Kasra Ghaharian is a research assistant at UNLV International Gaming Institute (IGI) and Ph.D. student in UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality.
Kasra received his master’s in Hotel Administration from UNLV in 2010. During this time, he published “A Mathematical Approach for Optimizing the Casino Slot Floor: A Linear Programming Application,” the first study to apply mathematical methods to the age-old task of optimizing the casino floor. After his master’s, Kasra worked in the industry for several years, applying his data-driven techniques to the online and digital landscapes for two of the largest casino-hotel companies in the world.
Currently, for his Ph.D. dissertation and his role at IGI, he explores the implications of payment modernization for the gambling industry; specifically, his research utilizes machine learning to uncover behavioral insights and creates early detection algorithms that assist both industry operators and regulators in responsible gambling efforts as they pertain to payments.