The VIP Legacy High Roller Chronicles

Chapter 11 – Texas: Turning Online Players into Real Relationships

September 15–26, 2005
Stillwater · Tulsa · Fort Worth · Dallas

Quick links: Series hub · Chapter 7 — Texas & Oklahoma 2005 · Chapter 9 — Canada 2005 · Past VIP events · Meet Jörn

By September 2005, the VIP roadshows had already taught me an important lesson: getting an online player to agree to meet you in person was often harder than the meeting itself.

I could not find any of my post roadshow feedback from this particular trip. Normally, I would return from a roadshow and document the meetings, the player feedback and what I had learned.

This time, what I have are pictures and memories.

And perhaps, more than 20 years later, they tell the story just as well.

Remember, this was 2005.

Online gaming relationships existed largely behind computer screens, email addresses and usernames. We knew our players through their accounts, their playing habits, emails and conversations. But very few had ever met the people behind the casino.

So when somebody from an online casino suddenly said, "I'm going to be in your area. Would you like to meet for dinner?" it was completely understandable that some players were sceptical.

Was this genuine?

What did they want?

Was there a catch?

Why would somebody from an online casino travel thousands of kilometres just to meet me?

That's why I quickly learned that the first meeting didn't need to be extravagant.

Sometimes it was simply:

"Let's have a coffee."

Or:

"Let's meet for a drink."

No pressure. No grand sales presentation. Just two people meeting each other.

The important thing was getting two people who had previously only communicated online to sit across a table from one another.

Once that happened, something changed.

The username became a person.

The VIP host became a person.

And the relationship suddenly became real.

Looking back at the photographs from these trips more than 20 years later, I may not have the reports telling me exactly what was discussed at every meeting. But I remember the people. I remember the restaurants, the conversations, the laughter and, perhaps most importantly, that first moment when an online relationship became a real-world one.

Those pictures remind me of something that became fundamental to the way I approached VIP management for the rest of my career:

You didn't need to impress someone at the first meeting. You needed to earn enough trust for them to agree to the meeting in the first place.

After that, the relationship could grow naturally.

And many of them did.

What started with a coffee, a drink or a simple dinner would sometimes turn into years of conversations, casino events, roadshows, holidays and, in some cases, genuine friendships.

In 2005, we weren't calling it community building, experiential marketing or omnichannel VIP engagement.

We were simply getting on planes and meeting our customers.

My Texas road trip from September 15 to September 26, 2005 was another example of exactly that. Travelling across the state, meeting players face to face and gradually turning digital customer relationships into genuine human ones.

There was no complicated strategy behind it.

Meet the person. Build the trust. Look after the relationship.

More than 20 years later, with all the technology, automation, AI and data now available to the online gaming industry, I still believe that simple principle is one of the most powerful forms of VIP management.

And Texas was about to reinforce it once again.

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September 15 — Stillwater and Eskimo Joe's

The trip began with a stay at the Hampton Inn in Stillwater.

That evening, I met Mike and Sheryl at the legendary Eskimo Joe's. They were Oklahoma State University fans.

One of the wonderful things about these roadshows was that I wasn't sitting in a corporate meeting room interviewing customers.

I was entering their world.

Local restaurants. Local bars. Their favourite places — and what fantastic people both Mike and Sheryl were when I met them. We had so much fun.

I still have some Eskimo Joe's souvenirs from that visit today.

Twenty-one years later, a small souvenir can immediately bring back the memory of a customer meeting thousands of kilometres away.

That's what these trips were becoming: not simply business trips, but a collection of people, places and stories.

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September 16 — Dinner at Fleming's

The following day I met Jim at Fleming's.

Again, the formula was deliberately uncomplicated.

Good food. A relaxed environment. Conversation.

There was no need to turn every meeting into a formal VIP presentation.

The objective was to listen.

How was the customer enjoying the casino?

What worked?

What didn't?

What did they play elsewhere?

What did they enjoy outside gaming?

Once the conversation became natural, you learned far more than you ever could from looking at their account.

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September 17–19 — Tulsa

I then spent several days around Tulsa.

On September 17, I met Charles at McGill's, followed on September 19 by dinner with Kathleen at Macaroni Grill.

By this stage of the roadshows, I was becoming increasingly convinced that the venue wasn't particularly important.

What mattered was creating an environment where somebody felt comfortable talking.

Some customers would open up immediately.

Others needed time.

And that's completely normal.

You can't force a relationship just because somebody has been classified as a VIP.

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September 20 — Fort Worth

From there, the journey continued to Fort Worth, where I met Jaqueline and Mary at Texas Roadhouse.

Texas certainly felt different.

The atmosphere, food, people and sheer scale of everything gave the trip its own personality.

And that's another aspect of international VIP management that I came to appreciate.

You cannot treat every market exactly the same.

A customer in Texas isn't necessarily going to respond to the same experience as somebody in Montreal, London or Toronto.

Understanding geography and culture was becoming part of understanding the customer.

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September 21 — Two Meetings in One Day

The following day brought two more meetings.

I met Linda for lunch and later Bert and her son at Christina's for dinner.

These meetings reinforced something that became increasingly common during the roadshows.

Our relationship wasn't always just with the person whose casino account appeared on our system.

You met husbands.

Wives.

Partners.

Children.

Friends.

Suddenly the username on your database became a real person with a family, a career, interests and a life completely separate from their casino activity.

That's incredibly important.

The account tells you about the player. Meeting them tells you about the person.

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September 22 — Dallas and a Slight Detour

On September 22, I travelled to Dallas and met Robin at Outback.

But I also managed to fit in something completely unrelated to online gaming.

I was a long way from home, so there was no chance I was going to be in Dallas without visiting Southfork Ranch, famous as the home of the Ewing family in the television series Dallas.

For anyone who remembers television in the 1980s and 1990s, Dallas was enormous.

Seeing the ranch and recognising locations from the series was one of those little bonuses that came with travelling across America to meet players.

These roadshows involved plenty of airports, hotels, rental cars and long drives.

So whenever I could see something interesting along the way, I tried to take it.

Southfork Ranch definitely qualified.

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September 25 — The Final Meetings

Towards the end of the trip, I stayed at Homewood Suites and met Ronald and his wife for drinks and snacks.

Later that evening, I met LaDean, again in an informal setting over drinks and snacks.

And perhaps that is an appropriate way to describe this particular roadshow.

It wasn't about spectacular VIP events.

There were no enormous tournaments.

No luxury cruises.

No elaborate functions.

It was about something much simpler.

Showing up.

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"Is This Really Genuine?"

One thing people looking back today may not appreciate is how sceptical online players initially were about meeting us.

Imagine receiving an email in 2005 from someone associated with an online casino saying:

"I'm travelling through Texas and would like to meet you."

Some customers understandably thought:

Why?

Others weren't comfortable meeting a stranger for dinner.

So we adapted.

Coffee.

One drink.

A quick lunch.

Something that felt safe and informal.

If the customer enjoyed the meeting, fantastic.

And something interesting usually happened afterwards.

The scepticism disappeared.

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From Username to Handshake

That first handshake changed the relationship.

Before the meeting, I was somebody behind an email address.

They were somebody behind a casino username.

Afterwards, we knew each other.

The next email wasn't coming from the casino.

It was coming from Jörn, the person they had met in Texas.

And when they had a problem later, that mattered.

They knew who to contact.

They knew there was a real person on the other side.

That trust couldn't be created by another automated promotion.

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Looking Back From 2026

Twenty-one years later, the technology available to casinos is almost unrecognisable compared with 2005.

We have instant messaging.

Video calls.

Sophisticated CRM systems.

Behavioural analytics.

Real-time personalisation.

AI agents.

Automated retention journeys.

A casino can potentially communicate with millions of customers almost instantly.

Yet there is an irony in all this technology.

It has become incredibly easy to communicate with customers and incredibly difficult to create genuine relationships with them.

The Texas roadshow reminds me that the answer doesn't always have to be complicated.

Sometimes it begins with:

"I'm in your area. Can I buy you a coffee?"

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The Lesson From Texas

The roadshow ran from September 15 to September 26, 2005.

Stillwater.

Tulsa.

Fort Worth.

Dallas.

Restaurants, hotels, lunches, dinners, drinks, coffee and plenty of driving.

And, of course, a visit to Southfork Ranch along the way.

But the biggest lesson wasn't about Texas.

It was about trust.

Customers were sceptical at first.

We didn't overcome that scepticism with bigger bonuses.

We overcame it by turning up.

We shook hands.

We shared meals.

We listened.

We became real people to each other.

And many of those relationships continued long after the roadshow was over.

Looking back, that's perhaps what these early VIP road trips were really achieving.

We weren't simply taking an online casino offline.

We were taking an online relationship into the real world.