Golf courses prove to be the ace up casinos' sleeve

Late last year, Washington's own Salish Cliffs Golf Club managed to get into the top 10 of Golfweek's list of best casino courses for 2013. The 18-hole course, which was designed by architect Gene Bates and opened in 2011, is one of the many non-gambling amenities at the Squaxin Island Tribe-owned Little Creek Casino Resort. It was the lone entry from the Pacific Northwest that made it into the annual list.

The now-ubiquitous presence of golf courses in casino resorts is a relatively new idea. Conventional golf course development may have stagnated in recent years, but the boom that casinos experienced in the past few years has paved the way for the development of newer and sometimes even better golf courses as a way of drawing in a new audience to the casino floor.

"Casinos have funded a golf boom unlike any ever seen, and even the architects readily admit that many of these courses could never have been built by traditional developers," writes Forbes contributor Larry Olmsted. "Dozens of such courses have been built in this country alone, some of them rivaling the very best non-casino courses."

Drawing in customers through non-traditional gaming avenues has become an important facet of the casino industry not just in the US but all around the world. This strategy has become even more important now that land-based casinos are facing increased competition from online gaming.

By all accounts, it seems the competition won't taper off anytime soon. Based on recent data from H2 Gambling Capital, Castle Jackpot operator Gaming Realms notes in its 2013 financials that it expects the online gaming market to be worth $42 billion by 2015.

With such stiff competition in the gaming landscape as a whole, it would seem that casinos will likely continue to fuel the development of many non-gambling amenities for their establishments - new golf courses included, of course. It's a future that definitely looks bright even for non-casino going golfers.