Sports fans love a challenge – especially when they feel like they’ve got some skin in the game.
This is precisely why so many casino operators have rolled out short-term, online-to-on-floor non-wagering sports promotions over the last few years.
The promos, which can range anywhere from one to 20 weeks long, encourage customers to sign up online and then require them to come to the casino to participate. The approach has been proven to deliver as much as a 20 percent year-over-year increase in all measurable revenue streams. In other words, it’s a huge money-maker for casinos of every shape and size.
Engaged Nation is one of the leading vendors in the field. The company has been building out a lineup of online sports promos for months and plans to share some of its newest promotions and ideas at this week’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
Here’s how the promos generally work. Engaged Nation develops and distributes non-wagering, skill-based daily games, weekly fantasy-style predictions, leaderboard rankings and weekly game pick ’em cards. The top finisher or finishers are then rewarded with significant monetary or non-monetary prizes – prizes that require participants to come into the casino to claim. Once participants are in the casino, operators can drive additional benefits designed to get customers to play games or support the business in other ways.
“We capture the audience online and drive them into the casino,” says Engaged Nation founder and CEO Jerry Epstein. “By getting them excited about a game, operators can get a higher conversion because of their investment in the challenge [the customer has] overcome.”
Promos themselves can be as different as the operators who embrace them. Like the 4- to 6-week digital engagement that capitalizes on the excitement of getting customers to pick which teams will make the NFL playoffs, or the 2-week engagement that leverages interest in the Super Bowl and drives incremental revenue.
There’s also the 4-week pick-‘em-all tournament that revolves around the annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament – a contest that always draws a crowd. Select casinos also have signed up for a season-long NFL promotion that rewards players for the number of weekly winners they pick.
Engaged Nation even offers promos that revolve around original content about how to bet and reward customers for trying out some of their new knowledge.
According to Epstein, the key to these promos is that each is customized; Engaged Nation works with operators to make sure each iteration is unique and individually tailored to the home market.
“We ask a few quick questions, and then do all the rest,” he said.
Data from Engaged Nation indicates this approach works; the programs have showed remarkable consistency from property to property and outstanding online activity, with an average of 46 logins and 121 online interactions per player, indicating millions of total online participation minutes across programs.
In the end, promotions like these are another effective way for operators to connect with their customers and extend and amplify the casino experience.
