The importance of innovation | So Good News

Operators – and virtually any business – need to differentiate themselves from competitors and have their own identity. Not only in the offerings they offer, but also in the look and feel of their brand and the level of service they provide to customers.

The gaming industry has always been a very competitive space. Based on the data they collect and track from players, operators can continuously develop their personalized offers if they have the right innovative technology to enable them to do so.

This ensures that the player feels they are receiving an ad or offer that is tailored to their habits, spending amounts, locations and favorite games. This can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool for casino brands.

Navigating road obstacles

Currently, the main obstacles that prevent online casinos from easily changing with the landscape are due to two factors.

The first is access to real-time data. These sites do not act or operate on players in real-time, which means some operators struggle to get real-time data. For example, if you want to do something based on scrolling or real-time player action, it’s impossible or difficult to do. So you need to make sure that you are sending data in real time and that you can allow access to that stream in real time.

Another factor that plays a big role in limiting innovation is the technology stack. Many of the foundational architectures and technologies on which businesses are built were originally integrated decades ago. Over the years, these technologies have been built upon, with systems fixed and patches added for updates rather than complete rewrites. This created technological debt.

The consequences of this can be seen in the long integration time frame, with new products taking months to launch and new markets taking months or even years to be certified.

Ultimately, these blockers will require businesses to make big decisions about their current technology stacks and systems. The answer is that you don’t necessarily need a complete rewrite, but some changes are needed to adapt to modern times.

Focus on marketing

Operators need to consider what works and what doesn’t.

There are a number of marketing strategies that are very popular these days – for example, if you go stateside, it’s all about huge promotional offers with some of the biggest risk-free bets ever.

But you need incredibly deep pockets to play in this market. This is a very aggressive method from a financial point of view, but one used to gain market share quickly.

In other mature markets, we’re seeing more granular customer engagement and smarter targeting by players to truly gain long-term loyalty. Players are divided into unprecedented groups and then targeted specifically by these clues, which is very effective.

A long-term landscape

I think gamification is really the key to long-term buy-in from users. In the gaming space in particular, it’s great to be able to get more value out of the entertainment than just rolling the slot itself. If someone not only works directly to win, but also works to achieve a high loyalty level or unlock the jackpot, it makes for a great buy and stay time.

Another area I’m looking at is betting and betting with the option of streamers and community engagement. We currently see this in slots, but I think it has a great future in sports betting as well.

For example, if you bet on your favorite soccer player live, watching your team play with you and hundreds of other fans, it would be a great experience and add a new dimension to in-game and community or streamer betting.

For me, this remains very important, especially since so many areas of our digital lives now focus on loyalty, from airline loyalty systems to console games. Getting rewarded for our time on the site is what we look forward to now.