What role does advanced analytics play in the casino industry?

Gambling is one of the oldest pastimes in human history, with first accounts of the activity dating back to 500 BC. It is also very popular—statistics show that at least 26% of the world’s population is involved in some form of gambling each year.

The casino industry, which includes all gambling activities, is also one of the fastest-growing industries. Even the pandemic didn’t slow down the growth—the casino industry grew at a faster rate during the last 18 months. In fact, according to Statista, the gambling market reached an all-time high of $227 billion in 2020.

The success and the spectacular growth of the industry are both because casinos always look for new and innovative ways to attract more customers, and keep the existing players hooked to the casino floor.

The industry was quick to identify the potential of internet-based casinos and splurged billions of dollars into creating and marketing digital casinos to hook a new wave of players on board. Now with a wealth of data available from on-site and digital casinos, the house can further optimise its games, security, and marketing campaigns with the power of advanced analytics.

In this post, let’s look at how the casino industry is using advanced analytics to revolutionise how they operate.

Better anti-cheat systems

Casino fanatics say that the house always wins, but this hasn’t stopped passionate and desperate players from using all means possible to win against the house, and some of these methods—like hand mucking, past posting, and card counting—aren’t legal.

Cheating methods like these have always been a bugbear of the industry; casinos invest millions of dollars into identifying and preventing cheating in their games, but these efforts have not been fail-proof.

With advanced analytics, however, casinos can analyse thousands of players playing online and on-site, and spot anomalies in their playing patterns, winnings, and general behaviour. This can help them implement more robust anti-cheat mechanisms in their games. 

Casinos can also educate their on-site floor attendants on using insights produced by analytics algorithms to detect cheating methods.

Optimising their games

To keep raking in dollars, casinos need to attract new players to their games, and the best way to do that is by optimising the odds in favour of the gamblers. While optimising their games, however, casinos should be careful not to stack the odds too much in favour of the gamblers. Otherwise, they will lose money on every game.

While game optimisation can be done by studying player behaviour and adjusting game mechanics, it takes a considerable amount of time and human resources to do that. 

That’s where analytics software can help.

Advanced analytics tools can collect and analyse vast amounts of data in a fraction of the time and produce actionable insights that help playmakers balance the odds to lure more players without sacrificing profit.

Streamline marketing campaigns

Marketing, for any business, is one of the most critical tools towards success, and the casino industry is no exception. An insightful and attractive marketing campaign reaches its intended audience and gives them information about the latest incentives or the newest games available to them.

Data analytics can help casinos identify their target audience for their online or on-site games and help create effective marketing campaigns by identifying customer preferences and needs, which marketers can then use to tailor the marketing message.

Moreover, online casinos can use data analytics to gather information about user experience, interface intuitiveness, and click-through rates and redesign their website and UI elements to make them more appealing to their target audience.

Advanced analytics is the game changer casinos were looking for

Gambling is a game of numbers. Both casinos and gamblers stand to lose everything or win a fortune simply by considering their odds carefully. 

With the face of the casino industry changing by the day, casinos need to look for more innovative ways to turn the odds in their favour, streamline their operations, attract more players, and stay profitable.

Data analytics can help them do that!