Admit it or not, casinos are booming to become a much bigger playground for businesses. With most operating within a hotel-like framework, there are more ways to engage their customers than ever before. From an operational standpoint, this means that casino-owners need to deploy different systems in different places across the floor of the casino to ensure seamless functioning. But more importantly, from a business and strategic viewpoint, it means that casinos are capturing consumer data into data warehouses, at different points inside the casino – the same data that is crucial for a host of purposes.

Functioning independently and equipped with new-age technology, these systems are amassing large amounts of information pertaining to consumer tastes and preferences. This information, when used effectively can enhance the casino’s performance. But, the problem is that, currently, the norm is that this is being done in silos. Which leaves us with the question: what if we consolidated all of it?

CONSOLIDATING THE MANY SYSTEMS INSIDE A CASINO.

Most casinos have a casino management system. This is more like a pivot – everything that happens on the floor of the casino gets routed through this system. This system is a set of tools and solutions, which help in controlling the operations of the casino – right from reception & desk management to the final assessments. Apart from that, it also offers a host of functions such as slot management, cash desk operations, ticketing, players and visitors tracking, self-service cash desk and slot machines credit management to name a few.

Then we have the Customer Relationship Management system – also known as the CRM. It is through this system that casinos interact with their customers. This system plays an important role in maintaining a wealth of information such as understanding customer preferences, tracking their expenditures and so on. With this information in place, the CRM allows casinos to achieve targeted marketing promotions or provide offers and services that generate value for each customer results and in turn increase profits.

Then comes the ERP. A system dedicated to taking care of the financial aspects of the casino. It amasses information about how much money’s coming from where, at what time, from whom and so on. Similarly, it lets casino-owners track their expenses, financial burdens and losses and more. Similarly, we have the POS and the LMS systems that cater to point of sales and lodging respectively.

These systems are amassing information into independent data warehouses. But there’s only little that can be achieved when these data warehouses remain that way. The real magic happens when they all come together.

Broadly speaking, in any hotel, restaurant, lodging services, spas and more make up for half of its revenue. Whereas the other half is generated from just the casino itself. This means that there is definitely more scope to leverage the effectiveness of the casinos to ensure other segments of the hotel make significant revenues.

That’s where a consolidated system comes in handy. The next iteration in casino management, since one decision made by a consumer inside a casino influences his or her next decision, this kind of a consolidated management system the plugs-in all the data points and enables us to identify better insights and behavior so we can target the customer more effectively and contextually at every point within that casino. Such a system can either function on the cloud or casinos may choose to set up their own infrastructure. While both have their own set of pros and cons, the greater objective of making the casino more profitable can be achieved through either of the approaches.

THE BENEFITS OF CONSOLIDATING PATRON’S DATA

The major benefit of a consolidated management system is that it lets casinos understand user behavior. For example, by analyzing slot machine data with the table data, casinos can know after how many rounds of that game does a consumer order a drink or a dish and accordingly trigger promotional ads.

A consolidated management system makes for a more efficient casino. With all the data in one place, casinos can know which parts of the casino are likely to be more flooded with customers at any given point of the day and manage their resources accordingly.

In terms of revenue too, this kind of approach works wonders. With targeted advertising and promotional offers based on the performance and winning/losing trends of customers, casinos can trigger personalized advertisements, messages, discounts on services and products within the casino, which are more likely to get converted.

This management system not only broadens the horizon from an operational point of view but also opens up new avenues of revenue for casinos. Casino-owners can then thoroughly study these opportunities to make the most of them.

THE ROAD AHEAD

With these new techniques and models in place, casino players are beginning to see casinos as one connected ecosystem rather than one operational unit. With advanced data generation methods, it’s becoming more and more evident that this is the way forward for casinos. And it’s not long before it begins to change the gaming landscape altogether.