TRAFFIC
HOW THE NEW REGULATIONS WILL AFFECT OPERATORS All reports about these new regulations centre on the customers’ improved experience – but what of the operators? The following are the impacts that will result from the changes.
Increase in transparency Operators must now ensure that all significant terms and conditions are provided to consumers in a completely transparent manner. They must also ensure that all terms and conditions relating to a promotion are accessible before the consumer signs up. Outcome: fewer sign-ups
Removing restrictions on withdrawing deposit winnings and funds Operators must now cease offering promotions that include a restriction on the withdrawal of deposit winnings. They must stop imposing restrictions on withdrawing unspent deposit funds and ensure that consumers can clearly distinguish between play with funds that are subject to restrictions and play with unrestricted funds. Outcome: players can take their money whenever they like. This will likely cause operators to stop offering big welcome bonuses
Fairness and transparency of play restrictions Operators must ensure that promotional play restrictions do not apply to consumers’ deposits, or the winnings and all prohibited types or patterns of play must be clearly outlined, with no discretion reserved to the operator after the event. Outcome: low-risk bettors are less likely to sign up
Withdrawing free bets or reducing their value Operators must now ensure that they are not seeking to enforce account restrictions that would either remove a consumer’ s entitlement to a bet or reduce its value, where a customer has already placed all or some of the qualifying bets under the promotion. Outcome: players can take their money whenever they like
Banning compulsory publicity No longer can operators force players to promote them in order to take their winnings. Outcome: if operators want player data, they have to ask for permission and players can say no
strength for operators but this is the position that the majority of businesses in other industries find themselves in, and they have other, incredibly effective, strategies to capture new customers and to win loyalty, while offering transparency.
With everyone in the same boat, the good news is that no one can play a cheeky card to get the upper hand. While change is always uncomfortable, the silver lining is in the levelling of the playing field and approaching this challenge from an alternate perspective.
“ There has been a power shift; it used to belong to the operators and now it has moved to the players”
Operators no longer have to jostle so hard for position in this space. They either don’ t give the big bonuses away or they give bigger bonuses but know the number of people who win from them will be fewer.
Operators will now be competing based on brand loyalty, new added customer value and whatever new regulation-abiding strategies operators can dream up from this position.
Focus for the future Let’ s just remember that promotions are not dead, it’ s just the terms around them have changed. It is likely that operators with big casino bonuses, such as 200 % deposit match bonuses, will continue to offer these bonuses but only after players have
deposited and turned over their own cash; players will still need to wager a substantial amount before bonus entitlement, they will just have control over when they potentially need to cut their losses.
Operators could also opt to go down the route chosen by one major casino brand, where punters have no turnover requirements and are allowed to keep their winnings from promos, but where other charges are levied, such as the charge to deposit and withdraw.
Acquisition strategies will need to be approached differently. Retentionled acquisition offers are one route and are already offered as standard to good customers by many operators; such as weekly“ bet X to qualify for a free bet” promotions, encouraging loyalty. Other acquisition strategies likely to take more focus now will be direct targeting methods, such as mailshots, where operators are specifically drilling down into data to target their dream customer. This can be done with heavily customised lead generation campaigns.
A great example of a regulation-friendly strategy is the Football21 game, developed by SportCaller and William Hill, which has been proven to accelerate new-account acquisition and increase betting activity for William Hill customers.
Redefining the hook Without promotional hooks at their disposal, the most significant challenge for operators will be redefining their hook – that is, what draws in new players. This means a big analysis of brand and every facet of the marketing strategy. Operators now need to come up with alternative marketing messages and this cannot just be product-led, although that will start to become more of a talking point. Media-based channels are too expensive without a good offer, so all operators must now be asking themselves what exactly do they offer, beyond the flashy promotions?
DANIEL PRICE is part of Digital Fuel Marketing’ s content and engagement team, looking after outreach operations. A passionate Brighton & Hove Albion fan, he is known for his near legendary record of never having backed a winning horse!
10 iGB Affiliate Issue 68 APR / MAY 2018