A report recently discussed the effect of social casinos on real money online casinos. Social casinos are different than the free play mode on a real money casino. Real money casinos offer free play as a way of attracting deposits upon which the casino will attach a bonus. The only action the player needs to do to get the bonuses is to apply for them with one click and to enter the correct bonus codes.
Playing as a Social Event
Social casinos are set up to distract players from the offer to play for real money. They don’t need to hard sell depositing money because the sales approach is so well hidden. If a player never goes from the social casino to the branded real money casino, they can play at the former for as long as they wish. But the social casino is branded and subliminal stimuli are constantly at work motivating players to go to the real money casino.
Real Money Land Based Casinos
Land based casinos operate on a small profit line per dollar wagered so they are always looking for a way to enhance their brand. Land based casinos have discovered that social casinos connected to them are an excellent and subtle marketing tool that succeeds in attracting real money to the casino floor.
Two Parameters
The report comes from the respected Eilers and Krejcik Gaming consulting firm. They found that when land based casinos offer, through play at the casino’s social casino, credits that players can convert to money on the real money casino floor, it results in two big improvements for the casinos’ bottom lines. First, it causes players to increase the number of times they visit the casino and also increases the amount of time the players stay on the gaming floor.
It is important to note that the findings did not indicate that casino credits derived from the casino’s social casino increased the amount of money bet. There is a formula that all casinos use that correlates overall money gambled to frequency of visits and time spent on the gaming floor.
So, when the report spoke about social casinos increasing those two parameters, the land based casinos that offer the social casinos know that they are getting an increase in bets made in real money.
Attracting New Players
Social gaming can also create new real money gamers. There are many people who enjoy blackjack or video poker, the two most intellectual games offered at real money casinos, except poker between real people. Players who enjoy these games may be leery of playing them for real money.
By offering these games at a social casino, with no pressure on the player to deposit or even to attend a land based casino, the players can enjoy these games and develop the confidence that they can either win at them in the real money casino or can come very close to breaking even.
Players who see gaming as primarily a fun and entertaining activity are often drawn to play for real money after they’ve developed the confidence that at most they might lose the cost of a reasonable entertainment package.
Slots
In contrast to poker and blackjack, slots are a purely luck based game. Once again, many players feel that they shouldn’t play for real money but when they play at the social casino for a while and see that they win almost as often as they don’t, they are also attracted to the excitement of the real money casino floor and can sit for long stretches of time with as little as five cents per win line.
Magnificent Branding Tools
As a branding tool, social casinos serve a vitally important marketing goal which is to make the casino’s brand as well known as possible. We see this all the time in other areas.
Here are a few: sports stadiums are named for a sponsor who simply pays to have the stadium carry its name; stadiums have advertising on the big screen and also on every wall around the stadium; food vendors will sell their products at a relatively low cost to stadiums because the positive branding that accrues to the product is worth more overall than getting a slightly higher price per hot dog from the stadium concessions office; and television and movie producers can extract a fee from food and drink companies to have their product subliminally marketed on the show or movie.
The most famous example of the latter came from the move ET. The producers approached the parent company of M&M’s who declined the branding opportunity. Therefore, the producers approached the manufacturers of Reese’s Pieces which played a prominent role in the movie. Because of the popularity of the movie, sales of Reese’s Pieces soared.
Online and Land Based
One of the disadvantages land based casinos have always had is that players have to travel to get there. All the secondary costs that obtain from travel are a big drawback. Nevertheless, land based casinos are enjoying a heyday because they also have so much to offer. The excitement of the casino floor is one of the attractions. The social casino puts the land based casino in front of the gaming public 24 hours every day.
Social casinos are the perfect marketing device for keeping the casino’s name in front of potential players with no hard sell attached. Any selling that goes on at the social casino is done in very mild and subtle ways.
Social casinos run contests, tournaments and the like in order to keep the social gaming environment as positive and fun as possible. The longer the social gamer plays at the social casino and is exposed to the brand, the more they will associate the brand with fun. This is now proven to lead many players to travel to land based casinos.
