The Power of Data

Casino management systems have come a long way since the first player tracking functions appeared in the 1980s. Back then, a player’s coin-in was recorded. Period. A week or more later, the player loyalty system would crank out a coin coupon, a room offer, a restaurant voucher or some other reward and mail it to the player.

Those old systems offered no guarantee the player wouldn’t simply go to a casino cage, cash out the coin reward and bolt out of the building to redeem another coupon at another casino. (There was a club-like group of advantage players who regularly did “coupon runs.”) Even offers of free rooms and food provided no guarantee of loyalty at the games.

These days, it’s all about real-time rewards, designed to keep players happy and keep them playing. Where older systems didn’t even evaluate play data until the player was long gone, advancements in data collection and the application of artificial intelligence have made it possible to market to players while they are still sitting in front of a machine or at a table.

“Real-time data is vital in the gaming industry,” says Jacob Lanning, senior director, commercial strategy, casino systems for IGT. “I’ve spent most of my career as an operator, and getting access to real-time data has always been a top priority. When I speak with operators, real-time data is a game changer in the way they interact with their players.

“Most marketing programs are structured around trying to get the player to come back in after the trip is over. What operators really need are tools to help build a strong relationship with your player while they are still on property. And the only way that you can do that is if you have real-time data.”

“If we could travel back in time from 2025 to 2020, 2015 or even 2010, not much has changed from a loyalty experience standpoint inside the casino,” comments Noah Acres, whose company Acres Manufacturing employs real-time data collection and artificial intelligence in the Foundation casino management system. “We really need to push the envelope as an industry to maintain relevance in the future, and Foundation’s real-time data engine could be a bedrock element to better player loyalty.”

Mining the Data

As the major system suppliers continue to grow their individual footprints, they have continually improved their systems with new technology designed to mine player data and use that information to improve service to customers—and to breed loyalty. That includes data across not only casino games, but other purchase points within a given casino resort.

Konami’s Synkros casino management system, which currently powers more than 145,500 connections worldwide across 166 single and multi-site casino properties, 60 cruise line ships and 538 route locations, has evolved to gather data from all player touchpoints, regardless of the venue size or type.

“The most essential aspect of Synkros is accurate and comprehensive data capture—across all touchpoints,” says Tom Soukup, senior vice president and chief systems product officer for Konami Gaming, Inc.

“This ensures players consistently see the latest loyalty promotions, their tier points, offers and digital funds wherever they use their account. For multi-site operators, players use their one-card, global points loyalty card across all properties. Moreover, Synkros is known for its 99.99 percent uptime and ease of upgrades.”

Konami’s Synkros system offers comprehensive data capture, and a robust, easy-to-use system integration layer to third-party systems. “This enables casinos to choose best-of-breed third-party systems to exchange player and point information and extend the loyalty program to include point-of-sale activity at restaurants, bars and retail outlets, hotel spend, digital patron activity on casino-operated iGaming sites and sports betting platforms, among other touchpoints,” Soukup says.

Synkros captures electronic game machine transactions by denomination, patron and game, and table game activity spanning areas like patron ratings, markers and average bet calculation weighted by time.

“These capabilities enable operators to create and implement a truly cohesive, company-wide strategy for player loyalty and reinvestment,” says Soukup. “Because of the robust data capture of Synkros and integration with other third-party systems, our casino customers can view and respond to player activity in real time. Synkros reports on patron bet activity as it happens, down to the multi-game level. Player development/host personnel can utilize the data to make real-time comping and other decisions and communicate directly to the player.”

Capture of machine-level data for real-time marketing actions is the hallmark of Acres’ Foundation system, currently installed at around 50 casinos and performing a variety of tasks from cashless play to analytics, bonusing and more. “Late last year we launched our Foundation HQ casino management system,” says Acres, “and there are currently six casinos connected, with more being scheduled.”

Foundation processes spin-level data to enable deeply accurate segmentation. “Picture a 1,000-machine slot floor producing tens of thousands of transactions per minute,” Acres says. “Foundation perfectly compiles all of this information and allows any application or consumer authorized by the casino to make use of the data.”

That means pinpoint accuracy when gauging a customer’s worth to the casino, he adds. “With so much data being processed, it becomes apparent which players offer high value or high potential value to the casino. Smart operators want to transition to a ‘tier of one’ model where instead of blanketing offers across tiers, each player is issued a personalized offer that’s based on their predicted value. Accurately predicting player value is not possible using outdated metrics like ADT (average daily theoretical).”

Acres has served as a third-party partner with major system suppliers over the years, including Konami.

The IGT Advantage casino management system, with more than 200 installations in North America and more than 265 globally, has continued to evolve over the years, including a healthy share of new openings and casino expansions.

 Last year at G2E, IGT unveiled the next generation of the Advantage system, called Advantage X.

“With Advantage X, we entirely re-architected our floor network in a way that allows us now to increase the amount of data we collect as compared to the legacy versions of our system,” Lanning says.

“For example, we have the ability to collect spin-level data, both player wagers and the resulting outcome, and combine it with contextual information about what was going on with the player at that time. Historically, we were only able to track what the player did during a session, which meant we only knew what was had happened during the play session after the player left. With Advantage X, we’ve unlocked the capability to know what is happening during the session, and we’re in the process of delivering Advantage X to the market right now.”

Improving the Capabilities

IGT Advantage X—set to go live before G2E—is one example of how casino management systems continue to evolve. “At G2E, we are bringing forward a new set of products and capabilities to use all that data,” says Lanning. “We’re introducing TrueAim, our AI platform.

“TrueAim will place data from the floor into a data lake connected in AWS (Amazon Web Services) and will allow us to build models that will then connect back into our system to affect the way that the casino interacts with the players while they’re on the casino floor.”

One example IGT will demonstrate at G2E is Random Riches, a bonusing system that has been available for a number of years and employs point thresholds that award instant bonuses. “What we’ve done with TrueAim is taken all that data streaming off the casino floor to understand player behavior, and form the right offer structures that a given player might be interested in,” Lanning explains.

He says TrueAim allows the operator to ascertain expected lifetime value of players through the spin-level data, and make recommendations on the tier and bonus thresholds to optimize that value in bonusing modules like Random Riches.

It also allows real-time recommendations based on play history. “One of the big components of the AI engine is the churn prediction model,” Lanning says. “That essentially uses that streaming data to predict when this player is going to get up and leave based on their own thresholds.

 “There are different indicators in the data about their play styles, the games they’re playing, all fed into this churn model. On an individual player-by-player basis, we can leverage that prediction in the way that we deliver bonusing, how we deliver messages—we’re also exposing that data on a dashboard level so that a host could see and could be able to do something about it.”

Konami is employing similar capabilities in its True-Time Communications messaging feature within Synkros, notes Soukup.

“Casino teams can use Synkros Advanced Incentives and Offers Management to leverage the system’s strong data capture to deploy a strategic mix of awards and offers to target player demographics,” he says. “This award-winning tool empowers operators to reach, incentivize and reward players uniquely to their demographic and spend—transforming awards from blanket promotions to a life cycle of personalized engagement based on direct data input from patrons while the player is playing at the property.”

Synkros also integrates to many third-party analytical systems to further segment, model and build offers that are easily uploaded and delivered.

“Konami is active in leveraging AI with leading-edge tools such as SYNK Vision, which, with an AI camera, will implement Konami’s patent portfolio of facial recognition technologies to log them into the player loyalty system, versus the player having to remember to insert their player’s card,” Soukup says. “Moreover, SYNK Vision provides enhanced identity management to eliminate the problem of ‘card sharing’ and identifying barred players.”

SYNK Vision is currently undergoing live trials in Asia. The technology tracks players automatically based on their unique facial characteristics rather than requiring them to manually sign up or use a player tracking card. When players with an existing account sit down at a slot machine or table game, SYNK Vision recognizes them and displays their name with a welcome message without any manual input.

“Or, if the player has not registered a loyalty account, his or her biometric identity is assigned a personal anonymous account for ongoing engagement and tracking,” Soukup explains. “This enables casino operators to immediately take action on potential self-barred players, problem gambling and/or money laundering activity, based on a guest’s unique facial characteristics. Further, this technology has the potential to allow casino operators to truly see, analyze, rate and reward all carded and uncarded play activity on their floor for the first time.”

Acres’ newest technology additions include a digital funding component. “We recently introduced a cashless system that allows no-sign-up digital funding within about 10 seconds,” Acres says. “We know definitively that players who fund digitally increase their daily spend by 38 percent simply because they have more access to their own money. We’ve now removed all friction from the process, making it easily deployable at any casino.”

Into the Future

As CMS technology advances, the future likely will see casinos deploy the same convenience in transactions that have become commonplace to consumers.

“Customer technology that is becoming mainstream in people’s day-to-day life will become part of casino management systems and player loyalty,” says Konami’s Soukup.

“For example, people are accustomed to using their credit/debit cards or mobile payments to pay for goods and services in the consumer space. Assuming current cashless friction is removed at the casinos and regulations change, provided it becomes more convenient, easier and less expensive to use cashless versus paying ATM or cash advance fees, we should see cashless adoption rates increase at the casinos.”

He adds that facial recognition is another example of system technology that soon will catch up with the kind of technology airport security uses today. “As people become more comfortable with facial recognition, versus having to remember your player card, players may find it more convenient to just sit down at a slot machine or at a table game and be logged into their player loyalty account,” he says.

It’s a type of technology Acres says will directly impact the bottom line for casinos. “Every time I go to a casino, I’m forced to waste 15-20 minutes enrolling or reprinting my loyalty card and getting cash,” he says. “This severely cuts into my available play time and the casino’s profitability. Casinos are supposed to be fun, and waiting in line is not. The casino industry needs to fix this issue urgently, or risk losing a generation of players.”

“AI is going to significantly transform the casino,” says IGT’s Lanning. “Generative AI has the ability to provide experiences for players you cannot with legacy systems.”

An example may be to have a video pop up on a slot screen to help players make real-time transactions. “Imagine you can actually have someone talk to the guest while they’re on the floor, help them understand some transaction, or set an expectation. With generative AI, there’s a lot of opportunity there for us to change the way that we interact with players.”

With much new system technology, it seems the future is here now.