Residents of Toronto often engage in online casino games and use iGaming platforms. While the potential to win a prize is what attracts most players, casinos know that they need to offer more in order to retain their interest. This is where rewards programs and loyalty programs come in.
With this in mind, it becomes interesting to think about whether the programs casinos are delivering offer value with respect to planned spending, or whether they’re shaping the nature of the spending itself.
Why Rewards Have Become Integrated Into Online Casinos
20 years ago, the majority of Canadian gamblers played in physical casinos where they would sit across the table from the dealer and take their seat alongside other human players. Today, the landscape is rather different, with many more players choosing to use online casino platforms now that smartphones and ultra-fast WiFi have become ubiquitous.
The rapid growth of the industry has meant that developers and online casino platform operators have had to become increasingly competitive when it comes to player engagement and retention. To do this, virtually all of them now offer tiered loyalty programs where players are rewarded for things like the amount of money they spend on the platform, getting friends to sign up, and length of time spent on the platform. But are these programs rewarding spending, or are they driving it?
Moving From Simple Emails To Gamified Loyalty Ecosystems
The first foray into the world of online casino rewards by businesses operating in Toronto was largely confined to flash email announcements. Over time, this has been superseded by embedded rewards programs that gamify the process of amassing points within a given set of games on the platform.
Emails proved that players could be made to play for longer and made to play more often when given additional incentives, and gamification of this journey amplified its effectiveness. Many online casino platforms now give players avatars that they can level up as they make their way from one tier of rewards to the next. The point of this is to make them feel valued and like they are making progress during the intermittent periods between rewards being ready to spend on the platform.
Why 1,000 Casino Loyalty Points Can Mean Virtually Nothing
The conversion factor that turns amassed points into real-world value that can be spent on a gambling platform will not necessarily be the same from one program to the next. 1,000 points earned by playing a popular slot game could be worth less than a dollar, while 80 points earned playing an online poker title could be worth $25, for example. The total number of points only becomes meaningful when you have easy access to the conversion factor that turns them into real-world value.
Casinos Offer Both Instant Rewards & Removed Rewards
As a general rule of thumb, instant rewards tend to be low value but designed to provide a burst of enjoyment or convenience, whereas removed rewards are earned via much larger outlays on iGaming titles than you will typically have to make anyway. An instant reward could be a sign-up bonus or a referral bonus paid into an account when a new player joins off the back of a recommendation. A removed reward, by contrast, could take the form of playing for a set number of minutes or hours, often in a development title so that the developer can get real user data to help them with their testing and analytics.
Navigating Personalised Offers In Online Casinos
Casino offers and rewards to be well-received when offered at scale, they will typically need to be personalised. Developers and iGaming platform administrators will often use past behaviour to achieve this, but to some Canadians, this opens up the issue of how their online gambling data is being shared and repurposed.
More discerning casino players will find themselves looking at the data protection elements of a rewards program to see if they feel comfortable with it. This is a natural response to growing awareness of how digital data is stored, shared, and sold.
When Are Rewards No Longer Benefiting Players?
Some rewards are designed to drive extra spending rather than to simply reward planned spending in a particular game. As a general rule, if you are the casino player, look for rewards that reward planned spending, rather than those that appear to treat for doing something new but ultimately redirect your attention so that you end up making extra deposits and playing titles that you may not enjoy as much. It’s also important to set reality checks on your device so that the incentives provided by online casino rewards don’t start to produce problem behavior.
How Can You Tell If A Rewards Program Is Genuinely Good?
The value you need to be clearly outlined, including the conversion from points to real-world spending power, and the redemption criteria also need to be clear. With this in mind, we can say that a good rewards program is flexible, scalable, and designed to primarily reward planned spending.
Good online casino rewards programs will also have personalised rewards that help you get more from the types of games you like, rather than push you to make deposits on games you have little or no pre-existing interest in. There is also the sharing element that needs to be mentioned here, especially in the case where rewards can be combined to get a larger reward.
This basic comparison framework can explain how CanadaCasino compares casino rewards programs by looking beyond the promotional headlines to assess things like the actual value of points, VIP levels, shared benefits, and restrictions.
Conclusion: Loyalty Has To Be Earned On Both Sides
Toronto’s online casino loyalty program landscape reflects a growing desire and expectation of ever greater value. The aggregation of value so that small regular spending habits allow gamblers to potentially access significantly bigger rewards can prove highly attractive. For this to be the case, both sides of the player-casino equation have to trust one another, and making sure that casino reward programs reward existing behaviour, rather than drive new behaviour that has a negative impact on player wellbeing, is a major part of this.
FAQs
Are loyalty programs actually worth joining?
If the rewards are simple to earn and are given for playing deposits you would already be making, you may wish to take a closer look at the program.
Can casino loyalty programs cause overspending?
Yes, especially if they are structured so that they drive you to make additional spending choices just so that you can pass a points threshold. Always think about the real-world value of any additional spending actions you are making before you jump to thinking about what you could eventually spend the points on.
Why do casino rewards programs provide personalised offers?
Personalised offers are designed to make the value that a player unlocks more desirable and more relevant. Gambers may wish to look at the data policies of such programs to see how their information is being stored and used by the iGaming platform operator and the developer.
