Can AI change the game for operators and affiliates?
Christoffer Gronlund, Co-founder of Winlandia, remains unsure but says it has plenty of potential for driving efficiencies, improving the user experience, and increasing revenues.
When it comes to AI, we’ve come a long way from the initial fears that machines are taking over from humans. Today, most businesses understand the value that AI can bring, from streamlining processes to analyzing data, creating content, and even making product recommendations.
For online casinos and affiliates, there are many ways it can be integrated into workflows. Operators such as Winlandia are already benefiting from its capabilities. Of course, it’s still early days for AI, and we as an industry are getting to grips with its full potential as well as any downsides that might arise from its use.
Before getting on to that, I thought it would be good to highlight some of the ways online casinos are using AI to drive efficiencies and ultimately deliver a superior player experience.
Monitoring player behaviour
Safe gaming is the primary focus for online casinos such as Winlandia operating in regulated markets like the UK, Denmark, and Sweden. In most of these markets, operators are mandated to monitor players in real-time and benchmark their activity against markers of harm.
Should a player hit a combination of markers that indicates signs of problem play, an intervention is made. AI plays a significant role in doing this, monitoring, analyzing, and learning about player behaviors and patterns.
This must always be combined with human input and management, but without AI and machine learning, we would simply not be able to protect players to the high levels that we can today.
Recommending games to players
Online casinos stock their lobbies with hundreds, sometimes even thousands of games – at Winlandia, we have more than 7,300 titles available to players. Searching through this many games is impossible – could you imagine finding a film on Netflix without the help of its recommendation system? The same applies to players looking for their favorite slots, and this is where AI can help.
SkillOnNet, which powers Winlandia, has just announced a deal with Optimove to use its AI-powered Opti-X platform, a powerful game recommendation system that allows us to offer personalized game lobbies for each and every player that comes to Winlandia.
Personalized marketing campaigns
Leading on from this, AI can help operators deliver truly personalized marketing campaigns and offers to their players. This is so important given the high level of competition in the market – to keep players engaged requires being able to send the right message, with the right incentive, via the right channel to the right player at exactly the right time.
The only way to do this is through marketing platforms and solutions that use AI, analyzing data and customer behaviour, and then delivering communications automatically. This is fundamental to delivering value to players and strengthening their connection with the online casino while also allowing operators to streamline marketing costs.
There are a growing number of AI-powered solutions available to operators that allow them to streamline the business intelligence team. The tools offered by these providers include the recommendation engines mentioned above, as well as lifetime value prediction, churn prediction, bonus abuse detection, A/B testing, VIP identification, and affiliate optimization.
For smaller operators, some of these tools would simply be out of reach because they do not have the resources required to build out a full team of specialists. But with AI-powered tools, all of this and more can be accessed via a single solution. AI also offers opportunities to affiliates to streamline businesses.
Affiliates should absolutely be utilizing generative AI to generate ideas for new pages and to enhance the content already published across their sites. Affiliates often target the same search terms and keywords, with page content covering similar points and adhering to a similar structure.
AI can be used to add a bit of spice, identifying sub-topics and ways of bringing even more insight and value to each page. There are also plenty of AI-powered tools for improving the quality of content – think Grammarly, for instance.
A smooth user journey
AI tools can also assist affiliates in improving the UX design of their sites. Remember, players go through numerous steps before they actually deposit and play (and the affiliate earns their commission), so being able to identify any areas of improvement can be hugely beneficial to the affiliate.
Ultimately, AI allows affiliates to gain a much clearer understanding of player behaviour on their sites. Armed with this insight, they can make design and UX changes that ultimately boost conversions and drive revenues. Whether AI will revolutionize the way online casinos and affiliates operate remains to be seen, but it’s clear that it brings a great deal of potential to the table for businesses to explore and decide where it can benefit them the most.
Winlandia is already using AI, and I’m sure many people who have read this piece will be using it across their organizations too.
