The online gaming and gambling industry is fast approaching middle age since its inception in the late nineties. Many innovations were mooted as the next big thing during that time and with the rise of data lakes and the AI boom, is the igaming industry any nearer to the holy grail of personalisation? Mark McGuinness provides his views.
Personalisation within the igaming ecosystem as it relates to players, specifically lifecycle stages in CRM such as onboarding, activation, actives, acquisition, and retention, has, it seems, been mooted, touted, and lamented by many for what seems like a generation now.
All companies strive to improve the customer experience and foster relationships with both new and existing customers. They cite personalisation as the holy grail to unlock that value exchange and make customers feel unique, special, and, of course, loved.
Digital personalisation
As customers increasingly use digital channels, igaming brands must deliver more than what could be described as an 'all or nothing approach,' which is centred around more linear transactional product-led experiences. What do I mean by 'transactional-led experiences'?
The current experience of gambling products and how they are presented is perhaps one of encouraging the player to engage beyond their means
Everything currently presented on a gambling website is designed to get the player to place his bet quickly or play the next available slot game or tournament. Let's address the elephant in the room: the current experience of gambling products and how they are presented is perhaps one of encouraging the player to engage beyond their means, which, by and large, creates a negative experience. In today's economy of social responsibility, it is also a rather unfashionable business model across a swath of society and, of course, the omnipresent gambling regulators.
Personalisation value drivers
Personalisation is critical for players to feel valued and understood. However, there is a compelling business reason: In general, within the igaming industry, 90% of the revenue comes from 10-20% of the brand's top players, sometimes referred to as the Pareto principle. This relationship is more skewed for online casinos, whereby single-digit player numbers drive the majority of gross gaming revenue.
So, there is a compelling business goal of retaining these top player segments via tailored and personalised experiences. Otherwise, without that personalisation, the igaming brand risks losing that player to its competitors.
Scaling personalisation with AI
AI and generative AI are capturing a lot of headlines. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is that, depending on the AI models used, it levels the playing field on soft and hard skills within a team and decreases the gap from being a middle-of-the-pack brand to being best in class—if used correctly.
Secondly, marketing teams are using generative AI for creative, media, and data insights. AI's ability to analyse huge data lakes of behavioural and transactional data streams can unlock personalisation and revenue goals.
AI's ability to analyse huge data lakes of behavioural and transactional data streams can unlock personalisation and revenue goals
It could be argued that personalisation comes in many flavours, shapes, and sizes. To some, personalisation is using the salutation of the player's first name when sending emails or when they log back onto the website, and the emoji icon waves at you and says, 'welcome back Mark'.
Product
Other forms already in place in the igaming product sphere relate to product recommendations, some of which use hard data points, others not, to suggest or recommend bets or games that you may be interested in. Using machine learning algorithms, online casinos recommend games like those previously enjoyed by the player, using previous browsing and transactional preference data.
AI could be used to power more personalised or adaptive front-end experiences, by customised widgets, in the casino lobby for example, as against endlessly doom scrolling through a lobby containing over a 1,000+ games, before the player decides to engage in the game.
Customer service
It could be argued that the online gambling industry doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to customer service and experience, especially if you look at consumer champion sites such as Trust Pilot and AskGamblers, which contain some very harsh home truths about online casinos.
Implementing AI-driven chatbots that offer personalised resolution management, responses, and solutions based on the user's past interactions and preferences is bound to provide a competitive advantage that puts the player at the centre of the experience.
AI-Based loyalty & CRM
Every player, and casino players especially, seeks tailored or personalised promotions. Yes, the industry is getting better at this, but the answer still appears to be to offer more free spins.
AI will undoubtedly help to reimagine and analyse the data streams, creating new lifecycle stages and classifications that go beyond the current realm
Loyalty programs or gamification, in the online gambling industry, by in large, haven't taken off for a few reasons, mainly due to poorly executed customer insight into the behavioural drivers, and data silos, or more importantly not having a unified data structure to analyse.
The advent of data lakes and a focus on customer-first data strategies is partly driven by the demise of the cookie and increasing consumer awareness over digital data privacy and usage. AI will undoubtedly help to reimagine and analyse the data streams, creating new lifecycle stages and classifications that go beyond the current realm, which are more risk/revenue and transactional labels such as actives, FTDs, non-FTD, risk-factored, stake-factored, bonus abuser, and so forth.
Some of these pre-existing player nomenclatures could be suggested as not only disingenuous but could actually be current inhibitors to the creation of a more emotional, intelligent understanding of players that leads to a truer, simpler personalisation model.
So, are we any closer to personalisation? AI can deliver personalised experiences that go beyond meeting expectations, making players feel genuinely understood and valued, but only if we rethink the current set-up.
Mark McGuinness
has over 20 years of experience in the igaming industry, both B2B and B2C. He is passionate about Martech and AI for creating more socially responsible gambling business models in today's economy.