According to news articles about online casinos, the promotion of modern slot games is no more limited to simple bonus offers. To become successful in the iGaming market, casino operators and software providers have to use numerous gamification techniques and implement the latest technology, such as AI or machine learning.
Alexis Wicén, CEO and Co-Founder of Unibo and Scatters, has shared his vision of the modern casino market, explaining how to launch a successful slot game.
Alexis, what are the main trends for casino slots nowadays?
There are many trends in the casino industry nowadays. Many providers are going really heavy on high volatility slots. We have providers who have made extreme volatility in their callsign. Historically, high-paying slots have been dominated by jackpot slots, but nowadays we are seeing more and more non-jackpot slots with extremely high-top wins, all paid for by the online casino themselves. Mainly pushed by streamers whose viewers love to see that enormous win and where a massive win clip can bring you a lot of views.
When it comes to casinos themselves, five years ago, you could stand out from the competition by having a lot of providers and games. Nowadays, most online casinos have 30+ providers with countless games. Having lots of games has become a hygiene factor rather than a unique selling point. Few players choose a casino because they have a specific game, but players might leave a casino if a game or a provider they like is missing.
With so many of the competitors sporting the same offering, the general trend within online casinos nowadays is to add a layer of gamification on top of the games. Add that extra flavor that keeps the players coming back to your casino instead of going to someone else.
What do you consider to be the main aspects of a successful promotional campaign for the slot game?
Defining the success or failure of promotion should be done during the planning phase. Different campaigns should use different metrics for success, depending on what the raison d’etre of the campaign is.
- Is it to get new players depositing and trying out your casino?
- Is it to get old players back?
- Is it to keep the current players playing?
That said, the key to any successful promotions campaign or calendar is to engage and entertain the players.
Which gamification tools proved to be the most effective in attracting new players to the casino platform?
Different players are attracted to different things. We know that a lot of players will not even take the welcome bonus if offered, as the terms and conditions are too complicated, and they don’t want any of their money locked if they win with the bonus.
Players want to play on their terms. They don’t want to be boxed in or be required to play at certain times.
Gamification can be used as an integral part of a player’s introduction to your online casino. We have found that whilst competitive promotion types such as races and tournaments, which pay the winners at the end, work well for retention, the introduction journey must focus on instant gratification. As such, individual missions and challenges where the player gets something every step of the way is the best way to get the player to try out your casino.
These welcome missions should be used as a way to get the player to engage with and experience everything your online casino has to offer. Mix it up a bit with different missions. Get the players to try a few spins in the live casino, offer them the chance to grind on their favorite slots, and so on. One size definitely doesn’t fit all, so it is best to not limit the missions too much in terms of which games are allowed.
Do you agree that personalization is key to building a successful iGaming brand? Could you describe a few ways to make slots more personalized?
I believe there are many ways to build a successful iGaming brand. Personalization is one way to help the customers make the right decision. Game recommendations can be a great way to get players trying out new games, which they might like, however, unlike Netflix, players generally do not play a new game every time they log in to your online casino. In fact, for the online casino, you should probably suggest the same game: “If you liked this, you will probably like playing it some more” or “identical” slots such as “If you liked Book of Ra, you might like Book of Dead”.
As a specialist in the gamification of the casino industry, could you give some practical tips for the operators to get the client’s loyalty?
Define but don’t limit – do not use too few games in your promotion. Most players have a few games they love, which they play most of the time. If a player doesn’t like the games available in a promotion, they won’t join the promotion. Less is not more.
Variation – use different kinds of promotions. Mix things up. If you have sent a 50% reload bonus for the last four weeks in a row, the players aren’t going to be awfully excited when you send it for the fifth week.
Study the results – check what your players liked about your promotion and understand why, when, and where they stopped taking part, and which players made it the whole way. Who won and how?
It is well known that some jurisdictions restrict bonusing options for online casinos. What do you advise operators to do in that case?
In Europe, there are now many different jurisdictions, each with its own rules and regulations on what you are allowed to offer as a welcome offer and what you are allowed to give in the form of retention offers.
The best thing to do to keep your license is obviously to adhere to the rules of the jurisdiction where you have the license. To be able to do that, you need to understand what those regulations are. Take for example the Swedish legislation. The regulator SGA has been giving out fines for the past two years for anyone giving out any bonuses outside of the welcome bonus. Many of these fines have been appealed, and have had their appeals shut down. However, Kindred has recently had the appeal of their “refer-a-friend” bonus upheld and the courts have agreed that a “refer-a-friend” bonus is not directly related to the gameplay, and thus it does not break the law. In the case of Sweden, I think this will be a landmark case where what is, and what is not directly related to, the gameplay has been to some extent defined. It should drive innovation in the use of other engagement tools such as surveys, quizzes, refer-a-friend bonuses, etc., which all add value to the player and the business, create engagement and stay within the legal boundaries.
So, if you are going to try something new in a certain jurisdiction, make sure your legal team can confidently argue that what you are doing is legal.
How can an operator prevent bonus abuse on its platform?
The best way to find and prevent future bonus abuse is to study your players. Study the players who repeatedly take part in your promotions, and, in particular, study the players who continuously win in them. Players will always find the loopholes in your setups and, with different providers and different games, there is always a way to get around certain rules.
Over the last 15 years, the terms and conditions for bonuses at online casinos have gone through some massive changes. More abuse has led to operators changing wagering requirements accordingly. Whilst wagering averaged 35-40x in the past, it is now increasingly rare to find anything under 50x. With new and exciting game mechanisms from providers, there has been a flurry of ways to abuse bonuses and promotions.
Recently, I saw a quite ingenious way of abusing a tournament. The tournament was to win the most in a certain number of consecutive spins. So, the player chose slot games, which had a guaranteed win after a certain number of spins. If the guaranteed win was on the 10th spin, he would spin 9 spins, then move to another game. Then when he had X games lined up, he would play the 10th spin on every game, basically having 10 winning spins in a row.
You need to stay on top of it by changing your promotions accordingly, updating your terms and conditions, and, of course, do not give the abusers the promotions in the future. Incidents like this highlight why we include ongoing advice and consultation with our own services, if we spot a loophole with a new game type or format, then we inform our customers of it so they can take remedial action.
In your opinion, what role does artificial intelligence play in terms of gamification?
For gamification at an online casino, I think true artificial intelligence is still quite far into the future. Machine learning is in its infancy in iGaming currently, mainly used within communication flows and game recommendations. I see AI being part of the process to determine what, when, and how to reward a player.
A few years ago, big data was the biggest hype word in the business. Everyone wanted to use big data, and many companies invested huge amounts in cutting-edge systems to be able to use and manipulate the data as much as possible. Databases were specified, systems were built, and it was all looking great until someone said: “So, what do you want to analyze and calculate?” In some companies, there is a disconnect between tech, commercial, leadership, and owners. Companies without a clear vision are often the ones most susceptible to jump on the bandwagon of every new thing promising to be the be-all and end-all.
Nowadays, we see companies running headfirst into artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and active learning (AL), basically, whatever acronym they can find, which makes their idea or product sound like “the next big thing”. Most of the time without even knowing what they mean, or what they will help them achieve. If you do this without a clear direction and vision for how it is going to lead to revenues or cost savings, you might end up disappointed.
That said, it is going to be interesting to see and follow what AI can do in areas such as automated support (chatbots, etc.), player classification, game classification/game recommendations as well as “at the right time”-communications.
Read more: Top Gambling Affiliate Programs
