PRESS

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​CDC Gaming Reports: Smoking ban would prove casinos want to protect health

Global Gaming Business: Slot Stars Bring New Audience to the Gaming Floor

CDC Gaming Reports: Adams Analysis Q2 2020: Influencers and A New Spectator Sport

Las Vegas Review-Journal: YouTube slot machine stars to help bring back Vegas tourists

The Spokesman-Review: ‘We’re here, live in Idaho’: Well-known gambling YouTuber streams experience at reopened CdA Casino

Strictly Slots Magazine: The Slot Influencer: Brian Christopher turns playing slots into a successful business

Comped Travel: Brian Christopher’s YouTube Channel takes “hand pay” to “paycheck”

Forbes: YouTube Slot Controversy Shows The Perils Of Your Side Hustle

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CDC Gaming Reports
Smoking ban would prove casinos want to protect health
Mark Gruetze, CDC Gaming Reports · July 20, 2020 at 4:00 pm
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A leading YouTube influencer on a mission to extol the fun and excitement of slot machines has a message for casinos: If you’re serious about protecting health, ban smoking now.

“This is the best time to make this change,” says Brian Christopher, who has more than 300,000 YouTube followers for daily videos showing him playing slots at casinos throughout the United States. “If we make this change right now (after the coronavirus closures), people will come back. And they will stay and they will play. Nobody’s going to give up gambling just because they can’t have a cigarette while doing it.”

He says a survey on his site, available here, backs up his claim. The survey, written in conjunction with the American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation, is still accepting responses. As of July 18, Christopher says, 1,300 people had filled it out, with these results:
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• 20 percent of respondents are full-time smokers (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the most recent nationwide figure is 13.7 percent).
• 78 percent say now is the time to make casinos smoke-free.
• 82 percent of the smokers say they would patronize non-smoking casinos that offer an outdoor area with slot machines where smoking is allowed.
• 94 percent of respondents believe secondhand smoke is harmful to health.

Christopher, originally from Canada, now lives in Los Angeles, where he moved several years ago in hopes of starting an acting career. That path hasn’t worked out yet, but he started posting videos of himself playing slots after a family trip to Las Vegas. In about three months, he had 4,349 subscribers and was invited to join the YouTube partner program, according to his blog. He put acting on hold and now has two YouTube channels, plus 70,000 followers on Facebook and 20,000 on Instagram. He says he’s the world’s number-one influencer on slot machines and casinos.

A few months after starting his YouTube slots channel, he attended the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, saw the ANRF booth and offered to help its campaign. The foundation is a non-lobbying, educational, nonprofit organization that provides resources for schools, health departments, medical organizations, and others interested in issues involving smoking and secondhand smoke. Its projects include SmokeFreeCasinos.org, which focuses on secondhand smoking risks to staff and customers in America’s commercial and tribal casinos and other gaming facilities.

A former smoker, Christopher says America’s smoking rules flabbergasted him. “My jaw hit the floor when I saw people smoking in casinos still,” he says. “I had no idea that people could still do that anywhere in the world.”

The foundation has sponsored some of Christopher’s casino trips, as have casinos and slot manufacturers. Christopher says all his gambling money comes from his own pocket.
His current travel plans include a stop in Oklahoma, five days in Maryland, then on to Oregon and back to Oklahoma for four days. He posts at least one 30- to 90-minute video every day and does two to four live streams per week.
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He declines to give his age publicly, but classifies himself as a Millennial, the generation that supposedly doesn’t enjoy slot machines. “I love everything about slots,” he says. “It’s the thrill, the excitement. And it’s something I’ve done with my friends a lot.”

Casinos trying to attract Millennials should do a better job of soliciting their opinions and listening to them, he says, rather than doing what they think is exciting. “We (Millennials) are different birds, and we do like to keep our money more,” he says. “We’ve learned that from our parents.”

He says his father worked his life at a job he did not like, staying only because it paid a good wage.
“He instilled in me to make sure you follow your dreams and your passions and be happy and not follow the buck. I think that’s what our generation is all about. We do want to have fun, but we also want to be responsible about it and not throw all our money away.”

He noted that more than 150 casinos nationwide have become nonsmoking, at least temporarily, since the coronavirus shutdowns. He urges casinos to make that change permanent.

“It’s really important to look outside of the United States at countries that have made the change and have made it work,” he says. The smoke-free approach protects staff, reduces sick days, and cuts expenses such as ventilation and cleaning.

“Honestly, if you really want to earn long-term gamblers,” Christopher adds, “wouldn’t you want them to live longer?”

 

Global Gaming Business
Slot Stars Bring New Audience to the Gaming Floor
​​Frank Legato · December 8, 2019

The phenomenon of YouTube “slot influencers” has more casinos allowing filming on the slot floor. Among the most popular: Brian Christopher (l.), whose BCSlots YouTube channel has more than 200,000 subscribers and more than 4 million views per month.

Gambling in a casino traditionally was an anonymous activity. Players didn’t want to be known, to the point that many have resisted joining slot clubs to retain their anonymity. Consequently, outside of planned marketing, casinos traditionally forbade customers from even taking pictures inside a casino.

In general, you won’t get thrown out of a casino for snapping a cellphone photo of a slot jackpot these days, although in most places, it’s still officially frowned upon—and some casinos still forbid even a simple Instagram moment.

However, as more casinos warm up to the benefits of social media, those old traditions are beginning to fade. Some casinos now not only permit pictures, but a once-unthinkable practice—random video of gambling inside a casino.

The rise of YouTube and other social networks led to a new type of celebrity—the “YouTube star,” also called a “social media influencer.” These are people who establish credibility in a certain activity or industry and develop a large audience of followers on a social network. The No. 1 YouTube channel is Pewdiepie, run by Swedish comedian Felix Kjellberg, who hosts videos to more than 100 million followers worldwide in which he introduces and plays video games.

It was only a matter of time before the YouTube phenomenon reached casinos, where a number of channels are now run by “slot influencers” who pick a slot game and stream iPhone videos of themselves spinning reels, getting bonus rounds and winning jackpots. They host the sessions as if they were hosting a TV show or sporting event, doing play-by-play for every spin and getting excited like a sports announcer when big wins hit. And YouTubers eat it up, with slot-influencer YouTube videos garnering hundreds of thousands of views.

Some of the slot influencers are like rock stars on a casino floor, with instant recognition from fans who spend hours watching videos introducing the newest slot games. One of the most popular is Brian Christopher, whose BCSlots YouTube channel boasts more than 200,000 subscribers and more than 4 million views per month.

In the three years since Christopher began using an iPhone to film his own slot play, his fans have amassed 124 million views of his videos. The majority of Christopher’s fans are aged 18 to 44. Two-thirds are male, and most watch on their phones. In other words, Christopher’s followers are in the sweet spot of the younger demographic casinos are beginning to court to eventually replace the older female demographic that’s dominated the slot floor traditionally. And many casinos are beginning to welcome him with “open filming policies.”

Christopher, a former actor, launched his YouTube channel as a hobby in 2016. It’s now his full-time job. He tours casinos across the country, drawing crowds as he streams video of slot games in action. He even has an executive assistant who provides a second camera angle. Fans cheer him on as he plays, and thousands watch online. His YouTube channel hosts more than 1,700 videos, and they also are available on bcslots.com, his website. He has more than 10,000 email subscribers.

Casinos are taking notice. Mohegan Sun recently flew Christopher to Connecticut for that property’s first-ever live stream of slot play. While most big Las Vegas Strip casinos still forbid video, Christopher and other influencers are welcomed at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas because he brings his fans in the door with him, and his business is beginning to spread across the country as the pre-internet barriers begin to tumble.

“I wasn’t the first person to upload my slot play,” Christopher told GGB News. “There are a few channels that had already started doing that, but after my channel started, it definitely started going in a whole new direction.

“Cosmo is the only location on Strip that has an open filming policy. A few others have allowed some filming on occasion, including the Linq, Wynn, Aria and MGM, but it’s not necessarily the rule. I have yet to start visiting local casinos, but we have commenced reaching out to them recently. We have worked with multiple casinos in Michigan, Indiana, Atlantic City, Maryland, Oklahoma, Reno, Vegas, California and New York—around two dozen casinos and growing.”

Christopher says the growth of his fan base was 100 percent organic. “It was word of mouth, mainly,” he said. “I was completely shocked when my numbers started rising so fast at the beginning, because I was new to the whole YouTube world. And it just keeps growing, and whenever I see fans, most of them say, ‘Oh my sisters or my husband used to watch you all the time and now I watch.’”
Slot influencers also are the only people who can actually make a living playing slot machines, through ads on their YouTube pages, subscriptions, and swag sold on their websites. “Sometimes we’ll have sponsors for some videos, and there are other ways of generating income,” Christopher said.

While the number of casinos that allow folks like Christopher to do their thing is growing, he says San Manuel Casino in Highland, California and the Cosmopolitan and Plaza in Las Vegas are currently his biggest hosts.

“Social media influencers have been around since the early days of blogging,” Peter Arceo, general manager of San Manuel Casino, told GGB News. “I have always been on the lookout for positive influencers in our industry. I get excited when I see people having fun in videos from our floor and enjoying the thrilling atmosphere that our team works very hard to create for our guests.
“Working with influencers allows us to show how much fun our casino can be for slot players. Some audiences prefer to receive information through the lens of a person that they have come to trust and whose content they enjoy, rather than content published directly from a casino. Allowing an influencer to convey their perspective and their experience to their audience is just another way for us to reach those people.”

“I can absolutely say that the Cosmopolitan was the first in Vegas to embrace the slot filming community,” said Kevin Sweet, vice president of slot operations and marketing at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, in an interview with GGB News. “There was always a stigma that filming in a casino was completely illegal, which simply wasn’t true. We live in a social age. It’s 2019, and everyone has a cellphone. We can’t run from technology or the world around us. It was common sense from my perspective to find a way to let this type of activity happen in our casino.

“I’ve been pretty active with the slot influencer community since early 2016. I am in full support of anything that increases the popularity and reach of casino gaming, and slot-playing videos being posted on YouTube or live-streamed certainly do that.”

Sweet said there are simple ground rules, such as limiting filming to handheld devices and limiting videos to a player and one machine, but the activity boosts business, so it’s welcome.

The influencers appreciate it. “At the San Manuel and the Cosmo, anyone can just record their slot play if they want to or take photos, and they’re encouraged to do so,” Christopher said. “I was stopped by a security guard at the Cosmo and he said, ‘I just wanted you to know that what you’re doing is totally fine with us.’ And because of that, all my fans go to those two casinos.”

San Manuel’s Arceo says the influencer phenomenon has broadened the casino’s audience. “It has widened the audience of people who have become familiar with the San Manuel Casino brand,” he said. “People from as far away as Hawaii have talked to me about Brian. In fact, my cousins in Hawaii have told me that they watch his videos and can’t wait to visit the casinos that Brian has featured.
“We’ve done controlled tests, and in one case allowed Brian to host an event that was attended purely by his audience. The results were great, which is why we continue to work with influencers.”

Sweet reports similar results at the Cosmo. “For every one complaint or issue we encounter in this space, there are 25 interactions where a customer asks a member of my slot team about a machine location because they saw their favorite streamer playing it at my casino and now they want to go play it,” he said. “I don’t think it’s attracting any one particular demographic. This isn’t a millennial play, in my opinion. This is a play for people who like gambling, who like to see nice slot jackpots, and for people who share an interest and want to belong to a larger community.”

According to Christopher, while there is still widespread resistance to filming or even photographing slot play, things are slowly changing. “I know fans who have been removed from casinos because they didn’t want to delete a (jackpot) photo off their phone. And, I’ve been removed from the casino once before because I filmed a bonus.

“We’re slowly breaking down those barriers. We just filmed in Palm Springs, and it was the first time that they allowed such a thing, and part of it was due to the fact that they had some new people coming in because of social media. They recognize the power of an influencer.”
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“Some of these influencers themselves partner with cruise lines and bring hundreds of people out for weeklong cruises; it’s very impressive,” said the Cosmopolitan’s Sweet. “Maybe I should hire them as casino hosts.”

 

CDC Gaming Reports
Adams Analysis Q2 2020: Influencers and A New Spectator Sport
​Ken Adams, CDC Gaming Reports · June 26, 2020 at 10:03 am

A new category of influencers has emerged recently: YouTube slot players. The host of a YouTube video goes to a casino and plays slot machines while making a videocast of the action. Followers and subscribers sit at home and watch the action. If they like what they see they may go out and play the games themselves. Subscribers pay a monthly fee to have full access to the videocasts and a two-way dialogue with Brian.
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One of this new variety of influencers, spinning the slot reels, is Brian Christopher, who has been playing slot machines and recording that for his YouTube videocasts for four years. The followers enjoy the opportunity to learn about new slot machines, see different casinos, and get the vicarious thrill of watching spinning reels and feeling the rush of anticipation. Brian has 250,000 followers and is starting to get the attention of casinos and slot companies.

While he plays, Brain explains games, themes, symbols, pay-lines, and bonuses. He keeps up a rapid-fire, non-stop, play-by-play narrative of hope, despair, and joy. “Come on, sevens, right now! Ooh, almost, so close. I need that bonus now. Uggh, a near miss, maybe next spin. Oh my god! Oh god, look at that, amazing, I can’t believe it!” When he walks toward the next game, he begins a new storyline, which might start “Now, I am going to play [name of game], I played it yesterday and won. It is an IGT game and I love it.” His narrative sounds like the internal dialogue of a regular slot player, at least as I imagine that.

While Brian is playing and talking, his followers post messages to him. He reads some of the messages and responds live. People comment on the games he is playing, suggest others, wish him luck, and invite him to visit their favorite casino. One woman even invited him to help her have a baby, “Oh, you are sooo handsome.” YouTube slot players like Brian also talk about the casino, food, employees, social distancing, and their family. Brian is careful not to show other players unless they wish to be on camera. He also limits actual footage of the casino floor in accordance with casino policy.

Brian’s YouTube channel is under his own name, but other influencers have names like Slot Queen, NG Slot, Slot Cats, King Jason Slots, Windy City Frenzy, and Neily 777. At the moment, Brian seems to be the top star in the field, a position he probably solidified in April. On April 27th the Coeur d’Alene casino in Idaho was the first casino in the country to reopen. Brian was on hand and broadcasting, which gained him national attention. His presence was reflective of his sense of marketing – there are no accidentals in his activities.

Brian has created a successful business by marketing images of himself playing in casinos. He seems to have tapped into a phenomenon that few people even knew existed: lots of people like to watch other people play slot machines. And in the process, he has gained the power of influencing which slot machines people play.

There have always been people who influenced other people. The clothes that Jackie Kennedy wore shaped the fashion of her time, just as the wardrobe, attitude, and lifestyle of Lady Gaga, Madonna, Cher, and hundreds of other famous entertainers have done. The men who exert the most influence over fashion are athletes, although rappers certain have an impact. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and LeBron James became very rich not only because of their athletic abilities but due to their value to advertisers. “Be Like Mike!” – and millions of young men tried to do just that. It is conceivable that without Michael Jordan, Nike might have slid into obscurity along with most other athletic shoe companies of the 1980 and 1990s. Instead, it is a $120 billion clothing giant.

Celebrity endorsements have been around for a very long time. A hundred years ago, famous people started appearing in magazines touting cigarettes, soap, soup, coffee, cars, breakfast cereal, crackers, cameras, tea, toothpaste, watches, gasoline, and thousands of other products. In the early years, a celebrity would make simplistic statements like, “I smoke Camels, they are mild, refreshing and they agree with my throat.” Fred Astaire, Phil Silvers, Dennis O’Keefe, Dick Haynes, Dick Powell, Henry Fonda, Margaret Piazza, Ava Gabor, and Maureen O’Hara all embraced Camels with words like that.

Beginning in the 1930s, radio and television joined in the fun. Opera and popular singers sang company ditties with the same enthusiasm that they brought to other songs. Dinah Shore encouraged us to “See the USA in your Chevrolet” and Nat King Cole sang of the joys of using Wildroot Cream Oil Hair Tonic. It seemed that almost no product was off-limits for a star to use and no celebrity was above accepting advertisers’ dollars. By the 1980s, marketing had become more sophisticated. Celebrities were still shown with the product, but their endorsements were more subtle.

Television was the perfect medium for celebrity endorsements, showing a celebrity actually using a product. Those commercials – or to more exact, the money paid to show those commercials – made television possible. Without those products, television would never have come to dominate the culture the way that it did before the internet arrived. Today the internet is slowly but certainty supplanting television as the place we all go for information and for entertainment. It is ubiquitous, available everywhere we go. With its constant presence comes instant feedback. The 24-hour news cycle of television news is, on the internet, closer to a 24-second news cycle – as soon as something happens it is being shared online.

It might not hold center stage any longer, but television changed our national culture. It created a nation of spectators. Television made it possible to sit at home and watch a presidential inaugural parade, historic votes in congress, famous funerals, demonstrations, and the fireworks around the world on New Year’s Eve. But perhaps most importantly, television allowed a fan to attend almost any sporting event in the country.

Television creates a culture of watching, not doing. The only thing that television encouraged members of the audience to do was to use the products it advertised. People watching sporting contests on televisions are not encouraged to jump up and go play sports. Rather, they are enticed into sitting at home and watch the action while eating and drinking. The internet extended the events that can be attended vicariously, adding big things (riots, arrests) and, now, small ones (birthday parties, family game nights, drinking together). It also added new places where a celebrity could sell products – anywhere a screen was in use, whether on a home computer, a tablet, or a smartphone.

The internet also gave rise to a new kind of celebrity – a self-appointed taster of life and an influencer of others. Like Brian Christopher, influencers sell subscriptions to watch them live an exciting life, as well as getting income from product placement and endorsements. Except for being self-appointed, an influencer is not much different from a 1930s movie star smoking cigarettes and telling his/her fans that a Camel is a great smoke. Both are motivated by money, the desire to create a larger fanbase, and the ability to charge advertisers for their recommendations.

That brings me back to Brian Christopher and slot influencing. In marketing himself, he appears to have targeted three different audiences. His fans are of course the primary target – he needs their monthly subscriptions to pay his staff, travel expenses, and his own salary. Without those loyal subscribers, it would be difficult to influence anyone.

Brian plays slot machines in real-time and talks about the games – he names them as he plays, and he identifies the game manufacturer. When he wins, regardless of how small the win, he talks up the game and celebrates. His comments excite his followers and subscribers and influence them to seek out those same games when they are in a casino. That makes slot manufacturers another target.

Brian does not always name the manufacturer; that’s his choice. He sets limits on his play on any game, either a specific amount of money to be wagered or lost, or a time limit. When he reaches that limit, Brian moves to another slot machine. His choice of games is entirely his own. Without violating any trust between himself and his subscribers Brian could choose one manufacturer’s games more often than another; identifying the manufacturer when it suits his purpose. As his popularity grows, why wouldn’t manufacturers offer to sponsor him? It would be a great way to introduce new games to an enthusiastic and dedicated base of potential players.

Casinos are the third target of Brian’s marketing. When he went that Idaho casino, it was in coordination with the casino’s management because the casino thought that Brian’s presence would help them publicize the opening. In an interview with the local press, he said he was also in discussions with other casinos to be at their openings. In one videocast, he was wearing a mask and discussing some of the social distancing and other safety measures the casino had introduced. It was a good way for the casino to show what it is using to protect customers. At the same time, Brian showed it was possible to be out playing slot machines and having a good time. And Brian wins again with yet another potential source of revenue.

Where all of this will lead is an interesting question. It might lead to relatively little – mostly evaporating into cyberspace when people return to their normal lives, once the COVID-19 crisis is over. On the other hand, the crisis may have grown the slot watching fan base and made possible a more permanent, viable institution. If Brian and the others like him do continue to gain popularity, the casinos and slot companies are certain to take more notice.

Direct connections between a would-be gambler and the game maker, and between a would-be gambler and the casino, would solve an old problem. It has always been a challenge to use advertising to show the excitement of casino gambling to prospective customers. Paid actors aren’t quite the way to do it; and it is either illegal or bad policy, or both, to film random gamblers in action.

Willing, enthusiastic gamblers with a gift for gab and a desire to be celebrities can create direct lines from manufacturers and operators to would-be gamblers. In a perfect world, Brian gets rich and famous, the casino shows off its fun atmosphere, and the slot company demonstrates the excitement of its games. And at home, quietly watching the action and seeing thrill of the spin, vicariously, are potential slot players.

 

Las Vegas Review-Journal
YouTube slot machine stars to help bring back Vegas tourists
​Bailey Schultz, Las Vegas Review-Journal · May 2, 2020 at 9:11 am

Casinos across the country have been shut down for weeks, but that hasn’t stopped Joshua O’Connell and others from experiencing the rush of a slot machine jackpot.

The Connecticut resident sets aside time every day to watch his favorite slot machine YouTubers, a growing niche of the internet where creators film their slot play.

“You get that authentic moment of the win (in these videos),” O’Connell said. “I watch because I get to learn what’s new (with slots) … and the personalities coming through make the channels. It’s a nice pick-me-up in the day.”

O’Connell used to watch an average of four videos every day, but his viewing time has been cut in half in recent weeks. New uploads have dropped dramatically since the YouTubers lost the ability to create more content inside casinos, resulting in a major drop in views and pay for some.

“We can empathize with those furloughed and waiting to return to work,” said Heidi Clemons, half of the husband-wife duo behind The Slot Cats channel. “Our income is down about two-thirds from where it was a year ago.”

A growing community

A growing community of slot-focused content creators have started to make a living off YouTube, posting videos of them risking — and sometimes winning — large sums of money in casinos across the U.S.

When YouTuber Brian Christopher uploaded his first slot video four years ago — a shaky video titled “’Lightning Strikes’ — HUGE WIN on Vegas Slots! $3,75/Bet” filmed inside Paris Las Vegas and Planet Hollywood casinos on the Las Vegas Strip — he expected a couple of views from friends. Instead, the video garnered Christopher thousands of views and roughly 1,000 subscribers in only one week and propelled his career as a full-time YouTuber.

“I did not expect those videos to explode the way they did,” said Christopher, a Canadian actor who had been driving for Lyft in Los Angeles before his channel took off.

He had roughly 245,000 subscribers as of February, and business had been successful enough for him to sell merchandise — including lanyards, rubber wristbands and autographed headshots — and hire five employees.

While all U.S. commercial casinos have been shut down temporarily, that hasn’t stopped Christopher and others from posting content, at least for the time being.

He said his team films up to two months in advance and can sustain his regular posting schedule until mid-May.

“We are happily working from home, as is advised, and also hosting premiere lives of prerecorded videos and streaming live online slots,” Christopher said.

Bringing in business

Even when casinos were open, finding a place to film wasn’t always easy. Casinos have a reputation for strict anti-camera policies, but Christopher said that has started to change in recent years.

“We’ve slowly been able to convince them that it’s actually a good thing for them for us to promote them,” he said. “We’re getting to the point now where casinos are now finding us and approaching us.”

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas’ vice president of slots, Kevin Sweet, said he began working with the slot YouTube community in 2016. He has personal relationships with at least three YouTubers and encouraged them to film slot play back when casinos were open.

“It absolutely brought us new business (when the casino was open),” he said, adding that he has lost count of how many times guests have asked where to find a slot machine they saw someone playing on YouTube.

Slot manufacturers also have discovered the benefits of working with slot vloggers.
Jonathan Jossel, CEO of the Plaza, told the Review-Journal that the downtown property had embraced the slot YouTuber community. He said the Plaza saw a spike in business and gained a stronger social media presence after it started allowing them to film in the property.

He thinks they will be just as important to business once the casinos are allowed to reopen.
“We will continue to work with them for sure,” Jossel said. “Having them communicate that casinos are open, fun, and safe thanks to extra precautions and efforts is going to be important.”
Sweet agreed, saying that the industry will be able to recover faster with more people advocating that casinos have taken the necessary steps to protect employees and guests.

“Each casino will undoubtedly share with their guests the precautions they are taking, but those guests with a large social media following can only help to echo those efforts and broaden its reach,” Sweet said. “We of course look forward to welcoming (the social media influencers), along with the rest of our guests.”

$9,000 for one video

The YouTubers in this article wouldn’t disclose exactly how much money they make off their channels, but it’s lucrative enough for many to have left their day jobs, even as they regularly spend large amounts of money on casinos and travel expenses.

“It’s probably one of the most expensive channels you can run on YouTube because it’s a losing sport,” Christopher said. “You lose tens of thousands of dollars a year gambling. It took awhile before we became profitable.”

A YouTube channel needs 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers over the past 12 months before it can enter the company’s partner program and monetize videos.

While the money that videos earn per thousand ad views is fickle, some can end up being worth thousands of dollars.

Francine Maric, who runs the Lady Luck HQ channel, posted a video in January explaining how a viral slot video from September hit nearly 2 million views and made her almost $9,000.

Many YouTubers have found other income avenues. Some, like the user behind Sarah Slotlady, have a Patreon page that allows fans to pay $5 to $25 each month to suggest slot games or access behind-the-scenes videos. Others, like Maric, offer merchandise. Her fans can buy $16.99 Lady Luck HQ crew socks or a $14.99 mug with a cartoon image of her face.

She also offers a channel membership to fans, starting at $4.99 a month, that gives subscribers extra perks such as special emojis they can use when commenting on her videos.

“It’s just a more social way to connect with your audience but also turn it into a business,” Maric said.

Coronavirus impact

But many slot YouTubers’ pay has taken a hit amid the shutdowns as they have to cut back on new videos.

Heidi Clemons said she has had to reduce her posting schedule to three videos a week, instead of seven.

March views for The Slot Cats — run by Heidi Clemons and her husband, Fred Clemons — were down nearly 60 percent year over year, from 370,000 views to 150,000.

The couple face even more challenges in the coming weeks; the two were set to run out of unused videos to post last week.

Heidi Clemons said finances would be more of a concern if she hadn’t won a $20,000 jackpot the week before the shutdown.

“It was good timing,” she said.

Christopher said income from his videos has gone down about 40 percent since the shutdown. He pointed to a drop in advertising revenue for YouTube, causing a trickle-down effect that hurts his ad revenue.

According to a Wednesday regulatory filing from Alphabet, parent company of Google, YouTube ads revenue growth was “slightly offset” by a decline in revenue growth in March, driven by the effects of COVID-19.

“The marketing dollars aren’t there because no one can sell anything,” Christopher said. “I’m not going to complain, though. I’m still able to make income and pay all my employees their normal wages.”

Why so many watch

It’s been about seven years since O’Connell first started watching slot videos. A lot has changed since the early days, he said, pointing to the growing number of content creators and improved production quality.

“It’s exciting seeing how far (the channels have) come in just a few years,” he said.

A Reno-based YouTuber who goes by Diana Evoni said people are drawn to slot videos for a variety of reasons.

Some live miles from any casinos. Others don’t have the money to play themselves but still want to experience the rush of hitting a jackpot. But most are just looking for entertainment.

Las Vegas-resident Jim Hilliard watches at least one or two slot videos every day. One of his favorite channels is Evoni’s — he pays for a channel membership and said he and his wife plan to visit Reno at some point to try out some of the machines featured in her videos.

“It’s helped us identify the places we like to play,” he said. “You feel like you’re one with the game and the player (in these videos). … You learn from the videos, which really makes it fascinating when you don’t get the chance to see the game in person.”

Maric likened it to watching video games online — which get thousands of views on YouTube and Twitch — or watching an NFL game on ESPN. Viewers could play the games if they wanted to, but many think watching is just as fun.

Christopher said his subscribers are the reason he plans to be one of the first customers once casinos lift their shutdowns.

“I miss the interactions with the fans,” he said. “I need more content, but I also want to be there reporting to people, letting them know what the casinos are like and the steps they’re taking to make sure the casinos are safe for everybody.”
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Others, like Evoni, plan to wait a bit longer before returning. She said she misses interacting with friends and fans but doesn’t want to risk spreading the coronavirus to her 86-year-old mother.
“There’s a lot to worry about,” she said. “If our (confirmed cases count) goes up in Reno … I’m going to have to wait a long time.”

 

The Spokesman-Review
‘We’re here, live in Idaho’: Well-known gambling YouTuber streams experience at reopened CdA Casino
Jared Brown, The Spokesman-Review · May 10, 2020

​When well-known gambling YouTuber Brian Christopher reached out to the Coeur d’Alene Casino this month about streaming live video of him playing gaming machines at the first casino to reopen after nationwide pandemic-related closures, managers were hesitant.

The casino had never allowed anyone to film their experience inside, marketing director Yvette Matt said.

Luckily for Christopher, he had a track record with Matt from her previous job at the San Manuel Casino in California, which used his videos to promote new machines.

Allowing Christopher to film, Matt said, was a win-win, because Christopher was running out of content from several weeks of casino closures and the Coeur d’Alene Casino wanted to educate people about its safety measures.

“I feel it’s kind of like my duty to help support them during this time,” said Christopher, who has 250,000 subscribers on his main YouTube channel and has reached out to dozens of casinos. “I thought it would be a good opportunity to show everyone in the U.S. what it’s like to be in a casino right now.

“I want to kind of put them at ease,” Christopher, who is from Los Angeles, added during an interview. “We can get through this together.”

He started doing YouTube full time a few years ago in the months after videos he posted for fun of him playing slot machines in Las Vegas found a following. His viewership kept growing and now his channel sees more than a million views each week.

“It’s super rewarding to have a voice, to have a position to make a difference,” Christopher said about his job as a YouTuber. “I’m very grateful that I’m able to do something.”

Christopher arrived at the Spokane International Airport Tuesday after testing negative for COVID-19 in California right before his trip. He then drove straight to the reservation casino in a car he rented.
“It was beautiful scenery on my drive,” Christopher said, adding that he wants to return and explore more of the outdoors.

Employees followed Christopher during his videos to ensure he held to his policy of just recording himself and the machines, not other people. Matt was with him to make sure he had correct information to give YouTube viewers about casino precautions.

“His fans would say, ‘Do you feel comfortable? Are you afraid to be out in a casino?’ ” Matt remembered. “He was like, ‘No, I’m not afraid at all.’ ”

The casino reopened May 1 with strict social distancing and cleaning guidelines in place after maintaining wages and benefits for employees for weeks. The reservation and Benewah County have had no confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The facility quickly hit capacity during its first day back open and some waited in line for as long as 45 minutes to get inside due to strict limits on capacity. The casino has seen a lower volume of steady traffic since, Matt said.

Christopher made a point not to announce his travel plans, so hundreds of fans wouldn’t travel to see him, as they usually do. He also said during videos that he wouldn’t greet fans or take photos, though some people did recognize him at the casino.

Matt said she didn’t think Christopher’s presence brought a noticeable increase in traffic while he was there.

In his first video, which was streamed by more than 4,000 people, Christopher described how his temperature was checked, the mask requirements and the hand-washing stations.
“It’s amazing to be back,” he said during the video.

He also decided to donate to casino staff about $1,600 he raised from viewers who sent him money during two livestreams from Idaho. Funds from a third video went to COVID-19 research efforts, according to Christopher.

“I think it was a pretty cool experience, and I would hope that maybe moving forward we work with him again,” Matt said. “Then we could actually do a promotion with him where we encourage people to come see us.”

Christopher returned to Los Angeles on Saturday and plans to visit more casinos as they reopen in the coming weeks.

He said he reached out to Northern Quest Resort & Casino, which opened Tuesday and does not allow video on the gaming floor. He was turned down for a number of reasons, according to the facility.

Northern Quest, Coeur d’Alene and Kalispel casinos are among 14 other casinos that have opened across the country in the last week, according to the American Gaming Association. They are the only facilities open on the West Coast.

“Northern Quest has extremely limited marketing and advertising campaigns in internal markets only at this time,” Julie Holland, a casino spokesperson said in an email. “While we understand that Northern Quest is one of the only casinos currently open for business in the United States, we don’t encourage cross-country travel.”
​
Christopher said he’s used to being turned down, as well as being the first person to film in a casino.
“They are coming around to it because they are realizing the power of social media,” he said.

 

Strictly Slots Magazine
The Slot Influencer: Brian Christopher turns playing slots into a successful business

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​Most people play slots as a form of entertainment. They know that, while they may win from time to time, in the long run the house has got you beat. But there is another way to make money from the slots, and Brian Christopher has tapped into that rich vein. He travels from casino to casino playing his favorite games, just like so many of us. The difference is, he shares his adventures on YouTube.com—and makes money doing it.

How popular is he?

“I have quickly become the top influencer for slot machines and casinos on YouTube,” said Brian.  “I average 2 million views per month—with millennials accounting for more than half of my viewers—and my videos are watched in 213 countries worldwide, with the U.S. representing 73 percent of the traffic.

“Who would have thought that watching someone else play slot machines would be so popular? But when you think of it, it makes complete sense. The #1 channel on YouTube with 57 Million subscribers is Pewdiepie – a guy who plays video games. So me playing slot machines is basically the same thing… only more elevated, because it involves money! You could say I’m like a Pewdiepie of Slots, only with G-Rated language.”

Of course, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to get to the top—and even more to stay there.
“I upload at least one video every day, and each week I’ll throw in additional live streams either gambling in a casino or as a Q&A from home. I came up with regular daily themes like Millionaire Mondays where I play games with jackpots over a million dollars, Thousand Dollar Thursdays where I gamble with $1000 cash, or Get High Fridays where I only play High Limit Games.

“My friends are shocked by my success. I mean, all I do is play slot machines. What they don’t see is that managing a massive YouTube Channel is a full-time job and I have had to hire a talented Editor and a hard-working Social Media Manager, just to keep up! I’m not complaining though, I love what I do – I was born to be online.”

Beyond regular gambling videos, Brian often partners with casinos and slot
manufacturers to showcase new games, online apps, host special events or feature new and exciting amenities. It’s the perfect win-win scenario for all parties, because it allows the most progressive companies in this space to tap into their ideal market base—gambling millennials.  “No other platform, be it TV, radio, or billboard advertising, has the ability to engage their target audience the way that I do. Everyone who watches me is a gambling and casino enthusiast, or is interested in joining in the experience,”  said Brian.

If you watch his channel, don’t expect some sugar-coated video, where it’s all winning all the time. Brian takes viewers on a fun, and sometimes raucous, but realistic journey with him as he plays.
“My channel is all about keeping it real. I show all of my wins and losses and don’t hide the fact that statistically,  I will lose in the long run. My fans love that they can literally see themselves in me. In fact, I treat all of my recordings as if I’m playing right beside them, with sayings like ‘I hope WE get the bonus’ or ‘WE won!’ It also helps me not feel as crazy talking to myself at a machine.  And yes, I get a lot of stares.”

 

Comped Travel
Brian Christopher’s YouTube Channel takes “hand pay” to “paycheck”
Stace · July 22, 2020

For most of us who play slots, we expect to put our money into the machine and hope to get paid. Imagine, just for a second, how amazing it would be to get paid to put your money into the machine, and then get paid when you win! If that sounds like a dream, then meet the man living that dream: YouTube Channel Creator and Star and “Slot Machine Influencer,” Brian Christopher! Listen to podcast version.

URComped CEO Craig Shacklett recently had the chance to interview the YouTube Star. For Christopher, his self-described “entrepreneurial instinct” inspired him to transform his love of slot machines and take that passion and monetize it by creating YouTube gaming videos (1:52).

Christopher explains to Shacklett how it “literally took about a month” (2:08) for him to realize that his project could become something that would generate income when he began to see his YouTube subscriber numbers rapidly grow. These numbers led to an invitation to join YouTube’s partnership program. Even though Christopher says he was familiar with YouTube, this area was new to him. That partnership program enabled YouTube to attach advertisements to his videos (2:34). For Christopher, this was especially fortuitous. His YouTube channel was now making a little bit more than he had as an Uber and Lyft driver, which, as he says “was supporting my acting career” (2:45). As the YouTube channel began to take off, he says he had to put his dreams of acting on the backburner to take advantage of the incredible opportunity in front of him.

Christopher explains that he had always dreamed of making the move to Southern California from his native Canada to pursue his goal of becoming a movie star. He says he and his husband, Marco, had long planned the move, and he worked hard, wanting to make sure he had a professional enough resume before making the move to the Golden State. Christopher was forced to work for free for his first several months waiting for his work visas to come through. He says just as his acting career began to take off in Hollywood, so too did his YouTube channel. Timing, as they say, is everything!

So how does one go from acting in the Great White North to becoming an actor/slot machine influencer? For Christopher, it began with a love of gambling (5:02). The legal age for playing Bingo in Canada is 18 and playing slots is 19. Christopher says that he began with Bingo and as soon as he reached 19, he headed into the casinos and to the slot machines, where he fell in love.  

While Christopher is one of the major names when it comes to slot machine influencers, he wasn’t the first. Craig wanted to know how Brian Christopher came to be the leader in the YouTube slot machine world. Shacklett was curious how Christopher took the existing concept and expanded it to the level that he is at today.

Christopher cites YouTuber Phillip DeFranco as one of his favorite personalities to watch and listen to. In addition to finding inspiration in DeFranco’s channel, Christopher says he “started seeking out classes to take and books to read, and to learn more about how it all works” (6:18). In addition, he began to attend conferences, including the G2E (the Global Gaming Expo–which Craig explains is “the biggest conference in the world where a lot of bigwigs from casinos around the world and casino vendors are all there” (7:29), where he gained confidence in the connections he had made and in what he was doing. He explains, “I was definitely confident. Because of the growth happening so quickly, there was a little buzz around the channel. So I was able to use that to get in and make some contacts at the beginning. And one of the contacts I actually made there at the beginning was a great contact. But we didn’t work together for about two-and-a-half or three years after that. But we stayed in contact the whole time. And we always knew there’s going to be some time where we would work together. And so it shows you that those little baby steps and those nudges you do at the beginning of will pay off.”  

For Christopher, the red carpet is not always rolled out to meet him when he contacts a casino about recording slot play in their venues. As he explains (8:22), “most of them don’t allow recording at all. And some of them are open to the idea. But most of the time, I have to do a lot of nudging and convincing.” Christopher says he will often point out that they can “watch any one of my two thousand videos and see what I do, and you’ll notice that I’m not doing anything bad. It’s actually good for you.” The hardest thing, he says, “is just convincing people that don’t know the importance of social media, how important it really is” (8:48).  

Like most of the gaming industry, Christopher says his YouTube channel’s revenues also suffered because of advertisers who pulled ads during the pandemic shutdown. He explains that his company shoots videos 2-3 months in advance, so they were able to continue to upload new content but were definitely ready to get back to work. For Christopher, that work came in the form of Coeur D’alene Casino in Idaho, which was among the first casinos to reopen. Christopher explains that the casino management wasn’t exactly excited about being put front and center of this new normal, but Christopher explained how their new safety protocols could be seen as a model, and in the end, the casino received positive feedback all around.  

Christopher is not only an avid slot influencer, he is also an advocate of what he believes in. As he explains to Craig, he is an advocate of mask usage as we navigate this pandemic. Additionally, he is a staunch believer in non-smoking casinos. He says, “I’ve got dozens and dozens of emails from casinos repeatedly saying, ‘Your health is our number one priority. The health and safety of our people. And we’re doing… We’re speaking with all the health experts and everything else.’ And I’m like, ‘I want to call BS on it’ and be like, ‘If you really care about our health and safety, you would ban smoking in your casino.’ You can have outdoor patios. There are many casinos that even have outdoor patios with slot machines or… That works. But when you’re making the staff and the patrons breathe it in non-stop. That’s not really fair to everybody. So I’m loving the changes that are happening and I hope that continues. And masks need to be mandatory everywhere if you want to just flatten this curve. I keep reading that the worst is still yet to come and that’s pretty darn scary. The last thing we want is for all these things to close up again. And we’re talking about entertainment here, right? Casinos are supposed to be fun and entertaining. So if you really want to have your entertainment, then put on a darn mask already” (13:44).

While Christopher is excited about his advocacy work, it is still the slots that brought him where he is today. But lest we think that his life is hanging out in the casino dropping coins, Christopher says gaming only counts for about 5% of his work. He says most of his time is spent shipping merchandise (including masks, btw) from his offices. In addition, his time is spent negotiating on the phone with casinos as he tries to gain access into their venues so he can shoot the games we all want to play. After that, there’s also video editing, promotions, scheduling–in other words, it’s a real job (although a pretty cool one!).

Check out Brian Christopher’s amazing videos at bcslots.com–and be sure to check in with your URComped travel host to sign up for one of the URComped sailings with Brian and his “Rudies.” You never know–you just might hit the next hand pay he features in one of his videos!

 

Forbes
​YouTube Slot Controversy Shows The Perils Of Your Side Hustle
David G. Schwartz, Contributor · June 11, 2018 at 8:58am

​It happened without warning.

On June 3rd at 7:28 in the morning, Brian Christopher got an email from “The YouTube Team” telling him that his video, “Smokin' Hot Gems, BIG WIN  Mammoth Power  Slot Machine Pokies w Brian Christopher” had been taken down for violating content restrictions on “violent or dangerous acts that have an inherent risk of serious physical harm or death.” This was his first strike. Seconds later, he got another email telling him that “due to repeated or severe violations” of YouTube’s community guidelines, his account had been suspended. His channel, which he had been building for two years, had vanished. Hundreds of his videos, all of which feature him playing slot machines and winning jackpots, were wiped out.

Just like that, a big piece of Christopher’s life—he spends about eight to 12 hours a day on his channel, and employs three people who help him—was gone. Erased. Deleted.

Around the same time, Scott “The Raja” Richter, whose slot channel, The Big Jackpot, features videos like “Biggest Live Jackpot In History | $600 A Pull | Black Widow @ The Cosmopolitan” logged on and found that his channel, too, was gone.

Christopher and Richter had used YouTube to turn a money-losing pastime, playing slot machines, into a respectable side hustle, even a level of celebrity. Richter’s videos have clocked more than 2 million unique monthly views, and his channel has more than 115,000 subscribers. He even has a dedicated fan club, known as the Bomb Squad (after Richter’s trademark “#BOOM” graphic that accompanies each big win). Christopher has about 50 million total views and 82,000 subscribers, with his videos drawing thousands of views a day, and his own fan club, the Rudies. Bomb Squad and Rudies alike, in addition to commenting on videos and offering advice during live feeds, follow their mentors to casinos around the country and even go on cruises with them. One highlight of these events is the “group pull,” where players pool their cash and take turns pressing play on a high limit slot.

In addition to revenue generated directly from YouTube (which Richter says, for a popular channel, can reach as high as $20,000 a month) both Richter and Christopher sell a range of merchandise, from bobbleheads to coffee mugs to shot glasses. While this may have started out as a hobby, it has clearly become something bigger. Christopher, for instance, found out about his channel being removed while traveling for a planned multi-state East Coast tour.

Andy Warhol famously said back in 1968 that in the future, everyone would be world famous for fifteen minutes. Fifty years later, we’re in the future, and Warhol was half right. Everyone’s not world famous for fifteen minutes. Instead, they are famous to their fanbases of a few hundred thousand for as long as they can keep cranking out new content. Platforms like YouTube have redefined the nature of celebrity itself. It’s no longer about musical or athletic talent, looks, or even being in the right place at the right time. It’s about being able to market original content that drives clicks.

You have a good idea of what it takes to get fired from your job: punching the boss is out, as is destroying company property, showing up drunk, or doing all three. But in the side hustle economy, where you let people watch you play slots, drive them to the casino, or even write about what they do there, the rules—to the extent that there are rules—are much less transparent. Both channels had been, presumably, making good money for YouTube. As far as the creators knew, they were doing exactly what the platform wanted them to: generate and promote original content that brings clicks.
“It was like a stab in the back.” Christopher says. “I devoted my entire life to YouTube. I gave them 1,100 videos and made them a lot of money. For them to turn around and shut me down with zero explanation hurts.”

Christopher immediately filed an appeal. “I didn’t know what I was appealing,” he explains, “since I didn’t know what I did wrong.” He just told the anonymous authority that his channel was clean and promoted responsible gambling. Hours later, he got a curt email informing him his appeal was denied—again, with no explanation of what policies he had violated.

Then, without an apology or any other acknowledgement, both channels were reinstated. Christopher simply got a brief email that said that, after a re-review, it was determined that his videos did not, in fact, violate any guidelines. That’s good news for Richter, Christopher, the Bomb Squad, and the Rudies, but the entire situation shines a light on the very real dangers of the side hustle economy.

The side hustle economy is a natural reaction to the collapse of the old work economy. It’s increasingly rare to score a solid 9 to 5 job right out of school, clock a few decades, and retire with a secure pension and gold watch, all the while enjoying financial security. More and more people are turning to a variety of side hustles—freelance work, MLMs, YouTube videos, even writing—in an effort to stay ahead of the game.

The side hustles I’m thinking about are different from simply working a second job hostessing or parking cars because they usually involve a significant outlay of resources—sometimes financial but always time. This species of hustle is also dependent on what we can loosely call “tech” but is more accurately a form of digitally-assisted connectivity. YouTubers like Christopher and Richter, documenting their thousands of dollars in slot jackpots for tens of thousands of fans are at one end, with Lyft and Uber drivers and designers selling custom drawn logos on fiverr at the other.

In theory, side hustling gives creative, ambitious, or just broke and bored people a chance to turn their time and effort into money. In practice, it’s not always that easy, and with so much of the hustle dependent on impersonal, impenetrable tech, it is an incredibly unstable base on which to build a brand, let alone a future. You might cultivate a great presence as a Lyft driver, but when self-driving cars are ready to roll, it’s over, no matter how hard you've worked. Or an inoffensive piece of your content trips a digital wire somewhere, and you’re flagged, then suspended, with no clear path to appeal.

We still don’t have any idea why the channels came down: was it really part of an orchestrated harassment campaign by a rival, as some fans alleged, or was it just both channels running afoul of an algorithm? After all, with 300 hours of video uploaded to the channel every minute, no human can sit and watch them all for violations. And, remember, computers can do operations quickly and efficiently but don’t have common sense or empathy. So your passion project that you’ve been pouring your life into for the past few years with decent results and no controversy might get flagged or your channel removed, just because a machine read something into it that you never intended. There are humans involved in the policy violation process (10,000 of them at YouTube's last count), but, with about 3 million videos flagged for review each month, that’s still about 1,000 videos a day per human—if humans never took days off.

Perhaps appropriately for Richter and Christopher, the side hustle economy that we all participate in might have something in common with playing slot machines. Because even when we fear it might be a negative expectation game, when we see other people hitting the jackpot, we have no choice but to get back to the grind.

For his part, Christopher’s return to YouTube is not without issues. While his videos were restored, they were not remonetized, meaning that he can’t make any money from them. He was assured that they would be remonetized in 24 to 48 hours but, five days later, it had not happened. So, like the rest of us, it’s back to posting content, but with no guarantee that it will pay off.

Worse, the phantom violation makes brings a nagging uncertainty to his life. “It just leaves it open for them to do it again,” Christopher says. “I have zero way of getting any answers from anybody.”
There is one silver lining in all this. The night that his channel returned, Christopher was back playing slots live on YouTube. Alongside his Rudies, both in person and on livestream, Christopher hit the biggest jackpot of his life, $10,000.
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The look on his face when those reels line up…that’s what we’re all chasing, and that tells us why, even if it’s a lot of work with an uncertain pay off, we’re going to keep chasing our side hustles.