Bonusing, Customized

It was not that long ago that marketing to slot players involved tracking each player’s wagers, and granting loyalty rewards customized only according to the level of wagering. Coin coupons, then cashback, comped rooms, dining discounts, free play and other marketing perks were standard, granted to all players that reached the required slot club tier.

A couple of decades after the first player tracking systems and slot clubs appeared in the mid-1980s, a new concept known as bonusing appeared. Instead of freebies and perks issued monthly according to players’ tier levels, player rewards would be issued in real time, while the player was still in front of the machine.

At first, nothing was personalized—a player reaching a predetermined level of coin-in (a term for wagering levels on a slot machine that has long outlived the era of coin-operated slots) randomly was given a mystery reward, or one of many customized mini-games played out on the tiny video slot-club window.

These days, those “gamified” rewards are more likely to take over the regular slot monitor. While free play—the modern descendant of those old coin coupons—still dominates player loyalty rewards, the suppliers of casino management systems now have an arsenal of customized rewards, often chosen with help from artificial intelligence that tells marketers what each player prefers to do on visits to a casino resort.

Jacob Lanning, head of commercial strategy and operations, systems for IGT, says bonusing offered within the company’s IGT Advantage CMS emphasizes personalization in its bonusing engine. “Mystery bonusing has been something that you’ve seen in the marketplace in a number of different fashions for quite some time,” Lanning says.

“The primary way that you’ve seen these systems change is in two flavors. One is a change from mystery bonuses that go to all players across the ecosystem, regardless of who they are. The bonuses are now a lot more personalized.

“The other way bonusing has changed is in the delivery mechanism—what the player sees. In older bonuses, you had vacuum fluorescent display, or even 10 years ago, you might have had a few of the liquid-crystal cellphone-size displays. A lot of players would have been playing their game and didn’t know why the machine got locked for a bonus. But with the introduction of our Universal Game Adapter, we were able to take over portions or even all of the screen and interrupt game play, to announce the bonus, and have them play a separate bonus delivery game and ultimately do a lot better job of communicating to the player what they’re playing for, what they could win.”

Tom Soukup, senior vice president & chief systems product officer for Konami Gaming, Inc., says a similar evolution has taken place within Konami’s Synkros player-reward ecosystem.

“One of the biggest shifts we’ve seen from our casino customers is that they are moving away from displaying promotional information on third-party marketing kiosks and instead deciding to take advantage of all the promotional features that Synkros displays directly on the slot machine player tracking brackets themselves,” Soukup comments.

“These capabilities prevent the need for patrons to have to get up off their favorite machines and over to a kiosk somewhere else on the casino floor to view or redeem their promotions. This causes more patron time-on-device and a better overall patron experience.”

“Over the past decade, bonusing has shifted from simple, rules-based rewards to highly interactive, personalized and data-driven engagement mechanics,” says Lauren Cordiero, vice president, systems products and commercial strategy for Light & Wonder.

“Historically, operators relied on static mystery prizes or manual promotions that treated all players the same. Today, modern systems leverage real-time data streams, segmentation, and AI-driven insights to deliver targeted offers, dynamic achievements, personalized challenges, and floor-wide interactive events.”

Cordiero adds that another major change in bonusing has been an evolution from “off-device” to “on-device” bonusing. “Ten years ago, most bonusing lived on signage or kiosks; now, players expect real-time overlays, animations, progress trackers, and active participation directly on the slot screen. This evolution has pushed CMS bonusing toward deeper integration with game platforms, richer visual layers, and more sophisticated loyalty logic.

“In short, bonusing has become an entertainment engine, not just a reward mechanism.”

Leveraging the Data

The major suppliers of casino management systems do still offer the mystery bonuses triggered by coin-in levels, but nowadays, the systems not only tap into data generated through game play, but use artificial intelligence to tailor bonuses according to a player’s historical data.

For instance, the IGT Advantage CMS offers more traditional bonusing module like Lucky Coin, a mystery bonus that can hit any time based on coin-in; and Carded Lucky Draw, which generates an award to a random carded player on the floor. But IGT also offers Random Riches, which tailors awards to players’ expected levels of play, as determined by AI through access to historical play data. At G2E, IGT introduced TrueAim, its adaptable AI solution that pairs with Random Riches and other well-known products within IGT’s portfolio.

“Our first (module) where we’re utilizing AI is Random Riches powered by TrueAim,” explains Lanning. “With many bonuses, the only way that operators could historically configure them was by segmenting players into groups. So, while it was a personalized one-to-one bonus, they were lumped in with a bunch of other players, so you couldn’t really get to that hyper-personalization.

 “A player who comes to the casino once a week versus once a month has a very different expectation about the level that they’re going to play on that trip. So even though they might be an equivalent player from a value perspective to the casino, they may not want the same type of bonus experience. So one of the things that we’re doing with our adaptable AI tool TrueAim is allowing for that hyper-personalization, because it understands the player, it understands their behavior.”

Random Riches includes a countdown feature that indicates how close a player is to reaching a bonus.

Another module in IGT’s bonusing system is Intelligent Offer, which uses a rules-based promotions engine to create a player experience that is uniquely identifiable to the operator’s property. “Offers are triggered based on specific criteria, ensuring they are directed to exactly the right players,” Lanning says.

This use of data can dictate the prize pools available for a given bonus game, he adds. “A big portion of Random Riches, and even Intelligent Offer, is ultimately deciding what the prize pools are, what the values of those items are, so that we understand how to properly reinvest in the players.”

Light & Wonder’s SDS-CMP casino management platform has a pedigree stretching back to the 1980s, but today’s version is “a fully integrated ecosystem that unifies traditional promotions, real-time communication, and immersive on-device engagement in ways that distinguish it from other system technologies,” says Cordiero.

“At the core, our CMS leverages live player data and advanced segmentation to power dynamic, configurable promotions that translate player behavior directly into meaningful, targeted rewards.”

Light & Wonder’s Elite Bonusing Suite leverages data to “recognize” players at the machine, Cordiero says.

“What truly sets our system apart is the addition of EBX (Elite Bonusing Xperience), a gamified engagement layer that brings social gaming mechanics to the slot experience through overlays, animations, and transparencies. We have a bonusing platform that not only executes promotions but elevates them into rich, interactive experiences offering operators unmatched flexibility, real-time responsiveness, and a differentiated way to engage players directly on the gaming device.”

Light & Wonder’s latest bonusing enhancements include EBX-powered level-up progressions that guide players through personalized journeys, as well as challenges, instant rewards, mystery gifts, and scheduled time-released bonuses.

“We deliver real-time, model-driven offers and promotions that recommend optimal rewards and thresholds to enhance both engagement and responsible play,” says Cordiero. “Operators can create anticipation-driven countdown events, deploy instant prizes and mystery drops with rich visuals, and run unified cross-channel promotions.”

Konami’s Synkros system also offers a varied lineup of tools to reward players. “Synkros has an entire suite of system-delivered bonusing tools, including incentives, offers, drawings, hot seats, tournaments, SuperSeries and Synkros Progressive Management,” says Soukup. “Each of these tools is designed to give Synkros properties a competitive edge by driving unique player excitement and engagement. Management of these tools is all completed within Synkros’ single ecosystem.”

Synkros Progressive Management, or SPM, gives casino properties the opportunity to create their own progressive jackpots and mystery bonuses that run on any SAS-enabled gaming machines. Casinos can use SPM to launch custom-configured, linked or mystery progressives and bonuses to targeted player segments and machines of their choice.

“Progressive meters can be displayed in real time via the Synkros player tracking screen, or on any casino in-house TV monitor via Synkros sign kits,” Soukup explains. “The sign kits showcase all available jackpot levels running on the floor as well as displaying ‘must hit by’ amounts.”

Soukup adds that all Synkros bonusing is customizable. “In addition to the ability to customize bonus events to their unique casino brand, casino operators enjoy a wide mix of configuration options to best leverage Synkros bonusing to serve their needs and marketing strategies,” says Soukup. “SuperSeries, True-Time Tournaments and Synkros Progressive Management give operators the ability to deploy bonus events to specific zones, banks, and even individual machines. And the configurability options go deeper, as we dive into each of the individual tools.

“For example, in Konami’s SuperSeries number-pick lotto-style game, operators can specify progressive contribution rate, jackpot amount, consolation prize amounts, game scheduling, award styles, and tier multipliers. This advanced level of customization empowers operators to maximize tools to best serve their players and properties.”

Future of Bonusing

As technology continues to advance, the capabilities of bonusing within CMS ecosystems will evolve along with it. “How do you use AI to help hyper-personalize bonuses to the player?” asks IGT’s Lanning.

“One of the biggest challenges that has been in the industry for a long time is how you to incentivize anonymous play. There are breadcrumbs that a player leaves as they’re moving from machine to machine—how they’re putting money in, how they’re using tickets. You can track some of those things and really get a good understanding that this is a player that’s moving around the casino and doing different things. Maybe I should provide them an incentive or a special bonus if they enroll in the loyalty program.

“Where we are as an industry is the data that we’re capturing on a spin-by-spin basis, the sort of player experiences that are happening on the casino floor, we’re getting a deeper knowledge of player behavior. Historically, we’ve been limited to session-based data about player behavior, like when they insert the card and when they take their card out. Now with our platform Advantage X and TrueAim, we’re literally understanding those individual spins.

“The things we’ll be able to do with AI-augmented bonusing will be really amazing, because we’ll understand players’ behavior at a much deeper level. Whether they have great experiences or bad experiences, we’ll be able to celebrate those types of things with them, or help them recover when a given slot session goes negative.”

“Customer technology that is becoming mainstream in people’s day-to-day lives will become part of casino management systems and player bonusing,” says Konami’s Soukup. “As an example of customer technology, facial recognition is helping to speed up security lines at airports. As people become more comfortable with facial recognition, it could be applied at a gaming device for player tracking, and even bonusing.”

 “The future of bonusing is moving toward a far more personalized, predictive, and immersive ecosystem,” concludes Light & Wonder’s Cordiero, “one that not only rewards play but actively shapes the entire player journey. AI will take on a larger role in curating individualized engagement paths, delivering rewards and challenges that adapt in real time to each player’s behaviors and preferences.

“Enhanced omnichannel convergence will further elevate the experience, enabling players to progress seamlessly across all gaming and non-gaming touchpoints. On-device engagement will become increasingly rich and interactive, incorporating new layers of visual and experiential depth. Persistent achievement systems such as badges, collections and long-term milestones will strengthen emotional connection and loyalty over time. “It is an exciting time for the industry, as we see bonusing evolve beyond traditional mechanics and into a next-generation engagement layer. In the end, bonusing will not just enhance play; it will evolve into a cohesive experience that blends entertainment, loyalty and technology into one seamless journey.”