How will the industry respond to 2019’s tectonic compliance shifts?

As we enter 2019, the tectonic plates in the gambling industry are shifting.

Regulation, technology and customer demand continue to undergo structural shifts which will accelerate the need for operators to respond.

On regulation, for example, new laws and standards covering areas from taxation to responsible gambling will necessitate fundamental changes to strategy. Likewise, technology has become the bedrock of any operator’s offer to customers, but quality and reliability varies. Customer demand, especially among younger players, could change company strategy more than any other area.

The industry must respond. These shifts will lead to three trends dominating the betting and gaming industry this year.

The first is real-time player engagement. While not a new concept, it will see a major step forward this year.

Right now, as many as 70% of new customers only play once with any given brand. They never come back. This is a revenue killer for operators and it’s an industry-wide problem.

Historically, we have relied on a combination of reactive and offline communications to engage users. Customers expect a better experience, and operators have more tools at their disposal. Improvements will be on the way with our new Engagement 360 platform.

Real-time responsibility

Take casino for example. Operators know that horse-racing customers are particularly valuable. And Cheltenham is a big event. While traditional marketing may have focused on e-mail communications around the event, real-time player engagement should look at offers to players before and after races using real-time interventions based on real-time activity.

Offers can also include games which fall in their areas of interest. It’s one of the reasons why Playtech has created a game series like Sporting Legends, which includes horse racing-themed slots and timed jackpots to appeal to the recreational player. We have even extended the brand to poker as we see interest in this product from a cross sell perspective too.

Of course, real-time interventions can be used for responsible gambling as well as marketing, and this in conjunction with our Bet Buddy real-time analytics tool, can provide customers with a significant advancement across the whole product portfolio.

The second trend is gamification. At Playtech we have existing and new gamification concepts available across all products, including Sports. Most will be familiar with traditional forms of gamification, like setting missions and creating leader boards, but this barely scratches the surface in our view. We are particularly excited about our Live Trivia product and how that can be used by operators across the portfolio to engage both existing and new audiences

Additionally, we are also looking at how gamification can potentially be used in responsible gambling initiatives. It is hard to motivate customers to act responsibly when it comes to their gambling activities but offering non-monetary incentives to proactively set their own betting limits, or complete questionnaires could be a useful addition to the responsible gambling armoury.

Long-term, the industry doesn’t gain from problem gamblers. Gamification should be considered as part of the wider selection of tools that can help them, including our real-time interventions.

Finally, tying all of this together is the content ecosystem. 2019 will be the year that the way the industry creates, discovers and distributes content will be transformed.

At the moment, content creation is hard. And the barriers to entry that exist can sometimes stifle innovation and creativity. Technology such as Playtech’s GPAS system, which can revolutionise the way that games are developed by operators and suppliers, can help solve this in 2019.

If that opens the floodgates for more content, operators will need to be able to cut-through the mass of games to find the most powerful content for their audience, and then deliver it across channels. Because if content creation is hard, discovery and distribution is harder.

Many challenges exist as we move further into 2019. Navigating this minefield to retain existing customers and attract new ones will be tricky. But, as we approach ICE, we should see some signs that the industry is ready for the fight.

Anthony Evans is VP product strategy at Playtech, leading a team of experts which supports licensees and develops new innovative products and solutions