Achieving a complementary relationship between retail and digital operations has been a conundrum pondered by many as the latter swelled to become such a force within the gambling landscape.
Consistent chatter of declining footfall as a direct result of increasing options being at the fingertips of players is hard to ignore. However, one company believes that they have cracked the case pondered by many.
Speaking on the showfloor of the recent SBC Summit Americas, Awager General Manager for North America Warren Steven revealed all in a two-part special.
In the first of these, overriding thoughts on the overarching topic are offered, while an explanation is offered on just what is needed to ensure parity across channels and how the company can help achieve these ambitions.
SBC Americas: The discussion of whether land-based and online casino can coexist in harmony has been swirling for a number of years. To begin, what are your thoughts regarding this?
Warren Steven: My background is from the operator side of the business, having for many years worked across land-based and online where the divisions were separate.
In other words, the P&L and all that was separated, and people were not necessarily incentivized to push each other’s agendas.
There would be the simple things such as cross marketing, cross-sell, synergies between the products, what’s on the floor and what’s online.
However, in many ways the U.S., even many years on from regulation in New Jersey, is still struggling to find the omnichannel synergies between the two.
I think there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done. Where they have started to collaborate is more on the loyalty side of things. The loyalty programs for online play and land-based play are driving to a central player database and getting rewarded on those sides.
I’d probably say that’s the most progressed in terms of how the land based and online are working together for the players and offering perspective.
There’s still opportunity that exists there to develop an omnichannel strategy that appeals to both. And then you look at the value of the player based on all their gameplay, not just land-based.
SBCA: Omnichannel has also proven to be a divisive concept in certain circles. What are the critical components in ensuring that players can enjoy a seamless experience across all channels?
WS: Ensuring that experiences are unified is not easy. The reason for that is because the content is supplied by third parties, and they don’t always align on how their land-based content synergises. All you’re doing is leasing that.
I’m not so sure that it’s much of an operator problem. It’s more of a supply problem. All the games that you find on the casino store don’t always get ported over into the online space.
I think there’s a lot to learn about the games that are working online, or not necessarily, also getting imported over to the land-based space at the same time.
The reason is that those divisions within those businesses aren’t talking to each other. Again, I think there’s another opportunity that exists for a much closer synergy to omnichannel.
How do you bring a land-based experience online? The experience has to come from a very tactile, more hands-on product experience. I can speak to that based on what our product brings to the market, but that is definitely the challenge that exists.
Then the operators, once they have it, have to decide how they market it, how they position it, what demographic of customer, what tier of customer etc, and online operators are used to pretty much a shotgun approach – you put it live and people come. Whereas with omnichannel, you’ve got to really target and appeal and find those players.
If you were a pure casino brand with a sportsbook bolted on, you would understand that you’ve got to go find casino players.
With sportsbooks you can just go and acquire a bunch of sports players and cross sell them in. That’s a very optimal way of acquiring, but it doesn’t always work with omnichannel.
SBCA: How and why do you believe the Awager product offer can help to unify the land-based and online gaming landscapes?
WS I want to clarify how we see it from a business perspective, and also me coming from 25 years of operating. People would say, “hey, there’s a gap.”
You have live dealer and digital table games, so live dealer fill the gap. You could say the same way with digital slots, and a live slot product would fill a gap.
But I actually think it’s more than that. It’s an innovation that is utilizing streaming technology, or what we call remote control, where players who are apprehensive about playing a digital slot machine and what it represents can come in and actually play a physical device.
We basically remote control a device, and whether they’re sitting at the machine or sitting at home playing on that same machine on the property, it’s the same trust factors.
There are many customers that haven’t converted to the online space. These are very valuable players who are dedicated to the online slot space and that haven’t converted.
This is where true omnichannel really presents itself. We now allow you to go and stand on the floor, pick a machine and play it on my mobile device where it can be viewed in real time. That level of interaction means users foster a one-to-one relationship with that device, rather than just being part of the general population of thousands of players playing at the time.
If you ask those slot players how they feel? What’s the aura? Why did they choose that machine? They really feel like there’s a connection, and if it’s hot or cold, they move on to the next one.
We are a complimentary product to the digital slot world, and we offer true omnichannel where I actually have a one-to-one connection with a physical machine that I would have at a land-based space.
This allows operators to really connect and understand how a physical machine with all its bells and whistles is preferred. The production values on physical machines are so much higher than digital.
We can bring that online fairly easily using streaming technology in real time. We are complimentary and we will drive new players, but we will also appeal to existing players who look into something fresh and innovative at the center.
