Gaming in the Post-Covid Era by Petro Magos Gaming, Media and Technology Guru

Gaming in the Post-Covid Era

by Petro Magos - Media, Gaming and Technology Guru

Toward the end of the last decade, a discussion that dominated the gaming landscape, was how far reaching of an impact would online betting have on brick-and mortar institutions? It goes without saying that some even more pressing world events would have an even greater impact in the early part of this decade.

In a digital, post-covid world, operators have multiple challenges. However, it will be to your fortune to find the opportunities presented by those challenges.

Promotions are synonymous with the gaming industry, and have been a tool in the marketing box to leverage additional spend from guests. Many guests would argue, and do, that promotions have in recent history been viewed purely through a short-term ROI lens, with little regard to the longterm sentiment they harvest. The very core of this assertion is guest experience.

Guest experience is what secures their return, and the promotion is what leverages their spend.

The online betting world has a far greater challenge in offering guests experience, and similar guests should be aggressively marketed to through digital marketing. It is far too easy for operators to complain that online operators are at an advantage when many have not increased their digital marketing budgets accordingly to hunt down would-be visitors.

Additionally, it has been widely reported that in the third quarter of 2021, the Las Vegas strip had its biggest quarter since 2006 – remarkably, in a post-covid world. What we can surmise from this is that as lockdown restrictions are eased, guests are exercising their pent-up desire for real world experience. Guests are eager to get out.

There exists tremendous opportunity to market to guests digitally, and take advantage of their lust to get out of their confines.

But when you have them in your four walls, it is up to you to keep them there through experience.

The model of a promotion probably won’t change – create a campaign that taps into a set of hopes and dreams, either through an instant gratification, or a bigger yield for bigger dreams. Create visual and auditory material to support that. A great promotion will have touch points throughout its journey. Its marketing material will encourage frequent guest and staff interaction, perhaps freebies such as simple drinks vouchers are aligned, furthermore a competitive edge might be added through a tickets-for-turnover link. There are more touch points through ticket collection, and draw attendance.

The old model of in-person draws still yields great results. However, guests have been spoiled through online, or even hybrid experiences. Again, here-in lies opportunity either way.

Social media platforms make it tremendously simple to broadcast your draw mechanics to external participants. Being able to win whether you’re present at a casino or not is tremendously convenient for guests, and tiered prizes can help encourage in-person participation and further spend. But even if your guest is at home when they win, they would still need to come in to collect their prize.

In short, a promotion is always a reason to create a guest experience, because as the saying goes, people may forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. And no guest forgets being a winner. The gaming industry is the great equalizer; blue collar workers get to be treated like kings, and captains of industry even more so. The question is, are we giving ourselves the tools, either inperson or digitally, to make them feel like a winner and remember us?

Guest experience is what secures their return, and the promotion is what leverages their spend.

*Magos Media are leaders in experiential marketing. They supply world-class, bespoke music channels and in-house radio; digital screen signage content creation and management; as well as emcees.