“ Players still lack trust in the online casinos they sign up to and play at, and this is why so many use online casino comparison sites” upsides go beyond acquisition and into the realm of retention. This is an industry where customer churn remains high, with players often becoming frustrated with the experience they receive at online casino sites.
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of this year. This includes banning operators from offering“ potentially harmful” bonuses where customers must carry out two or more types of gambling, such as betting and playing slots.
In short, it’ s preventing multi-vertical operators from running promotions that cross-sell players between their online sportsbook and their online casino. This is what the regulator had to say about why it took the decision to ban cross-sell bonuses:“ Evidence shows consumers are more at risk of harm when they gamble on multiple products rather than a single product. There is also the risk that mixed product promotions confuse consumers because of complex terms and conditions.
“ The ban is aimed at reducing harm and boosting fairness and openness.”
The second part of the update refers to wagering requirements and limiting the maximum wagering requirement to 10x. In its update, the regulator used an example of an online casino bonus with a 50x wagering requirement – if the player won £ 10 with the bonus, they’ d need to wager £ 500 back through the casino before they could withdraw the £ 10 bonus winnings as cash.
The Gambling Commission said such high wagering requirements“ could confuse consumers and lead them to gamble for longer, and faster, than they are used to”. Capping the wagering requirement to 10x, the regulator says,“ decreases the likelihood of harm, reduces complexity and improves transparency while maintaining consumer choice”. And I agree on all those points. I also think there are plenty of upsides for online casino operators, too. So, what are they?
CAPPED WAGERING REQUIREMENTS – THE PROS
The cap means that all licensed online casinos in the UK will become low wagering casinos and, at Comparasino, we are already seeing a lot of demand for this type of site. Typically, low wagering casinos are those with requirements of 30x or lower, but from December, that threshold will be reduced to 10x or lower.
This presents a tremendous acquisition opportunity for operators, especially those who take this one step further and become no wagering casinos. Operators have struggled to differentiate through bonusing – most now offer a standard 100 % deposit match and free spins – so the cap opens up the option to do away with wagering requirements entirely to really stand out.
This approach has been pioneered by PlayOJO and with huge success. The
“ Players still lack trust in the online casinos they sign up to and play at, and this is why so many use online casino comparison sites” upsides go beyond acquisition and into the realm of retention. This is an industry where customer churn remains high, with players often becoming frustrated with the experience they receive at online casino sites.
While a lot of this comes during the onboarding stage, with many steps to complete and no end of information and documents to provide, once they have signed up and deposited, the experience they receive continues to fall short of expectations.
This includes things like slow payouts and poor customer support, but wagering requirements are one of the strongest contributing factors in their dissatisfaction. And this is why at Comparasino, we are seeing so many players searching for low and no wagering casinos.
Now that operators are mandated to impose low wagering requirements, I strongly believe they will see retention rates improve, especially if they can smooth out other friction points during the sign-up process and improve withdrawal speed.
If they do, this will help to foster greater trust between the player and
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