Don’t gamble on customer data

As online gaming booms, the sector has come under even greater scrutiny to deliver a service that’s safe, fair and responsible. Operators playing the long game, taking good care of their customers and customer data, could win big in an increasingly regulated and competitive industry.

The past few years have been transformative for the gaming industry with more people than ever turning to online gambling platforms. But with increasing yields comes increasing scrutiny. As well as existing regulations to adhere to, the UK Gambling Commission has introduced plans for the industry to move towards a single customer view to safeguard vulnerable customers.

On top of this, with the market becoming increasingly saturated, gaming operators are under growing pressure to remain relevant and provide seamless online customer experiences. One quick win for operators looking to improve their chances is data maintenance – taking good care of your customer data.

Complying with regulations

Having the ability to identify customers and maintain accurate contact information is essential in meeting the conditions of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) regulations. Failure to comply can result in hefty fines for operators. In 2020-2021, a total of £32.1 million was paid by 15 gambling businesses as a result of fines or regulatory settlements – more than any previous financial year.

Implementing address verification software enables you to capture valid address data at the onboarding stage, ensuring your database is clean from the start and you meet regulatory requirements for data quality. Regular data cleansing and maintenance also help, by identifying duplicate or potentially fraudulent accounts, as well as flagging deceased customers.

Safeguarding customers

Given the nature of gaming, protecting vulnerable customers is a key priority for any responsible operator. And it’s an issue the industry takes very seriously. Last year, the UK’s Gambling Commission announced plans to form a single customer view for the industry, whereby data on an individual’s gambling activity is shared between businesses to prevent harm to players who are gambling more than they can afford with more one gaming company.

It’s essential that operators have systems and policies in place to identify customers who are showing signs of a gambling problem. To do this, businesses need data that’s clean and up to date. Regularly maintained data enables operators to spot warning signs and interact with customers early and effectively, as well as offering full transparency to legislators.

Assigning UDPRNs (or Unique Delivery Point Reference Numbers) to customer data can also be helpful in preventing problematic behaviour, such as bonus abuse fraud.

Improving marketing returns

As well as a duty of care and regulatory compliance, there are business benefits to regular data maintenance, notably improved ROI on marketing communications. Data maintenance strips out fraudulent, inactive, and incorrect details, targeting more of your communications to the intended customer. Plus, any learnings you might take from a marketing campaign are more reliable after a good data cleanse.  

For example, say you have 100 customer email addresses in a segment that you wish to contact but 20 of those addresses are inactive. When you run your campaign report and see that the number of unopened emails was 50, that doesn’t appear to be a great result out of 100. It is, however, higher than a 60% open rate out of your 80 active customers on that list. Data cleanses then give you a better idea of how your marketing campaigns are performing, enabling you to create better plans for future communications. 

So, ongoing data maintenance provides clean and accurate data and a clear view of your customer. And that’s good for customers, good for regulatory compliance in the gaming industry and good for customer communication and customer experience.

This article was originally published by Loqate, a GBG solution