Service attributes as drivers of behavioral loyalty in casinos: The mediating effect of attitudinal loyalty Anil Bilgihan n , Melih Madanoglu, Peter Ricci Department of Marketing, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Rd., Boca Raton, FL 33431, United States article info Article history: Received 23 June 2015 Received in revised form 3 February 2016 Accepted 5 March 2016 Keywords: Gambling Casino ambiance Gambler emotions Intention to return Customer loyalty Service quality abstract This study takes its cues from the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), service quality, and the broaden-and- build theory of positive emotions to investigate the effect of casino service attributes on gambler loyalty. The posited theoretical model was tested using Structural Equation Modeling with a sample of 4511 gamblers. Findings indicate that the intention to return fully mediates the effect of casino ambiance and emotions on return patronage. Feelings pertaining to emotions have the greatest effect on casino players' intention to return. Additionally, emotions have the strongest indirect effect on return patronage. Results highlight the importance of player intent in order to secure their actual return to casinos. In the context of gambling loyalty research, service quality attributes influence return patronage through intention to return. Theoretically, this study shows that attitudinal loyalty is a strong predictor of action loyalty in casinos in a causal fashion. & 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Casino gambling is an important contributor to many world economies and attracts millions of visitors to destinations (Wong and Rosenbaum, 2012). The United States is no exception where prior to 1977, only one state (Nevada) featured full-fledged casino operations. By 1995, twenty-two states had such operations (Au and Hobson, 1997; Mason and Stranahan, 1996). The boom in ca- sino gambling continued even during the economic recessions in the United States where gambling increased 100% between 1996 and 2008 (American Gaming Association, 2010). Now in 2015, the gaming industry continues to generate more revenues than other forms of entertainment worldwide which leads to a peaked in- terest in gaming research (e.g. Hendler and LaTour, 2008; Ma- cLaurin and Wolstenholme, 2008; O’Donnell et al., 2012; Tanford and Baloglu, 2013) and the subsequent publication of several academic gaming journals and special issues in various journals. Understanding customer loyalty is paramount for the casino in- dustry (Tanford and Baloglu, 2013). Also, loyalty research has theoretical implications to the extent that research can be vali- dated across different settings, therefore establishing external validity (Campbell, 1957). Customer loyalty is a fundamental construct in marketing scholarship (Toufaily et al., 2013); from a managerial perspective, it is among the most enduring assets possessed by a company (Kandampully et al., 2015). Creating and maintaining customer loyalty helps organizations to develop long-term, mutually bene- ficial relationships with customers (Pan et al., 2012). Research shows that loyal customers show attachment and commitment toward the company, and are less likely to switch to a competitor (So et al., 2013). Therefore, it is important for organizations to have a loyal customer base, and also investigating the precursors of customer loyalty should be a top research priority for services marketing researchers (Kandampully et al., 2015). Widely studied constructs in service loyalty research such as customer satisfaction are necessary but not sufficient conditions to elicit customer loy- alty (e.g. Izogo, 2015; Dixon et al., 2010; Oliver, 1999). It is the examination of other precursors such as customer emotions, ser- vice ambiance and staff attitude that motivated this paper. Moreover, customer loyalty has been rarely investigated with si- multaneous consideration of its attitudinal and behavioral di- mensions (Bodet, 2008). Having identified this research gap, the present study integrates service attributes and loyalty dimensions into a comprehensive model. Given the importance of casino marketing and customer ser- vice, it is plausible that service attributes are the true drivers of customer satisfaction and loyalty among casino players. Offering more insight into this relationship is important for policy makers. Several researchers (e.g., Bowen and Chen, 2001; McCain et al., 2005) argue that unlike other businesses, customer satisfaction Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jretconser Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.03.001 0969-6989/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. n Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: abilgihan@fau.edu (A. Bilgihan), mmadanog@fau.edu (M. Madanoglu), pricci1@fau.edu (P. Ricci). Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 31 (2016) 14–21