Sunbelt State Trends
Sunbelt State Trends

Sunbelt State Trends
Company: Small Footprint Casino
Challenge:
Casino was struggling with revenue generation from their Slot and Video Gaming machines. They recently went through a renovation and had organized their machines into 3 clustered areas within the main casino floor. They noticed their revenue significantly drop (12%) in the following 3 months of production. Their management team had full access to detailed data on a machine basis, including historical performance. They were looking to identify where they were seeing opportunity to improve floor layout plans or simple placement of machines.
PAG Solution:
PAG worked with the client to review the existing & historical data they had available. We then spent 2 days onsite with several floor supervisors to walk through the current layout and review the previous layout.
Stage 1consisted of PAG evaluating the individual machine production and profitability, including constructing a generic floor layout with a heat map of the machine production. We then compared each machine’s recent performance to their historical trends.
Stage 2 included observing traffic flow of the customers during high traffic times on the Casino Floor. We also evaluated traffic flow during the slower times. We then created Business Intelligence (BI) reporting to show performance by machine by different casino floor traffic times.
Stage 3 allowed PAG to work with the Casino Management team to evaluate shifts in performance pre and post renovation and movement of machines. In addition, we were able to show them detailed statistics on their individual machine profitability and optimal location. Lastly, we were able to show the unreasonable lack of traffic flow that occurred in their clustering of machines, which caused many to go untouched.
Final recommendations included maintaining current renovation major changes while updating machine placement according to machine learning algorithms we created from the historical data (which occurred under 2 different floor plans and product placements). This allowed us to optimize customer flow from areas such as restrooms, restaurants, Poker Room, shops and other attractions. Here is a revised example of the heat map created, with removal of identifying marks, and slight movement of pieces to anonymize the Client:
Client Benefits:
Company: New York Based Racino
Challenge:
Casino was looking to enhance their marketing efforts within their existing customer base and expand their prospecting for new business.They did not have a convenient way to access the data, as it was stored in their production servers for the analytics portion of the exercise. The Casino manually created reporting and QA through manual entry into spreadsheets. For new business prospecting, they were mass marketing to a very large untargeted population, resulting in under 10 bps (0.10%) of response rate.
PAG Solution:
PAG first worked with them to develop a true prospecting marketing campaign utilizing Geo-Fencing, by evaluating consumer behaviors based on location tracking of their devices. In addition, search engine queries. Finally, targeting individuals that met pre-determined criteria to generate digital marketing campaigns to generate foot traffic into the Casino.
Stage 2 included implementation of our GOBLIN solution. This allowed us to organize their data outside of production, allowing them to query, report and analyze as needed in an efficient and concise manner. We set them up with the Business Intelligence (BI) tools for dynamic reporting.
2 months after completion of the project, the Casino had seen such an internal lift in understanding their data & analytics, they engaged us to build out a custom portal for report organization, distribution and governance.
Client Benefits:
Company: Medium Scale Las Vegas-based Casino
Challenge:
Company was looking to accomplish several initiatives, including organizing their data across multiple sources into one repository for analytics and reporting, developing live reports as the data updates for multiple distribution lists, driving analytics for Marketing responses, channel optimization and casino efficiencies. Major problem was data was residing on 4 separate platforms in 2 separate locations. In addition, linking data between sources was an issue.
PAG Solution:
PAG was able to aggregate all four data sources into one repository. The systems remain intact, with data extracts populating their new EDP solution (GOBLIN). PAG then mapped each of the four data sources to allow simultaneous use of the data to generate automated & manual reporting, business analytics and marketing strategies. PAG built a custom Portal for the business, which allows for automatic distribution of reports and analysis, which is controlled by user logins. This allows for specific reporting sets to be directed to specific individuals. Implementation of the EDP also included the Business Intelligence (BI) tools for internal resources to create analytics and reports. Finally, after implementing the final solution, Company engaged PAG to complete the development of their marketing channel optimization strategies and enhanced their existing response models.
Client Benefits: (3-4 and provide QUANTIFIABLE benefits)
Company: Large Credit Card Issuer – US Co-Brand
Challenge:
Company launched a card product that was experiencing higher than expected fraud losses.They had a team who built fraud strategies using past experience. Due to several unique product features and lack of data to build strategies, there were several gaps. They were looking for support to evaluate their fraud authorizations and new account strategies against industry standards and best in class fraud controls.
PAG Solution:
PAG conducted a deep dive into the bank’s existing fraud data, reporting, authorization and fraud queuing systems, and detailed rules.Using deep industry experience and data and reporting available, PAG recommended rule changesto address emerging fraud trends and system enhancements to support next level fraud avoidance. In addition, PAG completed a deep dive of payment controls, recommended vendors and additional rules to reduce payment returns and first party fraud.
Client Benefits:
The changes PAG recommended drove:
PAG capabilities for NBA Eastern Conference Finals.
Company: Top 10 Credit Card Issuer – US Co-Brand & Branded
Challenge:
Company has greater than 30 co-brand partner portfolios and several branded portfolios. Over the last 6 years, their underwriting strategies were using an older version of FICO and a custom score built in 2013. They have a very light staff of risk management analysts to revise a custom update to their portfolios. They were looking for support to rebuild their custom score to the next generation and revamp several of the larger portfolio underwriting strategies.
PAG Solution:
PAG was engaged in a 2-stage approach, which included developing a new custom score for underwriting and then utilizing that score, once approved, to develop custom underwriting strategies for several of their larger co-brand portfolios and 2 of the branded portfolios. PAG utilized their internal capabilities and systems to work with the bank to gather the needed data requirements from both internal bank data and external data were applicable. PAG developed a new custom underwriting score with 6 unique segments, which overall increased the KS from 34 to 48 for the overall scorecard when rolled up. From there, the score was quickly approved by the client and coding into the system began immediately. PAG then developed the underwriting strategies utilizing the new custom score and the newest version of FICO.
Client Benefits:
You read all the IT reports, you follow their recommendations, and you pay attention when they inform you of risks and problems. Many of your associates or those you know do the same. Yet somehow, you still hear about breaches in businesses everywhere, including your personal network.
The reality of the current climate is that it’s not IF but WHEN with data breaches. Data breaches are an evolving, everlasting problem for all businesses. Targets for data breaches can extend from the “mom and pop” corner stores to every Fortune 500 company. While you are growing your business, hackers are growing theirs. Equifax or not, your data has a big price tag.
Managing Partner of U.S. Operations
Mr. LaRoche is a resourceful, results oriented Executive with over 24 years of financial services experience; emphasizing collections risk management, dialer operations, MIS and reporting analytics, acquisition strategies, loss forecasting, credit policy, account management strategies, portfolio conversions, due diligence, and collections operations management. He also has 13 years of direct risk management experience, with 3 years of collections line management experience possessing excellent analytical skills and the ability to manage diverse groups in strategies, modeling, collections, dialer operations, loss forecasting/loan loss reserve modeling, financial analysis, operations and loss avoidance.
David started his career is 1997 as customer service representative for Travelers Bank. Since then, he has held the following senior positions:
Chief Risk Officer
Dale Hoops has over 20 years of experience within the financial services industry; with focus in Risk Management, Collections, Fraud, Account Management Strategies, Loss Forecasting, stress testing and economic analysis.
Dale started her financial services career in 1996 as a part time customer service representative and teller in a small financial center, while attending the University of Richmond. Her career has included senior roles at Bank of America, Citi and MBNA America. She has experience with multiple retail products including consumer and commercial card; private label and co-brand, deposits, vehicle lending, mortgage and home equity. Her key strengths have been identifying opportunities for improvement through business analysis, strategy development and risk governance.
In addition to her professional career, Dale has extensive leadership experience with non-profits with event planning, policy, budget and audit management. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Girl Scouts of the Chesapeake Bay which serves 8,000 girls in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. She is former President, Vice President and Treasurer at a local Parent-Teacher Association, former community pillar chair for Bank of America’s LEAD for Women Delaware network, and served on the leadership team for the Field of Dreams Relay for Life event to raise funds for the American Cancer Society.
Chief Technology Officer
Chief Data & Analytics Officer
Mr. Ridgeway has over 25 years of experience within the financial services industry including Risk Management, Finance, Project Management, Compliance, MIS, IT & Operations. He has held senior roles at several of the top 5 Banks; including MBNA, Wells Fargo & Citibank. Dee has expertise in Risk oversight and a wealth of knowledge in the regulatory footprint (CFPB / OCC / FRB) in financial services. He has hands on knowledge in the strategy world with numerous credit products including: credit cards, auto lending, mortgage and home equity, and unsecured lending. Dee is a co-founder of Predictive Analytics Group, worked as a Senior Consultant for Hoops Consulting, LLC., and owned & operated Mayflower Analytics LLC.
From a Risk Management perspective, Dee has experience in portfolio management in credit underwriting and loss mitigation during several growth cycles and economic contraction periods. He understands the needs and partners well with operational risk, modeling, and loss forecasting risk functions.
Dee is a SME on risk data strategy (data architecture, data management, and systems integration) and often creates a "passable bridge" between Risk and IT that translates business needs to executable business plans.
From an MIS, reporting and portfolio analytics perspective, Dee has a proven track record of designing portfolio reporting that meets executive and end user needs that often has been labelled the "gold standard".
CEO and Chief Strategy Officer
Mr. Hoops has over 20 years of experience within the financial services industry including Credit, Collections & Fraud Risk Management, Business Operations, Control &Compliance, Strategic Planning, Forecasting and Marketing Analytics. He has served as a Chief Risk Officer for Barclaycard US Partnerships, a Global Scoring Head at Citibank, and a Site President for Wells Fargo Financial. Steve is a co-founder of Predictive Analytics Group, and has owned & operated Hoops Consulting, LLC for the past 4 years.
Steve started his financial services career in 1993 as a part-time telemarketer, while attending the University of Delaware for his Business Administration degree. Mr. Hoops has spent his 20 plus years within the industry building best-in-class operations with each company he has supported. His career has been highlighted by leading several large functions for several Tier 1 and Tier 2International Banks, including: