Opinion: Why online casino needs the personal touch
Unibet's head of casino Adam Ruï¬ett discusses the importance of delivering a personalised casino experience to players
How would you describe an online casino player? Your mind may already be forming an image based on knowledge, assumptions and probably a few stereotypes. But how accurate is your portrayal likely to be? Even if you are partially right is your description a fair representation of every casino player? Certainly not.
Online casinos continue to grow in popularity thanks to a combination of improving products and widespread advertising, and while they still might not be considered exactly mainstream, an ever more diverse range of players are sampling their delights. This level of diversity though is not just in the type of player, but also their reasons for playing in the ï¬rst place. It would make sense then to oï¬er each of these players a more personalised experience that meets their speciï¬c needs.
Know your customer
Log in to your favourite online retailer, music streaming service or even your bank and you will ï¬nd the site speciï¬cally tailored for you, so why shouldn’t your gaming site be the same? Rather than serving generic content you should be presented with games chosen based not just on previous history but suggestions based on personalised proï¬ling. However, one possible argument against this is the limited range of games available.
Amazon may have more than 200 million items it is trying to sell you, whereas most casino sites will have 1,000 games or fewer, so is there really a need for complex recommendation algorithms? After all many operators have been successfully employing the Field of Dreams approach (launch them and they will come) for many years now.
As the market matures, so does the level of competition, and players can be much more selective about where they make their deposits. Traditionally a site may have been popular based on factors such as good reputation, security and game choice. These factors are of course undoubtedly still important but most sites now oï¬er these as standard. Personalisation therefore is a way to diï¬erentiate from the competition while at the same time showing the customer that you not only understand them, but you can bring them exactly the experience they are looking for.
The big questions then are what factors makes customers diï¬erent? How do we collect this data? And how can it be used eï¬ectively?
Personal touch
Thinking simplistically, location, product preference and bet size can all be used as diï¬erentiators, but this is really just scratching the surface. It’s necessary to dig much deeper, taking a closer look at player behaviour and motivations. If done eï¬ectively it’s a great way to build a clear picture of the diï¬erences within your player base.
The good news is that most of the information you need is probably already sitting in your systems. As players log in, bet, change game, deposit and withdraw, they leave behind an enormous amount of data. The bad news is that you may need to employ some fairly advanced big data analysis in order to extract the information and trends that you are looking for.
The really tricky part though is translating that analysis into tangible and eï¬ective changes to the user experience. There are many areas which could be tailored and personalised to your customers’ requirements. The challenge is ï¬nding those which will be most eï¬ective, and of course doing so before your competitors do.