The enduring question remains:
How do you improve the comfort of gaming stools and casino seating to give patrons a better gaming experience?
Comfort in seating, be it an office chair, dining chair, car seat, or gaming stool, is inherently subjective. What one person deems exceptionally comfortable; another might find less so. Despite the absence of a universal solution, there is a key feature that consistently enhances the comfort of any casino chair or gaming stool, namely gas height adjustment.
As a gaming venue operator, you certainly don’t want patrons leaving your gaming floor because they find the stools uncomfortable!
Designing chairs for the “Average Person”
When manufacturers design chairs for offices, gaming rooms, restaurants, function rooms etc, they always do so for the “average” person. Unfortunately, the basic rule of ergonomics contradicts this approach, declaring that the notion of an “average” person is a myth!
Fact:
Designing any chair or stool for the so-called “average” person caters to about 90% of the population.
This approach implies that the tallest and shortest 5% of the population will find the chair height unsuitable.
Take for instance gaming stools. If the stool is too low, a person will have to overextend to reach the console. Such a position can quickly cause discomfort and muscular pain, especially in the upper back, shoulders, and neck.
To accommodate a greater percentage of the population, gaming stools should be height adjustable. How to get patrons to spend more time in your gaming room – improve the ergonomics!
Why many venue operators prefer Fixed-Height gaming stools
Most gaming venue operators prefer fixed-height pedestal base or 4-legged gaming stools. This trend is primarily driven by two reasons:
a) Neatness on the gaming floor
If gaming stools are fitted with gas height adjustment, this may result in each stool being set to a different height, leading to an ‘uneven’ or disorderly appearance on the gaming floor.
Fixed-height chairs often create a neater gaming floor.
However, what is more important:
A neat gaming floor, or improving the comfort of your stools and providing your patrons with a better gaming experience?
b) Breakage
Many venue operators believe that gas height adjusters break easily, resulting in costly repairs and stool downtime. This is no longer the case.
Modern gas lifters from reputable manufacturers are extremely reliable. In general, you can expect them to last at least 7 years, and in many cases, longer. This is a far cry from the “early days” when gas lifters wouldn’t last much longer than 12 months. Furthermore, if they do break, gas lifters are usually easy and inexpensive to replace.
The problem with Fixed-Height gaming stools
a) The gaming stools
All manufacturers of fixed-height gaming stools will design and build them to accommodate the “average” person. Assuming that all the machine consoles on your gaming floor are at the same height (a big assumption!), then only 90% of all players will feel that the height of the stools is correct.
b) The gaming machines
Each gaming machine manufacturer has their own design preference regarding the position and angle of the machine’s playing console. This means that the height of the console is not always the same, and differs from one manufacturer and machine type, to the next.
Fixed-height casino chairs are designed for the “average” person sitting in front of an “average” machine.
Because venue operators typically have machines from multiple manufacturers on their floor, the actual height of the playing consoles varies throughout the gaming area. When you combine the console height variations with a fixed-height gaming stool, the result is that the stools are suitable for only some of the players at some of the machines.
Consequently, stools initially intended to accommodate 90% of people now cater to a significantly smaller proportion of players.
Improving the comfort of your gaming stools
There is no question that a chair or stool fitted with gas height adjustment is more comfortable than one without. There are 2 main reasons:
Reason 1:
Most importantly, every patron can adjust the height of the stool to suit their own height and playing style.
Furthermore, because the height of the playing console varies from one gaming machine to the next, an adjustable stool will allow every player to set the chair to the correct height at every machine in your venue. This is impossible with a fixed-height stool.
Reason 2:
This one is less obvious. When you initially sit on a stool fitted with a gas height adjuster, the gas lifter and the seat foam ‘cushions’ the initial impact as you sit down. In other words, it acts like a shock-absorber which can reduce injuries to the lower back and/or coccyx. On a fixed-height stool, only the seat foam provides this initial cushioning effect.
How to improve the comfort of a casino chair?
Ensure that the seats have moulded foam and gas height adjustment!
Gas height adjustment is available on all our casino seating ranges. For more information on gas height adjusters and swivel mechanisms, see
swivel mechanisms for gaming stools.