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AI and gambling – big opportunities but big risks too?
Personalized Gaming: The Promise of AI-Driven Experiences
Gaming companies know they need to adopt AI – but there are questions about how to start, where it will fit into their existing technology and how to make the case for it to stakeholders. As we count down to 25 November and Winna Media’s AI in Gaming Investment Seminar, we’ll be looking closely at the issues.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has and will continue to make significant changes to every aspect of the gaming sector. Right now, though, what is someone’s opportunity might be someone else’s risk.
Take customer experience. By looking at a player’s gaming history and risk appetite, AI can easily suggest tailor-made games and promotions. In the same way, operators can reward and incentivise customers who model their play based on AI-generated recommendations.
The mass market is already familiar with the ‘if you bought this, you may be interested in this’-style nudges. However, VIP gamblers could be virtually hosted by a high-end concierge service modelled on personal hosts.
Engaging vs. addictive
Once the players are fully engaged, AI-enhanced slots can be automatically adjusted to build engagement in terms of their difficulty and themes. Users’ play patterns can be analysed and adjusted to make the games more engaging – or alternatively, more addictive. That could include modelling the predictive payouts to smooth out the house’s profitability over time.
The risk here is that customers start to believe that the games are entirely constructed in favour of the operators. That could create trust issues and lead to regulatory interventions by officials demanding audits to see how fair the random number generation process is, as well as costly, time-consuming lawsuits by players that will also generate bad publicity for the operators and the industry as a whole.
Trust is difficult to win back. In addition, elected officials and politicians might be tempted to intervene on the side of consumers in the interest of fair play, or simply to respond to popular demand to be seen to be taking action.
Regulators are already looking at prototype adaptive slots and personalised gaming adjustments with a high degree of caution. Their concern is to ensure AI-driven nudges to players aren’t a form of manipulation, or at worst, predatory targeting.
AI fraud buster
On the plus side of the regulatory ledger, AI can be used to show that the sector can actively police fraud and money laundering. Card counting, collusion and suspicious betting patterns can be monitored and reported in real time.
Improved facial recognition technology can monitor lists of banned players and problem gamers who have asked to be excluded from casinos. Technology can also sound the alarm for unusual transactions faster than human beings working on AML operations.
AI can also provide a positive impact for an industry that has channelled significant sums into efforts to control problem gaming – identifying harmful betting patterns and advising and even restricting players identified as being at risk to themselves.
Using dynamic pricing
So far, the impact of AI on the day-to-day operation of casinos hasn’t attracted the same level of attention as the gaming and regulatory effects, perhaps because it is already used in one form or another. So, dynamic pricing can raise or lower room rates; the levels of complementary food, drink and accommodation can vary, based on the value of individual players or popular demand. These factors can also supervise staff rosters, particularly for key workers like dealers and security personnel.
Marketing efforts can also be refined through targeted advertising based on calendar events like Lunar New Year and Golden Week in Asia, and individually selected channels like traditional media versus social platforms to get a better return on investment.
AI’s scope and impact change constantly; nevertheless, it’s critical to separate real, market-ready opportunities from experimental ideas that may face barriers. For example, making a virtue of using AI to reduce labour costs would be contrary to the potential for job creation for local people.
That’s also a reminder that human oversight remains critical to reassure customers, regulators, opinion-formers and staff about what AI will mean to them as interested groups with strong views and influences on local and national issues.
