Scientific Games’ Player Boutique puts a player-reward gift catalogue right at the slot machine.
As long as there have been slot clubs, there have been slot club giveaways.
You know the drill. A direct mail piece goes out saying that based on your play, you qualify for a robot vacuum, or a barbecue set or a George Forman Grill, or any variety of other valuable gifts. Just show up at the slot club booth at 1p.m. this Wednesday to pick up your gift. Club members who have played enough to earn rewards all get there at once to form a snaking line to pick up their rewards—as supplies last, of course.
Meanwhile, casinos spend millions putting on all the giveaways, including purchasing the gifts and warehousing them on or near the property.
“Every year, our customers spend $800 million in gifting services,” said Rob Bone, Senior Vice President, Global Systems and Tables for Scientific Games, who notes that the cost of doing things in the traditional way goes up simply because good players are waiting in line, instead of playing. Not to mention what to do with the gift after you get it—“assuming you stay,” Bone said. “More than half the people get their item and leave.”
Bone says he and his system team members got together to explore ways to make that process more efficient. To start with, he says, the gifts should be items the players want. “How do I ensure that the player’s getting what they want?” he said. “How does someone determine if you get offered a Yeti or a Christmas ornament or a candle? In this day and age of online shopping, why should I not be able to get what I want?”
In a meeting that had been called to ponder improvements to Scientific Games’ Elite Bonus Suite of interactive player promotions, the group came up with the idea of placing the gifting process right at the slot machine, using the iVIEW 4 display that serves up bonus games using the SG casino management system.
Called Player Boutique, it is available as part of the Elite Bonusing Suite and Web Content Manager that are part of Scientific Games casino management systems. It places the gifting process directly in front of the player. Players carding into the system are shown options in the way of gifts, including their progress toward point thresholds required to qualify for different tiers of gifts.
It is up to the operator to choose the gifts, including the value and the number of items. “You can offer one item, or you can offer 20 items,” Bone said.
The system is integrated with Amazon and Best Buy. Using the iVIEW 4 display or on the Display Manager messaging system that uses the video slot monitor itself, the player selects a qualifying gift, and it is delivered to the player’s home within two days.
“When I put in my card, the particular promotion comes up side by side with the game itself,” Bone explained. “I can scroll through, I can select the gift, enter my information, and two days later it’s shipped to my front door. Completely integrated, no waiting in line, no inventory, way more selection.”
The company created a Player Boutique Lite solution that allows properties with any casino management system to use the gifting module.
“Player Boutique Lite is a web-based solution that has no dependency on our system, so we can offer it to both customer segments,” Bone said. “Without question, the integrated solution on our system is drastically enhanced from a player standpoint, but we have Player Boutique Lite executions out there where we are not a system incumbent.”
Demand for Player Boutique was immediate, Bone said. “We launched this in 2019 at del Lago Casino in New York, and we now have 48 customers that are live (with two more signed), and over 1,000 campaigns that we’ve run. We’ve shipped over 200,000 items.” He says there’s a “huge backlog” of customers planning to add the system.
Bone says because operators have up to two million different SKUs—different individual products—they can select through Amazon or Best Buy, “the variety is amazing. And I’m witnessing how quickly the players see the value in Player Boutique, and how used to the process they get.”
Bone is ready with a laundry list of benefits in the Player Boutique gifting system:
“No inventory. You’re no longer buying items that you have to inventory.
“No lines—players aren’t standing in line when they could be gambling.
“Double-digit reduction in walk rate—people who come in and get their item and leave. A large amount of people continue playing because it’s integrated into the experience.
“Double-digit increase in coin-in, because again, they’re playing and not waiting in a line.
“And most importantly players get what they want—the personalization. They’re getting the item that’s most relevant to them, which increases player satisfaction.”
The Player Boutique system allows the operator to set different tiers of product values, based on the play of the customer. “You can offer lower-level products that are super easy to obtain, or you can offer higher-level products that are going to take multiple trips to earn, and it’s all persistent,” said Bone.
“If I’m trying to win an iPhone 13, I know I’m most likely not going to win it in one visit. So, I go home, and continue to earn on the next visit. And then on my third or fourth visit, after I’ve earned that threshold, it immediately shows me I can select and redeem the gift.”
In addition to showing players what they’ve earned through their play, the system is capable of a ‘Play, X, Get Y’ mode. “You can put items up there that the player has to earn by playing to a certain threshold,” Bone said. “So, when I go to the game and my Player Boutique window comes up based on the item that I selected, I have a progress bar—I can see how far away I am from being able to earn and redeem any particular items that we’ve made available.
“It is a gifting solution, but not just for what they’re prepared to give to their players already; it’s a gifting solution for what the player wants to earn and win. So, it really is a much more expansive solution.”
Evolving system
One key goal is to generate player awareness of the gift programs. According to Bone, once players are initially aware of the process, it spreads on its own. “Whether it be direct mail, through their hosts, through their player development personnel, what we’ve seen is how fast it’s spread on the floor with players,” Bone said.
“When a player knows that an incentive is unique and valuable to them, they figure out how to access it. We make it a point to either work through the player development people or the on-floor staff or the slot personnel, so that people are always checking what they have available to them. But after they experience it once, they come back time and time again.”
Bone says the system is set to evolve over the coming year as new offerings are launched with key customers. He predicts the capability will soon move to channels beyond the physical casino.
As far as the player’s club giveaways, Bone says, this way of gifting is going to eventually displace the old way of doing things.
“I just don’t think people will ever go back to the old way of doing gifting services,” he said. “This way is too efficient, and it’s too productive.”
Bone says he sees the system evolving in response to the way various casinos apply the technology. He says casinos can use the system as a way players can redeem points that otherwise would expire.
Meanwhile, the footprint continues to expand, including to all the Seminole Gaming properties, beginning with Florida.
“Player Boutique will revolutionize how Seminole Gaming executes strategic gift promotions to our players,” said Joe Schatz, Chief Marketing Officer of Seminole Gaming. “This new method will allow our executive teams to spend more time on strategy, it will afford our front-line teams more time to connect with our players (instead of directing our players to lines), and it will give our Wild Card members a fun, easy, and fast way to earn and receive their gifts.”
“In my time in gaming, I have never seen a product that moves the needle more than Player Boutique,” says Bone. “This is lightning in a bottle.”
