Max Francis, CEO and Founder at Black Cow says that operators should use jackpots to stand out from their rivals but that a cutting-edge server is key to unleashing their full potential.
The greatest challenge facing any online casino brand is to offer a player experience that stands head and shoulders above that offered by its rivals.
Big bonuses will only get them so far in overcoming this challenge, and ultimately an online casino must deliver a differentiated, personalised experience to players across all areas.
From the welcome bonus to the payment methods available for depositing and withdrawing, to speedy yet secure payouts, everything must be optimised to the highest level.
One of the most powerful differentiators is the content offered in the casino lobby and this is why we have seen some operators turn to exclusive and in-house content.
This approach is not available to all brands, but the need to differentiate through content is ubiquitous. So, what else can casinos do to ensure their lobby stands out?
Jackpot slots are hugely popular with players but not all brands stock them. Even the brands that do offer them are yet to fully explore their potential when it comes to differentiation.
Before looking at how all brands can use jackpots to deliver a unique and thrilling player experience, let’s explore what makes them so popular with players.
Why players like hitting the jackpot:
The biggest draw is of course that jackpots offer life-changing prizes – from a single base-game spin, players can trigger wins that run into the millions of pounds.
They are particularly engaging to play because the player can see the ever-increasing win build, something they can’t with the base game. This keeps players captivated and coming back for more.
This same thrill can be experienced in jackpots with much smaller payouts but with different formats such as must drop and daily drop.
The thrill with “mustpots” is in knowing the jackpot will be awarded once a set amount is hit or within a certain time period making them more attainable.
The popularity of jackpot games is evidenced by the run-away success of Red Tiger’s suite of jackpot mechanics, which have been adopted in similar forms by many other studios and even operators.
Blueprint Gaming is also worth mentioning here – its Jackpot King sits across many titles in its portfolio and again has proved to be a big hit with players.
Fishing in the same pond:
Many operators now offer these slots and more jackpot slots to their players, but this is where differentiation can become difficult.
As we have seen with standard slots, ultimately operators end up offering the same content to players and the only way to differentiate is through exclusive or in-house content.
But that needn’t be the case here.
By using a powerful jackpot server, operators can easily add progressive jackpots that cover every single game in their lobbies from any supplier.
So even if the supplier doesn’t offer jackpots on their titles, operators can still run jackpots across that studio’s games.
This opens up some of the most popular slots to becoming jackpot games for the first time, as well as running side-jackpots on non-slot content such as table, crash and instants.
These jackpots are entirely unique to the operator so if players want to play for them, they have to engage with that brand. So not only does this turbo-charge acquisition, but it also boosts retention.
These jackpots can also be used for unique marketing campaigns and promotions, including welcome and loyalty bonuses.
Unleashing the power of a jackpot server:
To do this, operators need to identify a very well-designed state-of-the-art jackpot server that will provide them with the robustness and flexibility required to successfully launch flexible jackpots.
The technical complexity in play here is frankly staggering.
Servers need to be efficient and malleable, but this makes them difficult to build and even more difficult to iterate and develop against.
Operators can look to develop this technology in-house, but operators are not technical specialists, so they are always better partnering with a jackpot server software provider.
Only a true specialist knows how to ensure the server is resilient and robust while being flexible enough to facilitate the different and individual jackpot rules that operators will pass through it.
Then there is the compliance aspect – servers must be compliant with the rules and regulations in each of the markets the operators want to deploy their jackpot offering.
This is why, to my knowledge at least, no operator has successfully developed its own jackpot network software and why the majority work with specialist technology providers.
This way, the provider can handle the technical part of deploying jackpots while the operator can focus on the creative aspect and marketing its jackpot offering to players.
The online casino space is only going to become more competitive, but jackpots provide an opportunity to offer a unique player experience tailored to each market the operator targets.
That they can be used by any operator also ensures that smaller enterprises can use unique content to engage players without having to strike costly exclusivity deals or snap up development studios.
This makes jackpots one of the greatest differentiation tools and one that all operators need to use more to hit the jackpot when it comes to the experience they offer players.
