different, right? You see lucky ladies, trilux. There's all kinds of different side bets. We don't want a bet with a 20% or30 % margin because players will play it and they're going to walk away in an hour and go, "I lost all my damn money. I'm not ever going back to that place." 

Well, the reason they lost all their money is because they were playing a bet that sucks, right? We don't put bets that suck on the floor because that ruins your perception of the property. I need you to feel like you either had your money's worth or you won. And so, triple zero roulette to me is the ultimate scourge. Europeans play with one zero. In Vegas, you're beginning to see three zero. Two zero is standard American roulette. 

[0:06:25] KM: I guess I know what triple zero roulette is. 

[0:06:28] CS: You know roulette, you got black and red. 

[0:06:29] KM: Yeah. 

[0:06:31] CS: And there's the green number, the zero. In Europe, they have one zero. In the US, we have two zeros. But you're beginning to see three zeros. 

[0:06:39] KM: What happens if you hit the zeros? 

[0:06:41] CS: If the red bet or the black bet, neither one of them win. Think about it, right? Roulette, there's 36 numbers. It pays 28 to 1. You put in another number, you change the numbers dramatically, right? These are the sorts of things that are small short-term gains, but in the long-term can change the perception of a regional property. 

In Vegas – and I love Vegas. But in Vegas, many of your gamblers are there once a year, twice a year, three times a year, or maybe they're conference guys who go every five years. They play occasionally. It's Las Vegas. Our business, 70% of our customers come from Pulaski County. Yeah. We depend upon repeat business. The 80/20 model is how we exist, right? I don't know y 'all's business, but we make over 80% of our business off of 20% of our customers. 

[0:07:28] KM: My housekeeper goes and plays the slots 

[0:07:30] CS: Well, thank you. 

[0:07:31] KM: My housekeeper. 

[0:07:33] CS: Keep paying her. 

[0:07:34] KM: Okay. I was there last night. I ran into my housekeeper and her husband. They just got back from – 

[0:07:39] CS: You ran into them last night? 

[0:07:40] KM: I did. 

[0:07:41] CS: Oh, that's incredible. 

[0:07:41] KM: They bought me dinner. When I'm going to pay, they bought my dinner. My housekeeper bought my dinner. I've got to cut her pay. 

[0:07:48] CS: Have you been to Red Oak? 

[0:07:50] KM: I tried to go to Red Oak last night. That's where I went there and it was closed. 

[0:07:53] CS: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 

[0:07:54] KM: That's right. But I tell you, I ate in Legends. It was delicious. 

[0:07:59] CS: It's a good place. 

[0:08:00] KM: The steaks are great. Steaks are good. And we do huge portions. 

[0:08:04] KM: It's casual. Very casual. 

[0:08:07] CS: And that's fun. People feel like they get their money's worth. That place has done well. 

[0:08:10] KM: And then the other person I ran into in Legends was the farmer's market farmer that I buy my farmer's market from. 

[0:08:17] CS: I tell people all the time – 

[0:08:20] KM: There's a lot of farmers there. 

[0:08:21] CS: Yeah. It's not by accident. 

[0:08:23] KM: Well, they're all out in that country area. You're down there. 

[0:08:27] CS: I will tell you, some of my best friends in the world are farmers, and they will tell you that they gamble for a living. If you think about it, you know where I'm going with this.

[0:08:35] KM: Oh, yeah. 

[0:08:38] CS: What is land, and input costs like diesel, and fertilizer, and weather, and market fluctuations? It's gambling, right? Now, I'm not implying, if you're watching this and you're a gambler and you're adamantly opposed to casino, or you're a farmer and you're adamantly opposed to casino gaming, I'm not calling you a gambler. But I'm saying there are a lot of overlap in that sort of profession in this. 

And so we find there's a lot of it. We wanted to be very farmer friendly. And so we have tremendous relationships with folks like the Ag Council of Arkansas and others. I mean, some of our best customers are in the agricultural business and we're right there. 

[0:09:13] KM: You're right there in the Delta, right? When the Delta starts, right? 

[0:09:16] CS: And where we sit, and you know this, we are at most 49 miles from the casino. I mean, it's 47 – 

[0:09:24] KM: Oh, you mean Little Rock. 

[0:09:25] CS: It's 47 miles from the city limits to get there. 

[0:09:28] KM: You know how many deer I saw coming home? 

[0:09:29] GM: Yeah. Do you see a bunch? 

[0:09:31] KM: Mm-hmm. 

[0:09:31] CS: But I will tell you this, there ain't a better highway in Arkansas than 530.

[0:09:35] KM: You're exactly right. It was smooth sailing and my housekeeper's husband said, "Get on the inside lane so you can see the deer when you're going down the road." Great tip. Don't drive close to the edge because they can jump out. But if you're on the inside, I was like – 

[0:09:51] CS: We live right in the middle of Little Rock and I get to work in 52 minutes without speeding. 

[0:09:56] KM: We went down there, ate dinner, turned around, came back. I'm going to go back to the Red Oak. It's won how many awards? 

[0:10:02] CS: Gosh, I couldn't even begin to tell you. 

[0:10:04] GM: I think the promotional video we watched said four. 

[0:10:06] CS: Four. I know it's been named best restaurant in Arkansas four years running. 

[0:10:10] GM: Oh, that's what it was. 

[0:10:11] CS: Which is pretty cool because it's only been open four years. 

[0:10:14] KM: I'm telling you, people love slot machines. I don't get it. It's the most boring thing in the world. 

[0:10:19] CS: When I worked in government, one of the things I had the privilege of working on was the lottery. And I loved working on the lottery but I never I understood it. 

[0:10:25] KM: Did you work with – 

[0:10:26] CS: I worked for Asa Hutchinson. 

[0:10:27] KM: Oh, that lottery. I was wondering if you worked for Mitch Chandler who just passed away. 

[0:10:31] CS: No, I knew Mitch well. I knew Mitch very well. 

[0:10:33] KM: Yeah. Shout out to Mitch Chandler. Rest in peace, brother. 

[0:10:35] CS: Shout out, yes.

[0:10:37] GM: Go listen to his interview. 

[0:10:39] CS: Yeah, I need to. I worked with Mitch closely. And in fact, not an hour ago, I saw the guy that introduced me to Mitch, a guy I respect tremendously. A fellow named Larry Walther, who was very, very close with Mitch. Larry used to be the head of the F&A. Mitch was the best. 

[0:10:55] KM: He's just the best. 

[0:10:56] CS: But I never understood the lottery. Now, I didn't hold that against the customer. But maybe this is a good tip. Never be so confident that you know what your customer wants. They're always going to tell you what you want. This is nothing to do with the casino. There's a lottery story, it's a short one. We had a scratch-off ticket that we had arranged with the St. Louis Cardinals. And I thought, "Man, this is going to kill it." I'm so excited. There's a Cardinals scratch-off ticket. I don't understand scratch-off tickets or the appeal, but this theme is going to be – we're going to set records. And it was a total bomb. 

[0:11:33] KM: Don't you just – you know? 

[0:11:35] CS: At the same time, there was a ticket that came out from one of the major manufacturers. And the theme had nothing topical or relevant. You'll see themes come back, Willy Wonka, right, with reboots of the movie or things like that, right? And you see that on the slot floor too. And there are kind of evergreen classics that never go away, like Wheel of Fortune. But at the same time that the St. Louis Cardinals was a total bomb, Betty Boop – 

[0:11:59] KM: No way. 

[0:12:00] CS: – was setting records. That's a head scratcher. And so that's my lesson to you is your customers will tell you what they want. And if they don't tell you, measure what they're buying and you can see it. 

[0:12:11] KM: That's the hard part, measuring stuff.

[0:12:13] CS: All right. I've been all over the map. I'm going to shut up. You probably had some questions. 

[0:12:18] KM: Well, not anymore. 

[0:12:20] CS: Thanks, folks. See you later. 

[0:12:21] KM: Good. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Mr. Carlton Saffa, marketing director of Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. We'll be right back. 

[BREAK]

[0:12:31] TW: If you own a business or direct an organization of some kind, ask yourself this question, "Have you ever had a custom-made flag?" It's not vanity, it's good thinking. And right now, you can get 10% off one of our custom flags with the code CF10 at flagandbanner.com. Call or go online, describe what it is you'd like to have in a custom flag, and in one day you'll get a quote, "We'll get back to you." And you could save money. Remember the code CF10. Custom flags at flagandbanner.com. 

[0:13:07] GM: You're listening to Up In Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of flagandbanner.com. In 1975, with only $400, Kerry founded Arkansas Flag & Banner. Since then, the business has grown and changed, along with Kerry's experience and leadership knowledge. In 1995, she embraced the internet and rebranded her company as simply flagandbanner.com. In 2004, she became an early blogger. Since then, she has founded the nonprofit Friends of Dreamland Ballroom, began publishing her magazine, Brave. And in 2016, branched out into this very radio show, YouTube channel and podcast. 

In 2020, Kerry McCoy Enterprises acquired ourcornermarket.com, an online company specializing in American-made plaques, signage, and memorials. In 2021, Flag & Banner expanded to a satellite office in Miami, Florida, where first-generation immigrants keep the art of sewing alive and flags made in America. Telling American-made stories, selling American-made flags, the flagandbanner.com. Back to you, Kerry. 

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:14:09] KM: Thank you, dear. We're speaking today with Mr. Carlton Saffa, a big cheese and a founding employee. I didn't know if you could actually say founding employee, but you were the first employee, as I understand. 

[0:14:20] CS: I think they keep me so they can say they have 100% retention from June of '19, right, as you look at employee turnover metrics. And I will tell you this, I wish marketing was all I do, but it is – 

[0:14:33] KM: Oh, I know. You do everything. 

[0:14:34] CS: Yeah. I mean, I think of myself is my job is to watch the Quapaw's back as best I can here. Pine Bluff is one of my favorite places in the world and people are going to go, "This guy's a homer. He's just selling. 

[0:14:46] KM: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. 

[0:14:47] CS: No. Some of my favorite people on earth are Pine Bluff people. Shout out to Bill Jones, Ford Trotter. I mean, amazing. The saint of Pine Bluff, that's what I call him. Tommy May is a saint Pine Bluff, right? And we forget Simmons Bank and so many other things. Simmons, of course, publicly-traded NASDAQ Bank. 

[0:15:08] KM: Yeah, they're from Pine Bluff. Been there forever. 

[0:15:09] CS: You got a 40-story building behind us with their name on it. 

[0:15:12] KM: And they have hat really low-interest credit card, y'all. 

[0:15:14] CS: Yeah, they've got the old Axiom Building by the Clinton Library. But their corporate headquarters for their NASDAQ stock filings? Pine Bluff, Arkansas. 

[0:15:22] KM: No way. 

[0:15:22] CS: Look it up. 

[0:15:23] KM: How do you work with the Quapaw Nation Business Committee? Do you have to meet them every week or do Zoom? 

[0:15:31] CS: We have a lot of Zooms. The chair of the Quapaw Nation is the most ferocious woman I've ever met in my life. I mean, she should be a UFC boxer, a fighter. She's probably 110 pounds, soaking wet, and might be five-foot tall. And I have no doubt she could kick all of our asses.

[0:15:47] KM: What's her podcast about? 

[0:15:49] CS: No, she needs to be on your podcast. 

[0:15:52] KM: Oh, wouldn't that be fun? 

[0:15:53] CS: Wena has one of the coolest biographies of anyone I've ever known. She's Quapaw. Was educated in the Northeast and was a global businesswoman with an international insurance company. We're talking about experience in Japan and India. Senior executive with an insurance company. 

[0:16:11] KM: She live in Oklahoma now? 

[0:16:12] CS: She splits time between her house in Florida and in Oklahoma. 

[0:16:16] KM: Does she come to Little Rock? 

[0:16:17] CS: All the time? 

[0:16:18] KM: Well, she needs to come on the show and tell us about it. 

[0:16:20] CS: She says she's home when she's here. 

[0:16:23] KM: Is she Quapaw? 

[0:16:24] CS: Oh, yeah. 

[0:16:26] KM: Well, they're originally from Arkansas. 

[0:16:27] CS: Yeah, I tell people all the time when they go, "Quapaw?" All right, pop quiz. Where's the governor's mansion? Quapaw Court. What are the Boy Scouts called? 

[0:16:36] GM: The Quapaw. Yeah. 

[0:16:38] KM: And don't we have the Wichita Mountains are in the Quapaw, something, aren't they? 

[0:16:42] CS: The Quapaw are everywhere. 

[0:16:43] KM: Quapaw means downstream people and in 1834 were removed from Arkansas and sent to Oklahoma. 

[0:16:48] GM: Right, yeah. 

[0:16:49] KM: Isn't that sad? 

[0:16:49] CS: And there was a quick stop that's even sadder. They were sent to what is basically Shreveport now where they almost all died. 

[0:16:56] KM: Your name is from Lebanon? 

[0:16:57] CS: I'm Lebanese, yeah. 

[0:16:59] KM: Your dad, how'd he get here? 

[0:17:01] CS: My dad was born in Lawton, Oklahoma. My great-grandparents were immigrants. Oklahoma is a cool state because everybody came to Oklahoma. It's actually the other side of sort of the ugliness we were talking about, about Native America, right? But the land rush was huge. And so I had family in St. Louis and family in Kentucky. My grandma and my grandpa were both Lebanese. 

[0:17:23] KM: I looked up Saracen because I'm like, "Why Saracen?" 

[0:17:27] CS: He was a Quapaw leader. 

[0:17:28] KM: There was a chief named Saracen?

[0:17:30] CS: Yeah, and I use the word chief and air quotes. He was a leader. I don't know if he was an official chief or not. I'm going to get myself in trouble here. I should know my Quapaw history better. But he was a very well-respected tribal leader who actually owned land in Arkansas. And when folks were sent to Shreveport, he brought many of them back. There are things all over Pine Bluff that have Quapaw lineage and Quapaw history. Saracen himself, the leader of the Quapaw people, is buried in the Catholic cemetery in Pine Bluff. 

[0:18:01] KM: Really? 

[0:18:02] CS: Yeah. The casino itself is named for a leader who is buried in Pine Bluff. And long before that casino was there the lake that abuts. 

[0:18:11] KM: I saw that Saracen Lake put in. 

[0:18:12] CS: Yeah, we didn't put that there. 

[0:18:13] KM: You didn't put that there? 

[0:18:13] CS: No. No, the coolest, the coolest Saracen story in Pine Bluff – 

[0:18:17] KM: Yeah, there's a put-in called the Saracen Landing. 

[0:18:19] CS: You can Google this. There is a mural in downtown Pine Bluff that says Saracen, Arkansas's original folk hero or something along those sorts. And it's a story that's too long to tell that's almost like a Disney story about Saracen saving some French children from a raiding party from another tribe. And they teach it in school. But Quapaw history is Arkansas history. 

[0:18:42] KM: Pine Bluff is a really weird place, isn't it? 

[0:18:45] CS: One side of the coin would tell you there are a lot of people from Pine Bluff but not in Pine Bluff. 

[0:18:51] KM: Yes, I have people working here that are from Pine Bluff. 

[0:18:53] CS: The trouble is there are so many people from there but not still there, and that is something more changing. 

[0:18:58] KM: So why did you decide to put the Saracen Casino down there? Because they are losing population. A couple years ago, they lost more population than any other city in America. And then shortly thereafter, you decide to put a casino in there. 

[0:19:12] CS: Well, so some of it was dictated by the Constitution, right? The Constitution said there'd be four licenses. Didn't work out quite so well in Russellville. And I kind of keep my mouth shut about that one. 

[0:19:22] KM: Is that the one we just voted on? 

[0:19:23] CS: Yeah, again. Right? We voted it. We wanted it, and then we voted it. We didn't want it, then – Pine Bluff was a far more attractive location. For all of the realtors out there, what's the old cliche about real estate? 

[0:19:36] KM: I don't know. 

[0:19:37] CS: Location, location, location. 

[0:19:38] KM: Location, location, location. 

[0:19:39] CS: We're in the right spot. Why? What's the closest place to gamble from where we sit? Is it Hot Springs? Would it be Russellville? Or would it be Pine Bluff? 

[0:19:46] KM: No. It's Pine Bluff. 

[0:19:48] CS: Yeah. 

[0:19:50] KM: And the best freeway. 

[0:19:50] GM: By a long shot, yeah. 

[0:19:51] CS: The best damn road. 75 miles an hour. And if you don't know how to get to Sarasen, you go like you're going to the airport, you keep going straight on this beautiful road and you take exit 46 that says Saracen Resort Drive and you're on our land. You don't even turn. 

[0:20:04] KM: You can gamble in Hot Springs. You said there are four licenses. Hot Springs. Is it West Memphis? 

[0:20:11] CS: West Memphis and us. And the fourth license – 

[0:20:12] KM: And then they got rid of Russellville.

[0:20:14] CS: Yeah. But that's more of the soft bigotry of low expectations, right? People thought we'd screw it up in Pine Bluff. And they thought Russellville would do great. And Russellville has been mired in fighting controversy. And Pine Bluff? We're just hiring folks and making money. 

[0:20:31] KM: So I was so impressed that while you were building your $300 million casino, you threw up in 100 days a, I don't know, warehouse. I don't know – 

[0:20:43] CS: The annex. We just sort of made that up. That wasn't my idea for it on the name, but I love it, annex. 

[0:20:49] KM: What? 300 slot machines in 100 days? While they're building it, they've thrown up an annex that's just come on in and play the bandits, the one-armed bandits. 

[0:20:59] CS: I will tell you that place. 

[0:20:59] KM: That was pretty good. And they had lines out the door. 

[0:21:04] CS: People would wait in line to play slot machines. You asked about the annex and I want to tell you very quickly why we built the annex. The little baby casino. 

[0:21:12] KM: Oh, make money. 

[0:21:15] CS: That was one of three reasons. But yes, we made money, quite a bit of it very quickly. But what was far more valuable was that we were able to get our workforce up to speed quickly. 

[0:21:24] KM: Training. It was a training. 

[0:21:28] CS: Absolutely. That's so smart. 

[0:21:30] CS: Let's say he was working at the bank. And now he's going to work at our cashier, at our cage. 

[0:21:35] KM: Let's train him on slots. 

[0:21:37] CS: I'm a golfer, right? So the driving range is very important. 

[0:21:40] KM: Oh, what's your score? 

[0:21:42] CS: I'm happy if I shoot in the mid-80s. I shot 77 the other day. I was pretty fired. 

[0:21:47] KM: You are a golfer. Yeah. 

[0:21:48] CS: That's not great. It's pretty good. Pretty good for a fat, bald, old guy. 

[0:21:56] KM: All right. Go ahead. Digress. 

[0:21:57] CS: So you're at the cage. But last week, you were working at the bank, right? There are only 300 machines, right? So we've overstaffed it dramatically. I mean, the number of FTEs that we had for that facility was incredibly inefficient. By design, we overstaffed it so that everyone got experience because they were almost all new to the casino business, right? 

And so if you had a problem, it was like your boss was right there. Your supervisor was right there. We sent many of them to downstream, the other casino, the tri-bones, to be trained. But when you've got a building that's so small, has 300 machines, you could damn near shout, "I need some help over here," and your supervisor would come help you. So they learn their stuff in a little building. And those people today are our managers at the big Saracen property. 

[0:22:48] KM: Oh, I bet. But they learned in what you would almost call a safe space, right? Because you get loose in big Saracen and you're in trouble, you got to radio somebody and figure out the problem. But that little casino with way too much staff was the driving range where people warmed up and practiced and learned their job. 

The third thing that it did was money, not just for us, but for the city, and immediate infusion and a perceptual change. The amendment that legalized casino gaming passed overwhelmingly and it passed in Jefferson County, but there were still people that were like, "I don't know about this. What's it going to mean for our community?" Because – 

[0:23:26] KM: Well, it is weird. We're a very conservative state. We don't have abortions. We don't have – what's the other thing we don't have? 

[0:23:32] GM: A lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff. 

[0:23:34] KM: You know? No. I mean, we're very Christian and all that. And then you go out and you put gambling in. It is a weird kind of an oxymoron kind of thing. 

[0:23:41] CS: Well, somebody told me one time, "Voids of information are rarely filled charitably." Right? 

[0:23:47] KM: God, he's just full of quotes. Are you writing all these down? 

[0:23:51] CS: People go, "What's a casino going to be like?" "I don't know." And they immediately assume the worst. Well, guess what happens when we build this place and we start hiring people and they've got 401(k) s and they're making good money and it's a great place to work. Well, those are people's neighbors, cousins, Sunday school classmates. And within about six weeks, people are like, "Damn. I heard that's a pretty good place to work. And you know what? They built a casino and the sun still rose." And it changed the perception in the community. 

[0:24:15] KM: I think the good way outweighs any of the negative. 

[0:24:17] CS: But we got to prove it in a hundred days with a little bitty building where we made money, the city made money, and we trained our employees. That was the beauty. The employees are the whole business. That's it. They're the whole business. 

[0:24:29] KM: I love your business model, the way you talk about your employees. It's absolutely true. 

[0:24:32] CS: And I actually don't generally use the word employees. It's team, because I think anything that you are authorized and trained to do is your job. 

[0:24:43] KM: So last night, there were more employee cars than there were customer cars. Grady kept going, "Are we suppose to park at the back? Back here? That's where all the cars are." And I said, "I think that's the employees." And so we went to the front and we were like, "There's as many employees – there's an employee for every person there." You can't see them once you get inside? They're in the restaurants and they're all over. But exactly like you said, it's a lot of good training, a lot of good people, and hiring a lot of people. I mean, I could just see the benefits so much. 

[0:25:12] CS: We've got a dozen folks in the training department and they're incredible. They're so good that the videos they produce, we've been approached by companies who want to acquire them, license them, repackage them, and sell them. And we said, "No. No, we're not in the business of creating educational videos." But hats off to Will. Our training department's the best. 

[0:25:30] KM: You're from Oklahoma. Your whole family's from Oklahoma. 

[0:25:32] CS: The whole. Grandparents, grand – 

[0:25:34] KM: You accidentally went to a tour of the Arkansas and Fayetteville and saw mountains for the first time and said, "I got to move here." 

[0:25:43] CS: That was pretty much it. 

[0:25:44] KM: Did you break your mother's heart? 

[0:25:46] CS: I think I broke my mother's heart when I didn't go to law school. She will forever find me to be something of a failure. 

[0:25:50] KM: You do act like a lawyer. 

[0:25:51] CS: Everybody thinks I'm a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer. 

[0:25:53] KM: I actually put you were a lawyer and then read and you're not a lawyer. But you do lawyer stuff. 

[0:25:58] CS: I do lawyery stuff a lot. And I worked in the Capitol. We used to write stuff. Yeah. I'm comfortable at it, but you now – 

[0:26:08] KM: Your grandmother is a gifted musician. 

[0:26:10] CS: Incredible. 

[0:26:11] KM: Is that why you're on the Arkansas Symphony? Opus Ball? 

[0:26:13] CS: That was it. When they approached us about sharing the Opus Ball last year, my wife wanted to do it. Actually, this is weird. We're in Cuba, of all places. 

[0:26:22] KM: I've been there. 

[0:26:23] CS: I love Cuba. We're in Cuba, and I got an email from Christina Littlejohn asking us to share the opus ball. And I don't even told Christina the story. I said, "Christin, that's a lot of work." She said, "Well, let's talk about it." Well, "We'll see." She said, "Your grandmother, you should do it for your grandmother." I said, "Well, let's talk about it." Well, she emailed Kristin and said we're in. I was in before I was in. And I'm glad that we did it. It was a lot of fun and it's an incredible cause. And in addition to that, we've been privileged enough to be able to help with the Museum of Fine Arts of late too. Yeah, for a kid from Southwestern, Oklahoma, I'm faking my way into the arts, I suppose. 

[0:27:04] KM: Yeah, you are. What's the first job you had after college? 

[0:27:08] CS: Okay. After college was the same job I had in college. My dad told me that I was not allowed to play golf every day when I came home. Now, that sounds really sexy. I grew up in a small town in Southwestern Oklahoma. Nice town. About the size of Fort Smith. But I played golf every day when I was a kid. I was on the golf team in high school. That's just what I did. And he said, "You're not going to play golf every day. You got to get a job." And my dad was in the insurance business. 

He sent me to the Oklahoma Panhandle to sell insurance with some guys that worked with my dad. And so I did that for years. I was on scholarship in college and lived in a fraternity house. And I would make commission money selling insurance. And I had a lot of fun on Dixon Street with insurance commission. 

I guess about a week after my 21st birthday, I met my wife. And just love at first sight. And we've been together – I'll be 43 next week. We've been together for 22 years. Over half my life with her. She wanted to get married. My mother wanted me to go to law school. Kristen won, because we got married. And so I kept doing what I knew how to do, which was the insurance business. 

And the truth is I loved it. I think everyone should have a job in sales. I also think sales is a wonderful career. It's like old school New York. And maybe it's on my brain because your shirt says New York and I was in New York yesterday. But in New York, people – in New Orleans, you see this too. It's a career. I mean, table service. And you can make a lot of money, right? But it is a career. It is a calling. There are people who are passionate about it. And I respect that, right? And sales is the same way. But everyone should have some time in the barrel as a salesman. Because when you have to eat what you kill on commission sales, you know how important it is. 

You also learn that if you push too hard, you blow it. But if you don't ask for the sale, you don't get it. I mean, everybody needs that experience in their life. And I loved sales. I didn't so much love insurance, but I loved sales, and I loved people, and I loved stories. And I left that to go work for Asa. 

[0:29:14] KM: Yeah, how'd that happen? 

[0:29:14] CS: Well, I'd known the governor for a long time and always respected him and – 

[0:29:18] KM: But he wasn't the governor. Did you ever go to college together? 

[0:29:21] CS: Well, he's quite a bit older than I am. 

[0:29:22] KM: Oh yeah, he sure is. What am I talking about? 

[0:29:25] CS: No, I met him when I was in Fayetteville. And I had a good friend – this is not worth delving into. But I will tell you, it's funny how relationships turn into other things. I can attribute almost everyone I know in Arkansas to two people that I know. I can think about like a family tree branching. I had a guy who was my big brother in the SAE house. And about half people I know I met through him. And then a buddy of mine who was a political consultant, about half people I met through him. And what was really funny was over the course of the last 25 years, those two trees have sort of merged back together. 

But it's just funny how life works. But I met Asa through my political friend and helped him a little bit when he was running and he said, "Why don't you come work for me?" And I said, "What do you want me to do?" And he said, "Do you want to work in an agency? Do you want to work in the Capitol?" I said, "I want to serve at your pleasure wherever you think, governor." And he said, "You'll be born to death in an agency. Come to the Capitol." And we had a lot of fun. 

[0:30:22] KM: You got some good legislation passing. 

[0:30:23] CS: We did some cool stuff. I will tell of this, I said earlier that I'm humble, but I am going to boast on one thing. 

[0:30:29] KM: Baton a thousand. I know what you're going to say. 

[0:30:31] CS: That's it. I quit. I quit while I was ahead. We never tried to kill a bill that we didn't get killed, and we never tried to pass a bill that we didn't get passed. But as good as I thought we were, there was one better. The greatest of all time I've ever seen at the Capitol is a guy named Vu Ritchie. And Vu's working with Warren Stephens over at Stephens now. And Vu is the best. I thought we were good. 

[0:30:57] KM: The best at what? 

[0:30:58] CS: Politics. He can figure anything out. Anything. You ever worked around someone truly brilliant? 

[0:31:04] KM: Yes. God. You just want to be with them all the time. 

[0:31:08] CS: And you think you got it going on, and then you're like, "Holy hell, that guy is playing 40 chess." And I'm not even playing checkers. I'm flipping coins. And I worked with some other incredible people. Government – and this is going to sound ugly. But government is full of some incredibly brilliant people. And yes, I'm not going to lie, there are a lot of people that just kind of phone it in and work just hard enough to not get fired. 

[0:31:33] KM: It's surprising how many really smart people are in politics, and I guess they're just bored and they got to do something that's really challenging. 

[0:31:39] CS: It's counterintuitive though, because in government, risks are not rewarded, right? But smart people are drawn to it. I mean, the funny thing about government is there's more zeros on anything you ever do than in any business, sort of maybe Amazon or Walmart, right? Everything is the ability to change lives and huge dollar sums. I mean, these massive policy decisions. And you have many people who are some of the most brilliant people you will ever meet. 

One of the public service commissioners, a guy named Justin Tate, he's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. Vue Ritchie. I mean, there's a number of these guys I worked with that just run circles around everyone in the room. And I loved it. But after a while, I felt like – I had a friend who said, "You don't have anything to prove anymore." And it wasn't enough action for me. I loved it when the legislature was in. But when I had this opportunity to go to the casino business not knowing anything about how the casino business runs, I was promised that I would never have a boring day. And that promise was absolutely true. 

[0:32:40] KM: How did you go home and tell your wife, "I'm quitting this job and I'm going to go work for this place. It's just a bean field out in Pine Bluff?" 

[0:32:49] CS: Well, it actually was almost quite the opposite. The Quapaws have a gentleman who works with them, a dear friend, he's like family to me, named Don Tilton who has worked for the tribe forever. Don went to the governor and said, "I'd like to talk to Carlton about coming to work for us." 

[0:33:05] KM: Oh, so he asked for his permission?

[0:33:07] CS: Yes. 

[0:33:07] KM: That was nice. 

[0:33:07] CS: That's a classy way. Don's old school, and he's one of the great, great lobbyists. I mean, that's institutional knowledge for Arkansas. Don and I visited, and the plan was essentially that I'd watched their back while the place was being built. It was essentially that Carlton knows Arkansas, and he's a straight shooter, and he'll watch. I guess I didn't screw it up because they didn't fire me. 

But I called my wife and I said, "So here's the deal. I've been offered this.” I want to say this because there's a lot of women that do this, and they don't get the credit for it. When I was in the insurance business, I was the breadwinner. When I worked in government, government pays almost nothing, right? Even at a senior level, it pays very little, especially in the capital. She wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but she went back to work as a public accountant, so we could pay our bills, so I can –

[0:33:59] KM: Your wife did that?

[0:34:00] CS: Yes. For me, she's the best. For five years, five years, she was the breadwinner. I mean, I was working full-time, but she made more money than I did. When I approached her about this and I told her the details, she said this, and if this doesn't cut at your core, nothing else wrong. She said it with love. She said, “You do everything for everyone. You'd give them the shirt off your back.” I said, “Oh, thank you. Do this for us.” In other words, I want to stay home with the kids. I can tell you're getting restless and bored. Make the leap.

[0:34:36] KM: You did it.

[0:34:37] CS: Yes. I didn't have to explain it. She asked me to do it. It’s the best decision I ever made, and it is an honor every day. I tell people that I want to die at my desk but not tomorrow. But I'm an action junkie, and I will tell you if you want to work in an action-filled environment, the casino is absolutely it. No two days or ever the same.

[0:34:54] KM: You started BetSaracen.

[0:34:56] CS: We started BetSaracen. There was a crew of us that did and –

[0:35:00] KM: Talk about successful. 

[0:35:02] CS: It's a lot of fun. I will tell you –

[0:35:05] KM: All right, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about BetSaracen. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Mr. Carlton Saffa, Marketing Director for Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. As you can hear, he's a lot more than just the marketing director. We'll come back. We're going to talk about BetSaracen, how you can get involved, and how successful it's been. We'll be right back.

[BREAK]

[0:35:25] ANNOUNCER: Dancing into Dreamland 2025. It's fast approaching, Friday, February 15th right there at Taborian Hall downtown, the home of FlagandBanner.com. Listen, we need your help with the Silent Auction donations, too. Silent Auctions are a really fun part of Dancing into Dreamland every year. If you have a product or a service that you'd like to promote, the Dancing into Dreamland crowd is a dedicated group of Little Rock lovers who are eager to support your local businesses, local artists, local service projects. Your donation is greatly appreciated, and it's tax-deductible. Contact Matthew McCoy at (501) 255-5700. Or you can write to him at friends@dreamlandballroom.org with anything you'd like to contribute. Don't forget to buy tickets for the event, too, Dancing into Dreamland, February 15th.

[EPISODE CONTINUED]

[0:36:16] KM: We're speaking today with Executive Mr. Carlton Saffa of Saracen Casino in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. We did talk about gaming and which games to play and all that, but now I want to talk about BetSaracen. That is the smartest thing y'all done down there. I mean, you’re getting money. You don’t even have to be there to make money or to spend money, I should, say. Yes, go ahead.

[0:36:37] CS: It's a scary business.

[0:36:39] KM: Why?

[0:36:40] CS: It's extremely volatile.

[0:36:43] KM: Betting is? Oh, you mean sports because you never know who's going to win. Well, don't they use algorithms for that to figure it out?

[0:36:51] CS: No, no. We do but you know.

[0:36:53] KM: But even the algorithms are – AI is not perfect. 

[0:36:56] CS: Oh. 

[0:36:57] KM: Oh, who knew.

[0:36:59] CS: Actually, it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine. Every time somebody tries to sell us some widget, they talk about AI, and I always – I asked a guy one time. He was a New York guy. I said, "When you say AI, do you mean like language learning model or machine learning or AI?" He said, "Well, when you're trying to sell something, you call it AI. But when you're being honest, it's machine learning or language learning models, right?" Because real AI –

[0:37:24] KM: What's the difference between that and AI? 

[0:37:25] CS: Well, real AI is a certain level of autonomy. I'm way over my skis here that I can't do. But you're talking about like the Terminator, right, where the system takes over?

[0:37:33] KM: Yes, yes. Betting is machine learning, and you type in all the statistics, and it tells you what the odds are.

[0:37:42] CS: Yes. I'm sure that I'm getting this wrong because I'm not a technical guy. 

[0:37:46] KM: I would call that. Yes. 

[0:37:47] CS: But it's not real AI, but we'll call it that. 

[0:37:49] KM: Yes, you’re right. 

[0:37:49] CS: AI sounds sexy. Well, we may get there at some point. 

[0:37:52] KM: No, no. You're right. It's not. It’s –

[0:37:53] CS: I think they call it the Turing test when the machine is indistinguishable from humans. Again, I'm a casino guy. I'm over my skis. 

[0:37:59] KM: Yes. No, no. You're having to enter in this data for it to give you the feedback of what the spread should be and all that stuff. 

[0:38:04a] CS: But here's still the deal. Who thought, for example, that Oklahoma would beat Alabama? Nobody saw that, right? Stuff like that happens, right? 

[0:38:16] KM: Yes, right. 

[0:38:17] CS: If Oklahoma didn't beat –

[0:38:18] KM: Or that Arkansas in the garden was going to beat – you went there. 

[0:38:22] CS: Michigan. 

[0:38:23] KM: Michigan. 

[0:38:23] CS: I was in the game. Yes. It was a four-and-a-half-point spread.

[0:38:24] KM: Yes. Who would have thought we were going to win? 

[0:38:26] CS: Yes, four and a half point spread but yes. 

[0:38:27] KM: Oh, it was that close. I didn’t know it. 

[0:38:28] CS: That was close. It was better than it should be. But if Alabama didn't lose to Oklahoma, I'm probably having a stroke, and y 'all need to take me to UAMS. But I feel like that was the game. I was duck hunting that weekend. But I'll tell you, there's all kinds of things. Who thought Georgia Tech would go all those over times with Georgia, right? No AI. 

[0:38:42] KM: No one. 

[0:38:43] CS: No AI model would ever put that out, right? That’s what I mean by volatility. In the last Super Bowl, if Kelce had caught that ball and gone into the end zone, that event, not the game outcome, that single event of him crossing the line and scoring a touchdown would have cost us $900,000. Kelce stepped out at the four. There was that much money on him to score, what's called an any time touchdown. 

[0:39:12] KM: Do you guys watch sports constantly?

[0:39:13] CS: Oh, it's like watching CNBC now. I mean, it's like – but here's the thing about sports betting and then I'll shut up. We can lose massive sums in short periods of time. 

[0:39:24] KM: That sounds like it. I had never thought of that. 

[0:39:27] CS: Here we are in this. 

[0:39:27] KM: You're scared to death every Super Bowl?

[0:39:30] CS: Oh, I just sort of assume we'll lose money every Super Bowl, especially if the Chiefs are there. Here's the thing. If want to be in sports betting, as a casino, you have to make a decision very early on. Are we going to be scared money, or are we going to be in this? 

[0:39:43] KM: Never scared. 

[0:39:45] CS: If you're going to be scared money, you can make money, but you're going to limit the hell out of your players, and you're going to run many of them off. I never want to be perceived as scared money, and so we take big bets, which means we lose a lot. But when we win, we win.

Let's talk for a second about what volatility means. In a slot machine environment, we know that we are going to traditionally keep about seven percent of the money that goes through the machines. That doesn't necessarily mean you, but it means enough play over the course of a month. They'll be – in a month, $150 million go through those slot machines. 

[0:40:19] KM: Well, and you can program them the way you want them to be. 

[0:40:22] CS: And they're programmed.

[0:40:22] KM: But you can't program football. 

[0:40:24] CS: Correct. But I'm an open book, and I will tell you that those machines on average return about 93% of every dollar back to the players. 

[0:40:31] KM: I’m just shocked to hear that. 

[0:40:33] CS: Let me tell you very quickly how this works. Imagine a room with 10 people in it playing 10 machines. Each put $100 in. 

[0:40:42] KM: Only one wins. 

[0:40:43] CS: One wins a thousand dollars. 

[0:40:45] KM: There you go. 

[0:40:48] CS: That's not even a legal jackpot. Nine folks lost, 1/1, and it wasn't even a huge win. Oh, by the way, we have a business to operate. We had to pay for the machines, and we had to pay for the heating and the cooling and the drinks and the – we have overhead, right? So, yes, over the course – here's how a slot machine works. It's no different than an ATM machine. 

I want you to think about this for a minute. I explained this to a banker once this way. We have 1,500 ATM machines on the floor, and he said, "What?" I said, "No, they're the same thing. They're computers with currency collectors and a screen." I mean, they have bells and whistles and buffaloes, but they're the same thing. He said, "No, they're not." I said, "They are. At your ATM, you can choose how much you want to deposit, and you can choose how much you want to withdraw. He’s like, “That's an ATM.” Here's how a slot machine works. You can choose how much you want to deposit. For the opportunity to withdraw significantly more, you're going to pay a fee. 

[0:41:57] KM: Oh, yes. Okay.

[0:41:57] CS: That fee tends to be about seven percent. It's almost like an interchange fee. Here’s what happens over the course of a day at Saracen. There's millions that go in the machines, and there's millions that come out. But they're distributed in all sorts of random. It's like snowflakes, right? It's not like you put $100 in and you get $93 out. You might put $100 in and get $110 out. Or you might put $100 in and lose it all. 

[0:42:21] KM: Or like you said, the nine lost. One guy hit the jackpot.

[0:42:23] CS: That's how it works. Okay, so tables are more volatile. On table games, probably two days a week, we lose money, right? Because there's smaller edges in games like baccarat with very, very slim edges, people betting $2,500. 

[0:42:36] KM: Is that the best table game to play? 

[0:42:37] CS: I would tell you I don't like baccarat as a person. I mean, it just doesn't appeal to me. To make that decision, I actually downloaded a baccarat app on my phone, and I played it the whole way to a flight to the east coast. 

[0:42:47] KM: I needed to do that. 

[0:42:48] CS: Because I felt like I needed like two hours.

[0:42:50] KM: Yes, to learn it.

[0:42:50] GM: Like to hear it out. 

[0:42:51] CS: Yes. At the end of it, I thought I understand why people like this game, but it's not for me. There are a lot of people that love baccarat, but it is a very, very player-friendly game. But it's just not for me. There's not enough decision points, right? Blackjack, when you play blackjack perfectly, you’ve only got a couple of point house edge. It’s pretty close to a coin toss, right? When you're in these environments where we have a one or two percent margin, and remember the gambler's fallacy, right? If I flip a coin nine times in a row in its heads, what are the odds it's going to be heads on the 10th flip? 

[0:43:30] KM: I don't know.

[0:43:31] CS: Fifty-fifty. The core odds never change. 

[0:43:35] KM: That's true.

[0:43:35] CS: Past events do not impact future events, right? In a baccarat table, if things are going a certain way and everybody's betting that way, the swings can be tremendous. Craps is the same way. We lost $100,000 in an hour on the craps table one time. 

[0:43:50] KM: Do you have any $50 bills down there for a casino? 

[0:43:53] CS: All right. There's a funny one. 

[0:43:56] KM: Tell the people listening why I asked that. 

[0:43:58] CS: Well, people think they're unlucky. 

[0:44:00] KM: That's right. I always play them. Oh, he's got one in his pocket. 

[0:44:04] CS: I bet I do. I usually carry twos and fifties because I don't buy and that they're unlucky. 

[0:44:08] KM: I don't either. I won 99 – what did I say I won last week? 

[0:44:13] GM: Nine hundred. 

[0:44:13] KM: $900 with $50 bills. Yes. 

[0:44:15] CS: Yes. I don't think they're unlucky. 

[0:44:17] GM: I've never heard of 50. I've heard of the two-dollar bill being unlucky. 

[0:44:20] KM: Oh, I hadn’t heard the two. 

[0:44:21] CS: I pass them out like candy. 

[0:44:23] GM: We actually do that here at the office. 

[0:44:24] KM: You and I are so much alike. It's kind of weird. 

[0:44:26] CS: There you go. They're not unlucky. 

[0:44:28] KM: No. We pass out two-dollar bills here. If you do something good, you get a two-dollar bill. 

[0:44:32] CS: You know what's great? Have you ever given somebody a two-dollar bill, and they just light up? 

[0:44:36] KM: I know. 

[0:44:35] CS: The story I always get is my granddad used to collect these. I love giving twos.

[0:44:39] KM: I do, too. 

[0:44:39] GM: I do, too. 

[0:44:40] CS: We're going on vacation in a few days, and I'll go by the bank and get an envelope of twos, and just tip with twos. You give somebody four or five twos. 

[0:44:47] KM: Oh, that's a good idea. 

[0:44:48] GM: That's what I love. That’s what I do. Yes. 

[0:44:48] CS: I love doing it.

[0:44:49] KM: You do? 

[0:44:50] GM: Yes, because it's always a good conversation. 

[0:44:52] CS: If you give somebody two one-dollar bills, they look at you like, “Thanks for the crappy tip.”

[0:44:56] KM: I love the commercials you do for BetSaracen with all the dudes. 

[0:44:58] CS: Oh, gosh. It’s just – 

[0:44:59] KM: Why is there's no girl in there? And what about me? 

[0:45:03] CS: You want to be in it?

[0:45:04] KM: Yes. 

[0:45:04] CS: All right, I'll talk to [inaudible 0:45:05]. 

[0:45:06] KM: I know all those guys. When they're giving them all shit, Pat Bradley and –

[0:45:10] CS: I got to tell you, I'm probably most proud. Pat's my buddy. We talked to Pat today, actually. I love Pat. Here's something. Here's some behind the scenes stuff. Pat wouldn't want me to tell this, but I'm going to.

[0:45:20] KM: Okay, come on. 

[0:45:20] CS: We did those ads at Pleasant Valley, and I love Pleasant Valley. It's where I play golf. 

[0:45:25] KM: I love it, too. 

[0:45:25] CS: I think it’s just great. Pat damn near had to go to the hospital that day. It was so hot, and he passed out in the sand trap. 

[0:45:34] GM: Whoa. 

[0:45:35] CS: Yes. 

[0:45:36] KM: Making commercials is a lot harder than it looks. 

[0:45:39] CS: It is. 

[0:45:40] KM: It's take after take after take after take. 

[0:45:41] CS: It is. 

[0:45:43] KM: But who's the tall guy that Joe – Joe and I, he's been on the radio. I love Joe. 

[0:45:46] CS: I love Joe. 

[0:45:47] KM: Yes. I want to go in there and give those guys a shoot. 

[0:45:49] CS: Oh, Joe’s the best but –

[0:45:51] KM: You need a girl in there. 

[0:45:53] CS: Moncrief’s the star. People don't realize. Moncrief, the great debate, the year that Sid went into the NBA, was the Lakers, and this is actually the – I think it was an HBO show about the Lakers they did. 

[0:46:09] KM: Yes. They did one. 

[0:46:11] CS: They talk about this in there. The great debate was did they draft Magic Johnson? Or did they draft Sidney? People forget that, that was the debate that year. 

[0:46:19] KM: I don’t remember that. 

[0:46:22] CS: It was a long time ago. 

[0:46:23] KM: Sidney played when they didn't make the kind of money they make now.

[0:46:25] CS: Of course. But, I mean, Hall of Famer. I mean, he's probably the greatest player in the Timberwolves history. 

[0:46:28] KM: He doesn't live in Arkansas, does he? 

[0:46:30] CS: I think he'd tell you he splits time. He's here all the time. He's in Dallas. He's got an address here. Sidney is pure gold, and he doesn't even let us pay him. We make a contribution to his charity, which is incredible, Moncrief Game Changers. That’s the way that we say thank you for his time. But Sidney, and I mean no slight to Darren McFadden or my dear friend, Joe Kleine, or Pat Bradley, or any of them. But it's funny. Sidney is so unassuming and so quiet and so humble. But the real star is Moncrief, and he gets the least attention of all of them. 

[0:47:06] KM: That is funny. 

[0:47:07] CS: Yes. But if you think about – I mean, he's in the hall of fame. Now, the thing is, though, Joe's got the sexy stories. 

[0:47:11] KM: Joe's got all the rings.

[0:47:12] CS: And he's got the sexy stories because he can tell you about Larry Bird . He can tell you about Michael Jordan, and he's got a gold medal. I told him we need that gold medal in a Saracen ad because people forget he played on the Olympic gold medal team. 

[0:47:22] KM: I know. I know. He's got a gold. He's got an Olympic gold medal in two rings. I think two rings. 

[0:47:27] CS: I saw him in New York at the Razorback game, and he spent a lot of time playing in Madison Square Garden because the Knicks rivalry was huge. 

[0:47:35] KM: I can't believe I didn't go to that game. Do you have a ceiling of any kind? 

[0:47:41] CS: Well, for an average player, yes. What I mean by that is a guy signs up for BetSaracen. We don't know him. He wants to bet a million dollars on a game. We're not going to take that. There's something strange, right? But if you're a known player with a history with us, absolutely. That's the same on the floor, right? I mean, we have posted limits. 

[0:48:00] KM: Oh, sure. 

[0:48:01] CS: But it just depends. I mean, I have a friend who will bet upwards of $100,000 on Razorback. Team wins games. But he's got a long track record of wagering with us, right? But some guy on the street, you worry. We subscribe to every service there is that monitors this. The best one, they monitor wagering all across the globe. At any time something strange happens, it pops up on their radar, and we get an alert. 

[0:48:30] KM: I want to talk about your business style. You said the culture of Saracen is far more important than the strategy. Organizational culture is slowly built but hard to change. At Saracen, we work together and grow together in a space where office politics are simply not tolerated. 

[0:48:47] CS: Yes. 

[0:48:48] KM: I love that. I feel like it took me a long time in business to learn far the ones that are stirring it up quick. Three strikes, you're out. I mean, I used to try to fix them and fix them and fix everything around them. Then finally, one of my really great employees said, “You're spending all your time on the C student. Would you spend your time on the A students and get rid of the B, the Ds?” 

[0:49:10] CS: I don't want to work around anyone who doesn't want everyone to succeed. I realize that sounds very like children's storybook, Pollyanna. 

[0:49:18] KM: No, it's so true, though. 

[0:49:19] CS: But I assume that you run your business this way. Everyone that is here will help each other. There are businesses. Politics is perhaps one of the worst environments, where someone assumes, “If I knife the guy down the hall and he fails, then I'll shine a little bit brighter.”

[0:49:39] KM: Every time I do an interview, I do the research on the person and learn a little bit. I always learn something that I like, and I carry forward. This is a quote of yours that really got me thinking, and it’s going to make me do a time study all my life. You say, “When we choose to work on something, we are also choosing to not work on something else.” 

[0:50:00] CS: No, that's right. We chose to be here together. You were kind enough to invite me. I accepted. But there are things you could be doing right now instead of sitting with me. There are things I could be doing instead of sitting with you. We both decided that this was a good use of our time, right? 

[0:50:15] KM: Yes. 

[0:50:17] CS: But I think where I said that was with respect to the sports book because we invested in an inordinate amount of time and money in the sports book. I'm proud to tell you that Bet Saracen today's the 13th largest sports book in the country. 

[0:50:29] KM: I know. I meant to mention that. Thank you. 

[0:50:32] CS: It’s also our second largest revenue stream. By the way, that doesn't just have to do with business, right? I have a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old. There are times that I choose to work on business stuff, and I'll start typing around on my computer. Actually, I did it yesterday on an airplane with my daughter. I was writing emails. Halfway through, I thought these can wait. I shut it, and I chose to sit and see if I could help Stella study for her exams. Because when you choose to do something, you choose not to do something else. Those emails can wait. They weren't urgent. But she's got exams right now, and I got to spend some time with my daughter. Opportunity cost is what an economist would call it.

[0:51:10] KM: This'll be our last quote from you. So much of life is just showing up, and I believe you make your own luck in life. Who you know may get you in the room, but what you know gets you the job. The best part of this life is showing up and giving your darndest. It is who you know. 

[0:51:28] CS: That's only half of it. Who you know is very important. That gets you to the table. That gets you in the room. But if you think that knowing somebody is enough to get you there, you're sorely mistaken. I'm not one to network really. I've never been that way. 

[0:51:45] KM: Whatever. You're like on a thousand clubs. 

[0:51:47] CS: Yes, but here's the deal. I do them because I care about them. I don't do them to meet people. 

[0:51:50] KM: Well, you’re an accidental networker then. 

[0:51:53] CS: Yes. But I’m going to tell you this is ugly. The quickest way to get me to not go to something is call it a networking event because I'm like, “I don't want to go to a thing for a bunch of people who just want to meet people.”

[0:52:04] KM: I don't want to go to things that say fundraiser. That takes the fun right out of fundraising. 

[0:52:08] CS: I know we're out of time, but I got to tell you when we're done. I got to tell you about my fundraiser idea. I think you're going to love it. It might work for the ballroom. 

[0:52:15] KM: So are you open seven days a week? 

[0:52:16] CS: Seven days a week, 365. 

[0:52:18] KM: Three – and how many hours? All night long? 

[0:52:21] CS: Twenty four hours a day, 365. We’ll be open.

[0:52:23] KM: Oh, my God. Wow, that's a lot of people. No wonder you have 800-plus employees. This is your gift for being on here. It's a desk set. Gray, when he leaves today, will you go down and get him an Oklahoma flag? 

[0:52:33] GM: Yes, an Oklahoma flag. Absolutely. 

[0:52:35] KM: You got to have an Oklahoma flag to put in your office at Saracen. 

[0:52:38] GM: Well, thank you so much. 

[0:52:40] KM: You're welcome. 

[0:52:40] GM: This has been fun. Thank you. 

[0:52:41] KM: This show was recorded in the historical Taborian Hall in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas and made possible by the good works of flagandbanner.com, Mr. Tom Wood, our audio engineer, Mr. Jonathan Hankins, our videographer, daughter, Ms. Megan Pittman, production manager, and my co-host, Mr. Grady McCoy, the fourth, aka son, Gray. I'm Kerry McCoy, and I'll see you next time on the radio. Until then, be brave and keep it up. 

[OUTRO]

[0:53:08] GM: You've been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. For links to resources you heard discussed on today's show, go to flagandbanner.com, select radio show, and choose today's guest. If you'd like to sponsor this show or any show, contact me. Gray, that's G-R-A-Y, @flagandbanner.com. All interviews are recorded and posted the following week. Stay informed of exciting upcoming guests by subscribing to our YouTube channel or podcast wherever you like to listen. Kerry’s goal is simple, to help you live the American dream.

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