Anthony F. Lucas

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Professor, Hospitality

Expertise: Casino marketing, Casino management, Business operations analysis, Slot operations

Biography

Anthony F. Lucas is a professor in UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, where he has developed award-winning research on the business aspects of the global gaming industry.

Lucas has worked extensively on the development of statistical models to better understand the effects of various casino marketing and operations-related variables on hotel-casino performance measures. He also developed several performance-potential models to explain the variation in individual slot machine performance. He has previously worked in areas of financial and operations analysis for Harvey’s Resort Hotel Casino, Harrah’s, MGM Grand, and the Palace Station Hotel Casino.

Lucas has published numerous articles in professional journals, including Cornell Quarterly and the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research. He has received awards for his research in the area of casino management, including the 2002 Best Article Award from Cornell Quarterly, CHRIE’s Wiley Research Award, and UNLV’s Boyd Research Award. Lucas co-authored Introduction to Casino Management, Principles of Casino Marketing, and Casino Operations Management, which are three of the most widely adopted textbooks in the field.

Education

B.S., Accounting, Ball State University
M.B.A., University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Ph.D., Hotel Administration, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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Anthony F. Lucas In The News

VEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: Slot Machines Can Be ‘Due’

Casino.org

One of the most enduring myths of the casino floor is that a slot machine is more likely to hit a jackpot when it hasn’t hit for a while because it’s “due.” Watch any busy bank of slots and you’re likely to see gamblers playing musical stools, attempting to get a feel for which machine is next to pay off big.

VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Casinos Have Closed Because They Couldn’t Pay Winners

Casino.Org

What was the name of that casino that shut its doors because it couldn’t pay off a huge jackpot? You know the one we’re talking about, right? It’s, oh yeah… NO CASINO EVER. The most commonly cited example of this myth is the Thunderbird Casino, which was located across the Las Vegas Strip from El Rancho Vegas.

Station's latest big bet: Durango Casino & Resort

Travel Weekly

The $780 million Durango Casino & Resort, opening Nov. 20 southwest of the Las Vegas Strip, is the first of a series of projects that could double Station Casinos' footprint in southern Nevada by 2030.

VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Casinos Employ Coolers to Stop Hot Streaks

Casino.org

In the Oscar-nominated 2003 movie “The Cooler,” William H. Macy portrays a downtown Las Vegas casino employee whose job is to reverse winning streaks. Bernie Lootz — get it, lose? — has such extraordinary bad luck, all he needs to do is sit next to a guest experiencing good luck and it stops.