Focus on slots with patron data
The slot department can account for up to 85 to 90 percent of the revenue for some properties. Applying data-backed decisions can make a difference of millions of dollars. Using a similar philosophy of understanding the database within marketing in the slot department can give a property an edge on the competition and ensure an optimized slot floor. In this article, we’ll review at a high level two areas of analysis that are key for success. A look at game performance and player loyalty to truly understand candidates for more or less games.
Game Theme Analysis
Game theme analysis is used to understand and optimize game performance. The goal here is to view the key performance metrics of a game next to the player loyalty of a game. By looking at this data together, a casino can get a great understanding of a theme’s loyalty. By changing the filters in the data, it is possible to see the loyalty to a theme.
- Look at high-occupancy games with play above the floor average. With the player data next to the game data you can also see the ADT of the players who are most loyal to the game. Do you have enough of these machines?
- In the same respect, you can look at high-volume games that are performing below the floor average. These games also have a good following, but you may not want them in premium locations on your floor.
- Finally, what machines have the lowest occupancy and are the least productive? You may not need many or any of these on the floor.
Player Preference
Having marketing and slots work together to market the floor is another critical edge that I want to take a moment to discuss. Following are three examples where these two departments can work together to increase revenue by understanding player preferences of your machines.
- Marketing New Games – As new games are purchased and brought onto the floor, complete a market basket analysis to get a clear picture of the incoming games. Use that information to compile a list of hosted or VIP players who enjoy similar themes. Have the hosts call these people or send out a note that states a new machine is coming that they may enjoy and maybe include an offer to try it.
- Revoked Games – Machines get pulled off floors that we have no control over. Identify players who have a preference for these machines and send them a note to let them know that unfortunately, one of their favorite machines is being removed. Create a market basket analysis and use that to include a list of additional themes they may like and where those machines are located. Notifying your players of the change and including suggestions will go a long way to creating increased loyalty. Any hosted or VIP players should be given to the player development manager or host for notification.
- Optimizing with Player Preference – By understanding what machines your players are loyal to, a casino can “see” where their VIP guests are playing and where their retail guests are playing. This can be used to move machines around to make sure that the best machines are where your guests like to play on the floor.
The ability to tie machine data to player data in the data warehouse can make a difference in the ability to best market the largest revenue-generating department in a casino. There are many ways to accomplish this goal if you are not there yet with your data. There are software products that can tie this together. Regardless of how you get there, optimizing your slot data with player preference is one of the key trends that has been out there for a few years. And for good reason, since it ties two critical departments together that can work to get the guests to their favorite machines. None of us want a guest wandering the floor for over 30 minutes looking for their machine; that is time on device lost and missed revenue.
