The Best Player Retention Techniques for Online Casinos

player retention

Have you every wondered what keeps players returning to gambling games? The online gambling industry continues to do well every year despite clampdowns by Governments through raising the legal age or restriction promotional activity. Yet the major online casinos continuously gain new custom and seem to retain existing players at excellent rates too. In this article we are going to explore some player retention techniques using by online casinos that keep customers returning to play their favourite games.

Bonuses

One of the best player retention strategies is to periodically offer bonuses. Even if you’ve barely played on a site, you are likely to receive the occasional email about a specific bonus or free spins. This is a clever tactic to get you to deposit and play on their site again. This is advantageous to both player and casino; you get some free money to gamble and they have another player returning and potentially willing to spend more money with them.

New variations of casino games

Another effective method of retaining customers is to offer new and creative games that have a different spin on classic games. For instance, new online casinos will update slots-based games frequently in line with trends e.g., Christmas or Easter. This is a smart move as it plays on peoples interests at the time. You might see a world cup slots game come out during world cup, or based on peaky blinders when the show hit peak popularity. This is a great way to keep gamblers interested in the classic games. After all, if casinos only offer a limited number of games, punters will probably get disinterested quickly.

Email Marketing

Data is a key part of any online casino strategy to keep churn low. Who even know how advanced the email marketing campaigns are? Suffice to say they are intuitive enough to target people at the right moments. A savvy gambler will recognize that they are being targeted when they play less, on a weekend or perhaps after they’ve been paid? This is advanced, data driven marketing that the top online casinos are undoubtedly doing, with success.

VIP reward schemes

Loyalty award schemes are a tried and tested way to improve player retention. The premise is simple; reward those who gamble more. As such, people return to “level up” and earn the rewards. For many, it will mean more hours spent gambling and potentially losing. They get their rewards and the casino gets another active participant on their portal.

A VIP reward scheme not only increases player retention, it keeps players from moving to another site as they will be less likely to move unless a better reward scheme is in place.

Excellent user experience

Lastly, one of the best ways to retain players is to keep them happy. With most social gamblers, this means offering a great user experience. Online gambling platforms achieve this by investing heavily in their infrastructure. They need to offer their services on all devices, quick connectivity, responsive customer support, a wide variety of games and plenty of banking options. By offering the best gaming experience, an online casino will have a great chance of keeping the players that join. It’s that simple.

Truthfully, most sites can’t offer all this as it takes a lot of time, research and money to produce a place that offers everything that gamblers want. That’s why reading casino reviews and choosing the ones that hit your priorities is your best bet.

Narciso Baldo is the Director and Head Coach of Texas Hold'em Questions. He has been playing poker for over 16 years. After spending many years as a professional, he now runs UK poker training site Texas Hold'em Questions. Narciso regularly writes poker articles sharing tips, strategy, news and experience with gambling enthusiasts. Narciso also writes for reputable gambling portal Casino City Times, (bio here). Contact: info@texasholdemquestions.com