The 5 Biggest Challenges Facing Your Casino Gifting Program

Traditional casino gifting programs are inefficient. There’s no denying that many – if not most – casino gifting and player reward programs are too complicated, too expensive and too hard to manage efficiently. 

For many properties, it all adds up to an ineffective program, one that’s failing to drive player engagement, failing to increase coin-in and costing casinos far too much. 

A casino gifting program that isn’t delivering the experience players want. 

But why? 

There are 5 key challenges affecting traditional casino gifting programs… and one single way to overcome them all. 

1. The financial risk of pre-purchasing stock 

Firstly, buying gifts and rewards in advance of redemption is a costly practice. Not only do you need a healthy cash flow/investment into your gifting program to fund the ever-rising costs of products, you also need to guess what kinds of gifts and rewards your players want. 

You and your team have to decide what to buy in stock, without knowing what your players might actually want.

And that leads to more problems. 

Guess wrong, and you’ll be left with overstocked, unclaimed inventory. Wasted stock, wasted storage space, wasted money. On the flip side, you might underestimate demand, run out of the rewards your players want and be left handing out rain checks and disappointing your guests.

2.  The costs of storing physical products

Alongside the financial risk of pre-purchasing inventory, there’s the immediate cost of storage and warehousing. A cost that continues to rise year on year. 

On top of warehousing costs, you also have to factor in breakage costs and returns. The more physical stock you have, the more these costs increase. 

And let’s not forget that floor space is at a premium in casinos. Stock rooms take up valuable real estate that could be turned over to revenue-generating activities. 

3. Time-consuming, resource-draining fulfilment 

When your casino stores physical gifts and rewards on site, you also need to deal with the fulfilment of those gifts – another challenge with traditional casino gifting programs. 

Picking and packing gifts for players requires intensive staff resources. It’s time-consuming and costly. 

Plus if you decide to give players the option of shipping large items home, you’re adding more logistical challenges into the mix. Your staff need to manage the shipping process, organise delivery and deal with any customer service issues that might arise. 

Packing, tracking and chasing couriers is a recipe for rising costs, logistical nightmares and dissatisfied players. 

4. A frustrating redemption experience 

Another major problem with traditional casino gifting programs is the outdated redemption process. Rooted in manual systems and failing to take advantage of new technologies, it often fails to deliver the experience players expect. 

That’s because players have to leave their machine to claim gifts. They have to stop playing (and spending) to redeem. That’s not great for your revenue. 

And for players, they then have to wait in long lines at reward desks. That’s not a great look for your casino, and it certainly isn’t what your players want to be doing. 

5. In-flexible, undesirable gifts and rewards 

Despite all the costs and logistical challenges facing casino gifting programs, the biggest problem is more fundamental. 

One of the main reasons traditional casino reward programs are increasingly ineffective is the lack of flexibility with redeemable gifts. 

Put simply, casinos aren’t giving players the rewards they want. 

Players want more choice with their gifts. They want to customise their reward options, choose their own styles and preferences and pick the gifts that are most relevant to them. They want personalised, localised gifts. And they want choosing them to be simple and seamless. 

And there’s only one way to give them that choice. 

One simple way to transform outdated casino gifting programs 

Gift & Go. 

Gift & Go is the simple, single piece of software that eliminates all of the traditional challenges of casino gifting programs. 

Integrating directly into your existing ecosystem and your slot machines, Gift & Go:

• Eliminates all inventory risk, because you’ll never need to order stock in advance again
• Cuts all storage and warehousing costs, because gifts and rewards are shipped direct to players 
• Saves time and money on fulfilment efforts, because all shipping is handling directly by suppliers
• Delivers a superior player redemption experience, because players never need to leave their machine or wait in line to claim gifts
• Gives players maximum choice and customisation of gifts, because you have access to millions of products on-demand

Want to find out exactly how Gift & Go can transform your casino gifting program? 

Book a demo of Gift & Go.