Continuity gifting is a marketing strategy that casinos have been using for decades. The idea is to get players to come back to the casino to claim a gift reward. Azam Husain, the CEO of Casino Science, a data science and analytics company for the gaming industry, has spent years researching how effective gifting programs are. He says they can be really valuable for casinos.

At the beginning, Husain realized that there was a lot of money being left on the table with traditional gifting campaigns. That's why he created InfiGifts, a one-stop platform for all your gifting needs. It's designed to make gamers happy and loyal, and it's all about making rewards easy for both you and your customers.

InfiGift New Program

The success of InfiGifts has led Husain to announce a new program to enhance casino loyalty rewards. He calls it "Casino Gifting Your Way". It's got on-property distribution, hybrid, and direct-to-player fulfillment via an all-in-one app, kiosk, or portal. InfiGifts is the only gifting software out there that supports all three gifting channels. Nobody else in the market offers this.

Husain's research showed that while gifting programs are useful, they can also become boring and, in some cases, actually have a negative impact on returns because properties have been running gifting programs for many years.

He claimed that it's a combination of the programs becoming stale and players expecting they'll always get a gift reward as a matter of course. To beat this, operators need to keep these programs fresh with new processes, tech, and gifts to keep them cash-positive for the casino.

Over the past year, Husain has been chatting with casino operators and it's become clear that they're looking to make their gifting programs more cost-effective to boost their ROI. The result was "Casino Gifting Your Way," which basically lets casinos update their gifting options with new products and company-branded items.

He said that it lets operators rethink how they handle gifting by using tech to deliver rewards. This helps get rid of the hassle of storage and staffing while basically reimagining the possibilities of reward programs by relying on data science to help make gifting decisions at the property.

Casino Gifting Your Way is flexible because it lets the casino deliver gifting rewards to players however they want, but with options that let the property change the program over time. We structure the program into three different components to make this happen. 

There are three types of Gifting: Traditional Plus, Hybrid, and Ultimate.

Traditional Plus Gifting

With Traditional Plus Gifting, the gifts are sent to the property to be stored and distributed. The gifts are given out to players on the event day, following the casino's own rules. If there's any unused inventory, it can be returned. InfiGifts handles the event in the traditional way, sending the gifts to the property.

Hybrid Gifting

The second option is Hybrid Gifting. Just a few gifts are sent to the casino for distribution, and they're claimed using the gift technology. With this method, players can choose their gift and delivery method.The players can choose to pick up the gift at the casino or have it delivered straight to their home address. The great thing about Hybrid Gifting is that players can choose how they want to receive the gift and what type of gift they want.

In case the player wants something other than what's available at the property, they can use the gift technology to get something else delivered straight to their home address. Hybrid Gifting lets you choose between picking up your gift at the casino or having it delivered to your home. You can also select another gift if you want.

Ultimate

When it comes to Casino Gifting Your Way, if the casino wants to hand out gift cards the old-fashioned way, they can absolutely keep doing that. When the property is ready to give players more gifting options, they can switch to Hybrid Gifting to get the absolute best of both worlds.

Over the past year, Husain and the InfiGifts team have learned that it's important to support both on-property distribution and direct-to-player fulfillment as casinos evolve their programs to a reimagined form of gifting for players.

This program has some huge benefits. Casinos don't have to change what they're doing today. The program basically makes sure that an operator's gifting program will still be up-to-date in the future. If you're already doing on-property distribution, we'll still support you with it.

Casino Gifting Your Way let casinos change their gifting programs at their own pace. The program gives players lots of different gifting options, which basically means they have more choices in any given month. If it's direct, players can claim their gift options in a bunch of different ways, like from the kiosk, the app, the player portal, or through a casino attendant.

We know Casino Gifting Your Way is set up for all levels of players, but it's especially great for large-scale continuity gifting programs with lots of players.

InfiGifts Around the World

Casino Gifting Your Way has already been tested at a number of properties, including Win-River Resort & Casino in Northern California and American Place Casino in Illinois, just north of Chicago.

"We're really excited to see what the future holds," he said. I like to say that InfiGifts is reinventing gifting for casinos. "We're really making it happen, and our competitors are taking notice."

InfiGifts for Players

InfiGifts lets casino staff hand out birthday rewards to players throughout their birthday month or during specific redemption periods. But more importantly, InfiGifts makes players come onto the property to claim their birthday reward, which means you can capture the incremental trip and theoretical play.

Holiday Gifts Holidays are a great way to get players to come in and play at Hotslots for example. With InfiGifts, a casino can give away gifts during specific holiday periods or on a certain day and time. You can also run a limited-time gift promotion to create a sense of urgency and get people to come in and play more.

Shopping sprees are a great way to get players to take more trips to the casino and enjoy some free slots there. You can set up the spending to be time-limited, so players can only spend a certain amount in a set period of time. This means that InfiGifts will get more incremental visits from players in the future. InfiGifts lets casinos run shopping sprees by giving guests a dollar value to spend on gift products they can claim in the app.