Gaming revenue continues to grow year-over-year. In 2023, the American Gaming Association (AGA) reported a record-breaking $66.5 billion in gaming revenue, 10% higher than in 2022 and the industry’s third year of consistent growth.
In my 10+ years of working with casinos, one thing has always stood out to me as a gap in the market, not just for tech companies and the casinos they service, but for the player, the guest, and the people that keep us all gainfully employed. Even though gaming revenue continues to grow, casinos are leaving “a lot on the table” as rated players can’t book discounted or complementary hotel rooms online at many independent casino resorts, a huge barrier to revenue generation.
In an industry-first, Duetto and SHR removed this barrier to revenue. Now, players can book online and enjoy even more time on the game floor. If you or your team want to increase player spend or enable comp bookings online, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s explore…
Connecting players to an online experience
Our Dynamic Rate Engine (DRE) is unique to the market —it’s an API that allows any external source to connect to Duetto and return personalized pricing for a player, including their corresponding comp/cash decision. It’s bespoke to the specific member and considers their total gaming value.
There hasn’t been an off-the-shelf solution available to provide this level of personalized pricing to casino members online — until today. Players can now book comps (or discounts) online if the property utilizes Duetto and SHR’s booking engine. Let’s break down how each system accomplishes this.
Dynamic pricing by Duetto
Today, sadly, many casino resorts still use static marketing offers to drive occupancy. The dated method of ‘pulling’ a player’s worth once a month and mailing an offer to them on a stale valuation is a clear threat to truly powering your revenues. When hotels use Duetto, our services team partners with the property to transform these offers into dynamic play-driven offers that evolve with the player’s spend.
Benefits
- Always reward your players: They may get a free room on occasion, but you always allow them to stay at your resort even at a small discount. Let your player say no to you, don’t say no to the player.
- Balance the house: We find that almost every casino resort is either comping too much or too little. Duetto’s algorithm ensures that guest contribution is maximized, focusing on growing Gaming WorthPOR.
- Don’t wait for the ‘pull’: If a player signs up for a membership card and plays on the same day, they should get a free room tomorrow (if they qualify) based on real-time data. No more waiting 60 days for their first pull from the database.
- Don’t overwhelm your call center: Call center teams have enough to worry about. Monthly mailer drops that send call volumes skyrocketing are unnecessary. Teach your players that they can always be rewarded and they’ll stop waiting for a piece of mail to call you.
- Reduce no-shows and cancellations: Often with static offers, players get every weekend free motivating them to book every weekend. Why? Because there are no ramifications for not showing up. With dynamic offers, the player has to think about their dates before they confirm them.
Online loyalty bookings by SHR
SHR’s award-winning booking engine has provided comp rooms online for some time. By utilizing our DRE API, SHR customers can perform real-time RMS lookups of a player’s offer ensuring that even as a player’s worth is changing, as new players are signing up, and even as they are booking through different sources, SHR can act as a central hub for all player hotel booking activity.
Benefits
- No more waiting on hold: Players can now look up their offers at any time, for any date, as many times as they like no matter where they are. This gives your hotel a competitive edge over its market as hold times have increased. This leads to a notable improvement in conversion.
- Reduce overhead: Some players will still want to call and speak to someone, but a significant percentage of bookings will shift online. This will relieve pressure on your operations team in terms of hiring, overtime spend, etc.
- Gamify loyalty: This new functionality tied into our real-time DRE API will allow players to see their progress in action. Each day as they play more, they can open the SHR booking engine and see how their offers have evolved. For example, they might qualify for more comps on more days.
- No more coupons: Marketing teams spend an inordinate amount of time loading and maintaining coupons/offers in the casino system. With real-time player evaluation, static offers go out the window.
- Comp abuse prevention: One fear many casino resorts have of making player comps and discounts bookable online is that the players will abuse the system. What if they call their host and book a room on Tuesday and then call the call center and book another room on Tuesday? And then on top of that, they go to the booking site and book a third room on Tuesday? Stop the madness! SHR implemented comp restrictions to prevent this situation. Players will only get as many comps (or discounts) as you want them to get.
