Giant Roulette Wheel at the Venice Airport

I’m sure that you know the feeling when you see a simple, yet great idea. You sigh and say “Why didn’t I think of this?!”

Here’s a genial piece of advertising that was keeping the Italian gambling news busy for a while.

At the busy Venice Marco Polo Airport in Italy, a casino advertiser turned the dead-boring baggage claim belt into a giant roulette wheel. The installation is the work of Italian advertising agency Admcom for the promotion of the "Casino Di Venezia" of Venice.

The ad works. The Venetian Casino reported its number of visitors has increased by 60% since the baggage claim ad appeared at the airport. We have no information about their revenue, but the Marco Polo airport is full of affluent tourists who come to see the wonders of Venice, so our guess is that they are doing well in terms of money, too.

People spend on average at least 10 minutes waiting for luggage. That is a lot of time in advertising, compared, for example, to a 30-second TV spot. Above the roulette wheel, the casino’s slogan is displayed: “Keep playing“. And most of the people make a guess on which number slot their pieces of luggage will land on.

One casino employee said: “We have heard about people placing bets here in the casino on the numbers their luggage pieces landed on the baggage claim belt. One elderly lady won over $7,000 with this method.”

The Italian gambling laws currently allow gambling displaying, but the regulation is expected to be much stricter from the end of this year.

According to the draft bill, ads for land based and online casinos in Italy will have to inform players about the risks of gambling, and must clearly show the percentage of pay-out of each featured game.