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Mission control
As land-based casinos expand into online and mobile, how can they track and engage with the same customers across multiple channels? Barnaby Page looks at some of the latest developments in casino management systems.
Are you making the most of your games, and your customers? It’s the question that’s constantly on every casino manager’s mind (or ought to be): fully exploiting the investments that have been committed, not only in technology but also in marketing, can make all the difference between profitability and failure.
That’s where another investment – in a casino management system – pays off. Typically these systems combine sophisticated reporting, for the back office and gaming floor staff alike, with player-facing services such as bonusing, messaging and loyalty programmes. And increasingly their focus is on providing what vendors like to call a “single view”, not only of the business as a whole, but also of individual players, who today may very well be engaging with a casino online or via their phones as well as in a land-based venue.
Holland Casino, for example, is engaged in a big project called Mosaic which seeks to link together the management systems of its 14 properties across the Netherlands, which collectively attract 5.5m customers annually. It is working with International Game Technology (IGT) to integrate membership and loyalty systems, far more powerful if they operate across the whole estate than if they were limited to single locations, as well as improving support for coinless gaming, creating more efficient operations, and building in responsible gaming safeguards.
Yet of course today’s casino operator is very often offering gaming beyond the walls of its physical properties, and it’s here – in the merging of land-based, Internet-based, and mobile activities – that much development work in casino management systems is taking place at the moment.
As the Maryland Live! Casino prepares to open next year, for example, it will also be offering a play-for-fun virtual casino three months before the real thing opens its doors in June. Providing customers with Poker, slots and skill games, this will serve to build the Maryland Live! brand and, crucially, players registered on the online service will be identified as such by the casino management system too.
With the virtual casino driven by Aristocrat Technologies’ nLive system, Maryland Live! will then connect online and land-based player profiles using the vendor’s nLiveLink technology. Player activity will be trackable across both the real and virtual properties, and customers will be able to earn reward points online.
Based on GameAccount Network’s e-gaming system, nLive – also ordered by Island Resort & Casino in Harris, Michigan – is so far limited to brand-building exercises, but Aristocrat frankly admits that the system is also going to market in anticipation of legalised online gaming in the US. When that happens, the company believes, demand for interconnected land-based and Internet-based systems will explode.
Indeed, that extends to individual games as well as to player management; Aristocrat foresees a near future where, through its Alive network, customers will be able to continue playing on a land-based casino’s games even from home. Though they won’t, at least under current US law, be able to stake or win money, they will be able to build up player points and unlock new levels in episodic games – and for the casino itself, of course, there’s the all-important continued contact with the brand, as well as opportunities for messaging to consumers and for further building the player’s behavioural profile.
Bally Technologies has equally ambitious views on the next step in casino management systems. It recently launched a new interactive division with the express purpose of integrating its mobile and e-gaming products with casino management tools for that “single view”.
Said CEO Richard M. Haddrill: “As gaming expands outside the casino floor, our technologies will enable casino operators to reach their patrons wherever they are, bringing the casino to the players, and bringing players back to the casino. This integration will enable our customer – the casino operator – to stay connected to player trends and behaviour, as well as give their patrons access to player’s club accounts when they are at home or on the go.”
To speed that development, the company earlier this year acquired MacroView Labs, a San Francisco developer of platforms and applications for mobile gaming. Bally appointed its new property’s leading lights Aron Ezra and Keith Michel as Vice President of Mobile and Director of Mobile Technology, respectively, to oversee the integration of MacroView’s cloud-based platform with Bally’s casino and slot management systems and its Elite bonusing suite.
WMS is in the online-offline integration game too, with its Player’s Life Web Services application suite. As the firm’s President Orrin J. Edidin puts it, “Player’s Life Web Services provides a new channel for our casino partners to stay connected with their players anywhere and anytime, thereby increasing player loyalty to their casino and driving higher coin-in”.
Going offline
But innovation in taking the management system beyond the perimeter of the casino itself is not coming only from vendors like Aristocrat, Bally and WMS who are still largely associated with the land-based sector. The fusion of the real and virtual is being driven by the e-gaming side, too.
For example, PlayTech is largely known as a supplier of technology for online casinos, but the core of its management system provides centralised control over gaming on Internet, mobile, and interactive TV platforms as well as in land-based casinos. As in Aristocrat’s vision, this has benefits not only for the operator, but for the player too: with a single account and a single username/password combination, they can carry on playing a game on TV after leaving the casino, for example, or start a session on their home PC and then continue it via their smartphone when they have to leave the house. The recent decision by Nevada regulators to allow remote gaming in off-floor locations such as hotel rooms will doubtless provide a spur to this kind of activity in Las Vegas, as well as other jurisdictions that follow Nevada’s lead in time.
Even for casinos with no pressing ambitions to offer play virtually, there are still ways to use other platforms to maximise the return on investment in machines and players. For example, Club Fortune, a locals’ casino in Henderson, Nevada, has recently installed the Mobile Application Platform and Mobile Loyalty System from Joingo, a specialist in mobile marketing technology that concentrates on the gaming and hospitality sectors (and, indeed, has ex-Bally and IGT executives among its top people).
At Club Fortune, the Joingo Mobile Loyalty System connects the existing customer relationship management (CRM) system with mobile devices of all kinds: not just the obvious iPhone and Android handsets, but also BlackBerries, slightly older phones with Web capability, and even those that can handle nothing more sophisticated than SMS and MMS.
“Club Fortune is very promotion-driven,” said Jay Fennel, the casino’s Chief Operating Officer. “Joingo’s technology and platform combined with our database allows us to immediately communicate our promotions and special offers to the Club Fortune customers with graphically rich and appealing messages without the time and cost of printing and postage.”
Meanwhile, back on the floor
With all this activity in integrating management systems for land-based and virtual casinos, it would be easy to imagine that suppliers have abandoned the gaming floor as a dull relic of the past, and that all attention is being devoted to the e-future. Not so: as long as land-based gaming continues to represent the enormous revenue streams and investment levels that it does today, there is never-ending scope to fine-tune casino management to retain customers more effectively and wring out every last cent from physical installations.
Aristocrat Technologies, for instance, has certainly not been ignoring land-based needs even as it makes strides in cross-channel integration. It recently launched three new modules for its Oasis 360 casino management system, which is – like its nLive – to be used at Maryland Live! for management of 4750 devices on the gaming floor. The Maryland site joins some 260 other North American casinos in deploying Oasis 360.
Perhaps the most interesting of the new modules, and certainly one suited to the economically shaky times, is nCompass. Responding to the reality that many casinos cannot currently afford to replace their slots as frequently as they’d like, nCompass adds multimedia messaging functionality to legacy machines. In essence, any slot from any manufacturer can be retrofitted to show bonusing, promotions and even advertising controlled by a casino management system, as long as the older slot has a touchscreen. The multimedia display is powered by a separate central processing unit (CPU), so it doesn’t make unfeasible demands on the processing power of the gaming device itself.
“Aristocrat is sensitive to the needs of our customers, especially during this tough economic time,” said Nick Khin, President of Aristocrat Americas. “We cannot expect casinos to replace their entire slot mix, nor rebuild their entire IT infrastructure overnight, in order to take advantage of networked technologies.”
Other modules added to Oasis 360 by Aristocrat include nRich, which handles bonusing individualised to the player and based on historical play patterns and their value to the casino, rather than being prompted merely by recent actions. nVision, meanwhile, is a reporting module which provides management with a quick overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) on gaming floor business.
Like nVision, NEWave’s latest casino management tools are also aimed at the office rather than the players. It has recently added a Web-based service to its Title 31 software, which helps US casinos comply with financial regulations; this lets casino management systems from other vendors communicate with Title 31, meaning that it can in effect become a fully participating module in a larger management suite. NEWave has also upgraded its myCompliance suite to improve reporting and paperwork handling, as well as its Check Prove software, a dedicated application that helps casinos reduce fraud in cheque cashing.
These are further examples of how a casino management system can directly impact the bottom line. Indeed, it’s such an important complement to the right game mix that even at a time when – as Aristocrat’s Khin observes – many venues are reluctant to invest heavily in new slots or tables, there is still a business case for keeping the management system up to date.
At Eagle Mountain Casino in Porterville, California, for example, an older system will be replaced this December by Konami Gaming’s Konami Casino Management System (KCMS), providing accounting, customer tracking, targeted marketing and reporting across 1350 slots and table games. (Eagle Mountain bosses may have been in a spending mood; the location is also getting 120 new Konami slots.)
It will also be the first Californian site to roll out Konami’s LotABucks game across the floor, a relatively minor part of the order but one that encapsulates many of the advantages of casino management systems now. LotABucks gives members of Eagle Mountain’s loyalty club a chance to win both a large progressive jackpot and smaller one-off prizes when they play on any machine, anywhere in the casino.
The consumer gets excitement, the positive feeling of being privileged and taken care of, and a tangible benefit; and the casino gets a more engaged, identifiable, trackable customer, which ultimately means a more valuable one – enabling the operator to extract maximum value from their investment not only in the management system, but in their games and their players too.
THINK CONTENT, NOT PLATFORM
There’s little doubt that a land-based casino’s communications with its customers is increasingly going to involve mobile devices. But what are the practical first steps? Casino International spoke to Richard Yim, Vice President of Systems Products at International Game Technology (IGT).
CI: What advantages do you see in integrating casino management systems with mobile devices like smartphones and tablets?
RY: Mobile devices have permeated almost every aspect of our lives. As players start using their mobile devices more, it is imperative that casinos begin to leverage these devices as a medium for direct interaction to deliver timely, personalised information to their customers. The search for better methods of communicating with patrons has been the driver of innovation in the industry for years. A great example is IGT’s sbX Service Window functionality, which allows casino operators to communicate directly with players right at the slot machine. Communication brought directly to the patron, as opposed to using archaic methods, is not only more efficient and timely; it is also of a higher quality.
CI: And what are the challenges, whether technical, regulatory, or cultural?
RY: The real challenge with going mobile with player communication is figuring out what casino operators want to say, or offer, to their players. Casino systems are becoming more intelligent with their methods of on-premises bonusing and rewards. For example, IGT sbX customers can access a host of bonusing applications that can be customised for the property. Tying the on-premise methodology to the mobile medium will be the first step.
CI: In implementation terms, do you have any strong preference for one mobile platform (iPhone or Android, for example) over others?
RY: For IGT, ubiquitous content is key. We do not want to segment the experience based on platform.
CI: Do you see security vulnerabilities as a significant issue, whether on particular platforms or across mobile devices as a whole?
RY: Security of information is always of utmost concern. The ability to check point balances, or view and accept offers, is available today on the Web for many properties, and the first step is to extend those abilities to mobile devices with the appropriate level of security. If and when deposit account balances or anything surrounding real money becomes a reality, security will shift to be an even more critical concern.
APP-ROPOS OF SOMETHING
It’s not just player-facing applications that can benefit from the increasing sophistication of mobile handsets.
Spielo International – the Lottomatica subsidiary recently formed by the blending of Atronic and Spielo – has developed myGuest, an iPhone app for slot attendants and marketing teams on the gaming floor.
With data updated in real time, it lets them identify members of a casino’s loyalty club, examine their individual profiles, and award them comps or bonuses appropriately. The app also provides a full-colour interactive map of the gaming floor, and instant access to key performance indicators (KPIs).
It’s likely that we’ll see a lot more developments like this over the next year, using tablet computers and netbooks as well as phones.
Although security concerns (discussed in our boxed interview with IGT’s Richard Yim) are more of an issue in the casino business than in many sectors, progress in this direction is made almost inevitable by the broad IT trends toward ubiquitous wireless and device-agnostic access to data and applications – meaning that you can get at your management tools from almost any intelligent device, anywhere.
The possibilities are boundless. As well as enabling floor staff to add a human touch to the process of rewarding players in a loyalty scheme, for example, mobile information will also allow them to identify customers who aren’t signed up but whose gaming activity suggests they should be.
Other potential applications beyond gaming itself include security and facilities management, for example by creating a “cleaning priorities” list in real time while walking around the floor.
