How Big Data is Changing the Slot Wins in the Casino History

The casino is all about numbers, and so is big data. Winning a gargantuan amount of money is not something people tend to forget. And anyway, why would they? In the realm of the casino, and especially slots, this gargantuan amount of money can genuinely turn into the ticket to a completely new life. Casinos are ultimately a business and big data is a business tool. As such, the operations and operations related to human resources, accounting, and contracts progressively taking advantage of the same business process management and enterprise content management software.

The fact which is less known – it is the casino industry which pioneered many use of big data. Pretty much all the life-changing slot wins that have marked casino history have taken place on progressive jackpot machines, so it is important to take this into account from the perspective of the usage of data science tools. Slot machines constitute 70% of the casino’s income and hence, we will discuss the application on the slot machines. Traditional slot machines included currency detectors which could identify the payment. The machine used to pay off according to the symbols when it stops. Technology has resulted changes on the traditional slot machine and moved towards a kind of video game. Varied video graphics have indeed changed the slot machines, yet the traditional physical machines maintained the appeal.

Use Cases of Big Data Related Technologies in the Casino Industry

Any modern casino may collect data of their members in various ways, such as by using a loyalty card. By collecting information such the money a member spends, the relationship with the other members, the background, source of earning, times and dates they visit the location, their favourite slot machines and even the other factors which positively influence the spending.

As like any business, the casino also has its marketing unit to target the people who have not been to the casino. That effort invites large scale data analysis to target a specific group of people who may spend a considerable amount, just for an example an average of $300 each visit. Predictive analytics and data mining identifies the patterns in data sets by combing through huge amounts of data to find out the patterns and relationships which are too complex for humans to detect. The use of regression models, linear regression models, neural networks, decision trees and other data mining techniques can allow to measure behaviour of more than 100 different attributes.

Coming to the online gaming and mobile gambling. These segments are using big data as well. Here we can see the usage of streaming data analysis which can help the developers to change the game too fast, almost in real-time. The real-time information analysis does facilitate better business decisions.

Security and fraud protection are big concerns of the casino industry. Big data analytics, deep learning can be used for security and fraud protection in casinos.

Essentially the casinos maintain massive databases of information on transactions which itself invited the usage of blockchain technology at the backend.

Some are relying on data analytics to identify the patterns of their customers spending to offer incentives to bigger spenders. Side by side, they also focussed to ensure that gamblers do not lose too much money to end up leaving the casino forever.

Data analytics also enables casinos to study the habits of their members. The services they use such as spa, restaurant, luxurious cars, stores or maybe the escorts can be made amenities of the hotels and restaurants. Cluster analysis may help the e-government system to facilitate collaboration.

Experts’ understanding of risk-taking gambling behaviour remains in its infancy. Big data analysis may identify the groups who show signs of potentially risky behaviours which will provide a basis to educate players. This progress essentially may make casino, gambling and slot games just another paid service rather than remaining in a grey world.

The Bet of AI in the Casino Industry

By now it should be no surprise to the readers to learn that the rise of big data has caught the attention of the casino industry and in the same way, the casino attracted the attention of the leaders of the big data industry. There is a starting of a paradigm shift to the computational social science in the presence of big data. Customer satisfaction is a big matter in the hospitality and gaming industry. There are several books published on this topic since 2011-12 giving more descriptive and in-depth idea useful for the developer and business need. It is quite clear from different academic resources that there is a need for innovative casino policy and the triple-helix collaboration is a viable fit.

It is no wonder to see IBM’s case study on French retailer Groupe Casino (also read here). The case study highlights the usage of IBM Watson IoT technology to assist the customers and the basis of such an idea has been discussed above.

Microsoft itself delivers its batch of gambling and slots games. Slotomania Slots (by Microsoft Inc) is one of the free slot machines game. It is no wonder their AI technologies are penetrating the slot gaming niche.

Conclusion

Gambling may be a risky business. From the business point of view, gaming centres require to minimize the frequency of big wins! One of the main benefits of using big data analytics in this industry is to allow casinos doing micro-segmentation of their base for a focused marketing and service efforts. Data analytics gives a holistic picture which is important to gain an unbiased overview of how different businesses may interact with each other. These essentially facilate the offering to the correct customers the attractive deals on stay, food and other luxuries.