Luisa Woods often hears from land-based gaming operators reluctant to invest in digital gaming.
But her experiences in assisting New Jersey launch icasino gaming in 2013 might make those hesitant operators change their minds. Woods, Delaware North’s Vice President, Marketing – Gaming and Entertainment, says that 25% of the people who signed up for igaming were lapsed customers who, due to lifestyle changes, stopped gambling.
“They had kids. They had older parents they were looking after,” Woods said Tuesday during the session “Operations: Managing A Low-Margin Vertical” at the National Indian Gaming Association Tradeshow and Convention at the Anaheim Convention Center in California.
“They had medical issues. They moved to a different part of the state. They got promoted and were too busy. All kinds of things break down our relationship with land-based customers and I’ve seen no better tool than expansion into digital gaming to allow you to reconnect and extend your relationship with those customers.”
Woods is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced voices in the igaming industry. In 1998, she served as CEO for Internet Presence Inc., a Canadian company specializing in online gaming and software sectors. Woods has also worked for gaming companies in Argentina, Malaysia, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City, mostly focusing on digital marketing and gaming.
If looked at solely on economic terms, igaming might seem to be an problematic investment.
Woods noted that online gaming has a hold percentage of 3%, compared to hold percentages between 6% and 12% at land-based casinos. And most online customers she’s surveyed think they can win more at brick-and-mortar casinos than they can at icasinos.
“The difference is that when you’re sitting in a casino, you’re absorbing the ambient win, surrounded by people who are hitting jackpots,” Woods said. “It’s just you when you’re sitting there with your mobile phone. You’re betting faster. You’re betting typically smaller increments and the sense of winning, because it’s not amplified by your environment, is very different.”
Other factors make investing in igaming tricky. While overhead is less than that of brick-and-mortar casinos, which must account for everything from infrastructure costs to staffing, the cost for a customer to switch igaming apps is practically nil.
“I don’t even have to get off my couch to go to a competitor,” Woods said, adding that for prospective igaming customers, “there are a million reasons,” from reluctance to reveal personal information to errors created through “thumb typing,” for abandoning the registration process.
That registration process will get easier, Woods thinks, because “smart, talented, and dedicated people” are working on it.
A gaming operator recently told Woods that he preferred to keep his customers on the gaming floor. `Why on earth would I promote digital gaming to my land-based customers?’ he asked her.
Simply, it’s the cost of retaining loyal customers who will gravitate to another operator if their gaming needs are not met.
“(Operators) are spending millions, hundreds of millions, of dollars to acquire those customers and build relationships with customers who you have a relationship with today,” Woods said. “And the thing you need to remember is that the opportunity for a land-based operator is to create a cohesive relationship with your brand, with your business, and your customers. They come in your door or they download your branded app. They don’t see those as separate businesses.
“On the back end, your retail gaming and your digital gaming may be operated by completely different people. They may be operating on completely different systems. You customer doesn’t care.
“When they walk in and have a question about your digital gaming operation, they want you to know the answer. They want you to act like you own it.”
