Family's casino-comparison site soars

You're planning a vacation, and figure to

do some gambling. You want to find a

place to play, and factor the costs of lodging

and entertainment into your travel

budget.

You log onto an Internet search engine,

and pull up an address: StatesCasinos.com.

Click on it, and a neatly boxed home page

appears, touting itself with a tagline: "The

Web's Best Hotel Casino Comparisons."

Two dice repeatedly tumble from the lefthand

corner, landing on snake eyes. Go to

the adjacent finder's box and scroll down

and click on any state in the union.Within

seconds, a grid will appear showing key

information for gambling resorts with

lodging in that state or if it isn't one of

the 29 states that has casino gambling

in an adjacent state.

The grid of this free directory lists

names, cities, number of rooms and restaurants,

entertainment, any specials, and the

weather at each resort. Click on these various

categories to get even more information.

For example, is your itinerary taking

you near Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the

banks of the Missouri River? You can

access facts about the Ameristar Hotel

Casino, with its 160 rooms, 10 restaurants

and 3,500-seat Star Arena where if you

plan to be in Council Bluffs on Sept. 8

you can catch that heartthrob balladeer

Michael Bolton. Be prepared, for summer

thunderstorms are possible, although the

temperature still may be balmy. You'll also

be able to click on the link to the

Ameristar's home page, where you can get

the telephone number and other key

details (such as that the Ameristar is the

only AAA Four-Diamond riverboat casino

hotel in the nation).

All this information, just a few keyboard

strokes away.

Great idea? Deborah and David

Schlecht are betting that it is.

Deborah Schlecht is the chief financial

officer for Dades Innovations, which owns

and operates StatesCasinos.com. Dades is

a four-person family operation, including

Schlecht; her daughters, Jennifer and

Nicole, who are part-time data programmers;

and Schlecht's husband, David, president.

He also serves as the technical

expert, and with his wife handles sales and

marketing.

StatesCasinos.com has been up and

running since April. An earlier incarnation

was nv_casinos.html, developed in 1998 by

the Schlecht's DGS Consulting Inc. DGS

provides product, software and Website

consulting for businesses around the world

DGS's site was a single page, with

information manually inserted into a database.

Heavy traffic, Deborah Schlecht says,

precipitated the spin-off to Dades

Innovations, which maintains more than

400 Web pages on the site.

StatesCasinos.com averaged 6,000-plus

daily hits in July and traffic is doubling

each month, David Schlecht says.

Other online casino directories are

geared to cyberspace gambling sites (have

your credit card ready if you want to

wager), or only list brief information about

land-based casinos. StatesCasinos.com has

a special niche: It's a tourist's guide to U.S.

casino properties that include lodging.

And there are no flashing, blinking or

popup windows offering online casino

promotions.

David and Deborah Schlecht answered

the following questions:

What was the genesis of this business

idea?

Nv_casinos.html started as a directory

of hotel-casinos as a service to DGS

Consulting, Inc., Web visitors. The

demand for this page far exceeded expectations.

We investigated other sites on the

Internet and found that none offered sideby-

side comparison. The same investigation

brought to light the stale condition of

data presented by other sites.

How many resorts on average

are listed?

There are currently over 200 hotel-casinos

in 29 states.With the spread of legalized

gambling across America, this number

is growing rapidly and maintaining an

up-to-date database is a high priority. Our

visitors have expressed interest in information

on casinos outside the USA so we will

consider expanding the database in the

near future.

What else is listed on your site?

Information on casinos, hotel-casinos,

riverboats and cruises. Since this site is primarily

geared toward travel, establishments

without accommodations generally

are not listed. Only if requested by our visitors,

we will occasionally add such links.

We also provide links to other sites in the

industry, including travel sites, gamblingpublication

sites, restaurants, other casino

directories and online casino directories.

How often is the site updated?

We update the site daily, five days a

week, and sometimes on weekends. We

check casino specials and entertainment

monthly, but will update a property's information

whenever we receive faxes and emails

with current specials and information

from the establishments.

How do you verify information, and

how often?

Our information is verified by information

on a casino's Website twice a month.

Faxes and e-mails with new information

can be received and updated daily.

Occasionally, verification requires a call to

the hotel-casino's marketing department.

What Web technology was used to

design the page?

This site uses lowest-commondenominator

technology. In other words,

we don't require our visitors to have special

plug-ins, add-ons or interpreters.We

have plans of producing a wide-bandwidth

alternative site in the near future,

which will require Flash.

Overhead and main expenses?

Currently, our main expenses are our

two part-time junior programmers

(our daughters). Compensation for the

executives is "sweat equity" at this point.

Sources of income?

Our revenue model is based on advertising.

The site is built with numerous different

advertising options.We expect to be

in the black by the end of the year. We

have zero income at the moment. We are

not charging our current page sponsors,

but eventually will. Dades Innovations also

is developing a Windows-based employee

time clock, and a snoop detector to foil

hackers.

What are your various ad rates?

Advertising space on our site varies

between $1,200 for a banner ad to $375

for a logo on a comparison listing. These

are monthly rates.We do not have seasonal

rates. We also offer per-click pricing,

if requested.

Typical users of your site?

We will be doing market analysis by the

end of this year.

How do you advertise?

We are very proud of our rankings on

all the major search engines! For most

phrases containing "hotel casinos," we rank

on the first page, and in many cases,No. 1.

We rank No.1 on all the major search

engines using the phrases such as "compare

hotel casinos." We have numerous

travel agencies linked to our site, as well as

major resorts. We have banner space on

some search engines. We also have links

from other Internet sites relating to the

gaming and travel industries.

Your competition?

Primarily CasinoCity.com, and

BigCasinoList.com. Judging from

responses on our feedback page, we are

preferred. Our site is easier to read, has

nice aesthetics and always has current

information.

When, if ever, will you include popup

windows with promotions and prize

drawings?

We are currently working with various

hotel-casinos on adding promotional content

to our site.We hope to never join the

crowd by adding those annoying popup

windows.

Best advice you can give to small business

starting up?

Always believe in your products. Never

give up.Would you, personally, enjoy using

the product? Is it the best it can be? Be

proud to have your name on it. Always be

the best, period!

Anything else?

Avoid using spam to market your product.