The challenge of too much marketing money going to the wrong players can be addressed by using artificial intelligence, according to an industry expert. That’s the message from Kiran Brahmandam, CEO of Gaming Analytics, who kicked off the TribalNet Conference & Tradeshow in Las Vegas Monday morning.

In a session titled “Uncovering Value from All of Your Gaming Floor Data,” he questioned why departments and key users continue to isolate and protect their own limited data silo. He said it’s important to remove data silos and that it’s time to rethink how business is done, including marketing.

“Casinos are putting players in a single bucket,” Brahmandam said. “You’re an $80 to $100 player and everybody who’s in that range gets the same offer. Some players aren’t predicted to give you much more value down the road and maybe you should treat them differently. You have the ability to distribute it to some getting more offers and others lower offers based on the predictive models, but that’s not being done today. You’re supposed to be getting a $5 offer, but you’re getting $10. You’re not worth $10.”

The technology has been amazing in casinos marketing to players and predicting their risk of not coming back, Brahmandam said.

AI has proven its value in the gaming industry in terms of revenue forecasting and making slot recommendations. It’s created efficiency with fewer, but more profitable, moves. It’s helped with slot-floor layout based on similarity and volatility, he said.

“We can take the good games and make them great,” Brahmandam said. “If you want to replace the bottom 10 to 15% of the games, you don’t need software. You can figure it out. It’s how to take good games and make them even better.”

AI is driving workflow for hosts and increased reactivation rates by 28% on priority call lists. It’s increased reactivation rates by 17% on AI-generated preferences. It’s increased reactivation rates by 11.5% under dynamic reminders.

“Everywhere I got it was laborious manual work,” Brahmandam said. “The hosts didn’t know who to call, when they should call, why they should call, and what they should offer. The software gives them a list to call every single day. The hosts love it, because it doesn’t change their job functions. They’re still making phone calls. It’s just using software to tell them who to call. It’s going to increase the activations.”

AI has also helped with fraud protection and he cited a case where 30 players were caught abusing $320,000 of free play.

Brahmandam said gone are the days of casinos just making money from slots. There’s mobile, online, cashless, and sports betting and it’s created more data for casinos than they’ve ever had before to generate more revenue.

“The time has come, especially when you’re touching your customers at so many end points and channels, that it’s even more important to figure out how we create value with this data,” Brahmandam said. “Everybody is asking about AI and I expect it to become more normal in the next couple of years. There’s a lot of data disconnected in casinos and the key is how do you unlock value from your data.”

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