There are many companies and people from which you don’t want emails. Marketers of pyramid schemes, violent extremism, and illicit drugs are regularly banned by email service providers.
But casinos?
CDC Gaming contributor Buddy Frank didn’t believe it was true when iPost CEO Cameron Kane told him that multiple ESPs are now excluding casinos from their platforms.
Frank started contacting providers on his own. Most of them failed to return his messages. The few that did simply stated they weren’t providing services to casinos.
“Twenty years ago, losing your email would be no big deal,” Frank said this week during the webinar Navigating the Uncharted Waters of EMS Providers in the Casino Industry. “But now it’s as relevant as newspaper, radio, or TV advertising used to be. You’re essentially going silent to your customers if you’ve lost your email or SMS ability to communicate, and that can cause a lot of damage.”
Companies including Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Salesforce, and Marigold now prohibit transmitting or linking to gambling content. QCI Chief Technology Officer Andrew Cardno noted that these are not just EMS providers, but also companies with “very deep software and cloud capabilities.”
“I don’t know why these email providers did this,” Cardno said. “I don’t know what’s triggering it. But we’ve seen it with customers in six or seven countries. We’ve seen it around the world. It’s not just the United States.”
Kane said iPost has been getting calls about once week from properties who have “kicked off” their ESPs. According to Kane, it’s happening mostly to smaller properties, with 75-80% of those Tribal entities.
Nor is it just a single ESP ditching companies associated with gambling, but “a range of providers,” Kane said. And when ESPs cut off gaming operators, it can damage a company’s ecosystem and cause multiple issues.
“You can get a three-day notice, or it can be immediate and you have to start a screen and find another provider,” Kane said. “Unfortunately, when you send out email you build reputation, you build reputation with your IPs. You have the program there, you have all of your assets. You have your welcome series and it’s turned off immediately and you’re left to find another provider to set up a program. Go through IP warming again, establish a reputation and get your folks trained.
“It’s definitely a disruptive in business, and if it happened to a large property, it would be massively disruptive.”
The first way to combat the issue is to realize that it exists. Raving CEO Deana Scott, who primarily serves Tribal operators, notes that EMS providers who change terms of service are no different than other technology providers.
“Every time you provide a new iPhone you get a new update on services or terms,” Scott said. “You have to decide, as a consumer, do I want it bad enough to take the risks?
“And so, when we’re talking about this type of program which is really critical to all of the marketing we do, I think being aware of it and understanding not to get yourself tied up into it if you don’t need to, or collectively going out to these companies and saying you need to change your policies.”
If the prohibitions on gambling are followed exactly as stated in acceptable use policies, the ramifications may be enormous. Frank pointed out that that the largest gaming operators have partnerships with the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball.
“So, you’ve got to ban all those,” Frank said. “And darn near every state in the nation is running lotteries. Not to mention, should we go after the churches and their bingo halls? This is just a crazy discriminatory policy, and I can’t understand why.”
“It’s just hypocrisy,” Frank added. “And I’m just curious. I hope someone from Caesars’ marketing calls them and says you really want us to be banned from your services.”
Quick Custom Intelligence and iPost have developed a strategic initiative that alerts casino and gaming operators about potential disruptions to their current email and SMS platforms due to recent updates in EMS Acceptable Use Policies. Read more about it here.
