For online gambling operators looking to increase revenue, marketing to new players is instinctual. Fighting to keep existing players, and reviving lost customers, might be a more profitable tactic though. At the ASEAN Gaming Summit 2019, Alex Czajkowski, chief marketing officer for RTG Asia, and Yair Gal Ezer, head of operations for the GVC group, led a roundtable discussing how automation of customer relationship management (CRM) can fight this battle.

The first key step is to understand how churn works. The term means when existing customers begin to lose interest in a site, and ultimately stop playing. A player goes through four phases of churn: active, deciding, declining and dead.

Each stage of the lifecycle has tell-tale signs and potential pitfalls, and the two speakers had dozens of tips of how to capitalize on each. Active players could potentially become deciding players due to several headaches, like running out of funds, quick bust outs, poor experiences, and difficulties with the website.

These can be addressed by some common sense, but not always simple, solutions. Automation can help with proactive chat bots that key in on potentially negative experiences, like quick bust outs and forgotten passwords. Things as simple as a “low fuel” indicator, that provides easy deposit options when a player is low on funds, could remove the negative experience of busting out for a player.

On March 27, New Silkroad Culturaltainment Ltd announced that they had grossed a profit of over $8 million for 2018. The Hong Kong based company had suffered a loss for the year 2017, losing HKD70.99 million. Instead, total revenue rose 55.9 percent to a total of HKD460.76 million, surpassing the 2017 total of HKD295.49 million.

The company reaped profits from its three main sources of revenue, the MegaLuck Casino, wine sales and distribution, and their new internet-based peer-to-peer financing platform known as Niiwoo Financial. Promotions appear to have been the primary factor in the increase in revenue, explained the company in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. They wrote:

“With effective promotion campaigns implemented, our casino saw the growth of the VIP gaming market. Gaming revenue, which represented approximately 22.5 percent of the group’s revenue, grew by 11.9 percent to approximately HKD103.6 million.”

On March 18, New Silkroad Culturaltainment announced that the governor of Jeju Island, an island located off the coast of South Korea, had granted permission for the company to begin development of the Glorious Hill Casino Resort. This permission will allow for a grand expansion of their casino operations on the island, including the building of five-star hotels, shops and stores, health care facilities, a theme park, and golf course as well as other entertainment venues. Of course, a large scale casino expansion will also be included in the development.

It took close to a year, but the merger between Dover Downs Gaming & Entertainment (DDGE) and Rhode Island-based Twin River Worldwide Holdings has finally been consummated. The two entities initiated discussions on a possible deal last July and a special shareholder meeting for DDGE was scheduled for this month in order to give those shareholders a vote on the merger. That vote took place this past Tuesday, and everything is full steam ahead.

The final signing of the merger will take place today. There was overwhelming support for the deal, according to a joint press release from the two companies, and over 99% of “votes cast were in favor of the merger.” After the deal is signed today, Twin River will become the parent company to the Dover Downs Hotel & Casino in Dover, Delaware.

DDGE is currently traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange. Upon completion of the merger, it will be delisted from the exchange and Twin River will go public under the ticker symbol TRWH. The new entity should be listed as soon as tomorrow if the merger signing stay on schedule.

Twin River will gain important expansion of its presence in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region through the Dover Downs property. That venue now operates almost 2,200 slot machines and a plethora of table games, and recently added a sportsbook that allows single-game wagers on professional and collegiate sports competitions.

Japan continues to move forward with its strategic development of the necessary framework to govern integrated resorts (IR) in the country. The government has already implemented a number of policies for the operations and the Cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has just signed off on a number of new IR regulations.

The 24-member Cabinet approved several commercial gaming proposals this week, the details of which had already been made public through members of the Cabinet. Receiving an official approval solidifies more the country’s IR industry and will go a long way toward opening the IR market.

In the initial round of government approvals, three IRs will be allowed. The process of selection of both the locations and the gaming partners has not yet begun, but many expect to see the first resort in 2024 or 2025. Financial analysts had that it’s possible Japan will rise quickly as one of the richest casino markets and could become second only to Macau.

Abe mentioned this past Tuesday that the government wants to see resorts that are of “unprecedentedly large scale and high quality.” To that end, among other things, the regulations stipulate, “The casino’s accompanying hotel must be at least 100,000 square meters, or roughly 1.1 million square feet. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the average size of a guestroom in the US is 325 square feet. At that rate, each integrated resort in Japan should be expected to have more than 3,300 rooms.”

The owner of two major sports organizations, the Washington Wizards and the Washington Capitals, has confirmed that the arena they both call home is going to get a sportsbook. Ted Leonsis made the revelation last night and, if things move forward, the Washington, D.C.-based stadium could become the first in the country to see sports gambling operations.

The stadium, Capital One Arena, is home to The Greene Turtle sports bar. That bar, located on the bottom floor of the arena building, was purchased by Monumental Sports & Entertainment, a company owned by Leonsis, earlier this month. The deal saw Monumental pay for the remaining three years of The Greene Turtle’s lease.

There have been rumors that Leonsis wanted to add a sportsbook to the stadium, but those were not confirmed until now. Leonsis stated while participating in a Sports Betting Executive Summit organized by the American Gaming Association, “There will be a sportsbook inside the building accessible from the outside and depending on the league and depending on the event, it might be accessible from the inside as well.

Leonsis has invested heavily into the gambling industry. He has holdings with DraftKings, SportRadar, WinView and others and understands that the success he may – or may not – have with the Capital One sportsbook could have implications for other similar sportsbooks around the country.

Arkansas has seen its share of racinos, gambling on certain types of animal races, but it never could see clear to authorize casinos. Despite multiple attempts over the years, all casino bills failed at one point or another, but that is now changing. As of this Monday, Arkansas will officially be home to two casinos.

The Arkansas Racing Commission (ARC) authorized last week full casino licenses to two venues in the state. The first is Southland Park Gaming and Racing in South Memphis and the second is Oaklawn Racing and Gaming in Hot Springs. The former offers dog races, while the latter offers horse races.

Arkansas voters approved a measure last November that authorized the casinos. Issue 4 on the November ballot sought to amend the state’s constitution to allow expanded gambling, and it passed with only a little resistance.

As of April 1, the two racinos can offer a variety of gambling options – blackjack, Mississippi stud, craps, roulette and more. Both venues have stated that they hope to have everything up and running by the end of the summer, and that they will offer poker and sportsbooks, which were also authorized through Issue 4.

2019 might not be as spectacular for Melco Resorts and Entertainment as was 2018, but it should still be a good year. This is according to the company’s chairman and CEO, who issued a statement yesterday during a company event, Melco Women’s Forum. He indicated that Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR) will see “decent growth” this year and that Melco should experience an uptick, as well.

Ho acknowledged that the GGR growth of last year was a little abnormal, stating, “Look, it is not going to be as great as 2018 – 2018 blew everybody’s expectation at a 14-percent growth.” The Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau had indicated that full-year GGR last year reached almost $37.57 billion.

So far in 2019, there has been a little dip in Macau’s aggregate GGR. This comes in spite of a 4.4% uptick in February that resulted from an active Chinese New Year holiday period.

Ho added, “For us as a company, Melco, we care more about the underlying cash flow and EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation], and I think the quality of the cash flow is better now then it’s ever been.” He identified premium-mass and mass segments as being the most likely catalysts for any improvement.

Finland has been trying to clean up the country’s gambling industry, introducing new regulations to help oversee gambling activities. According to a recent survey, though, those efforts may not be enough and lawmakers, as well as gambling operators, need to get more involved in order to protect Finnish gamblers.

Over the past couple of years, gambling addiction and problem gambling in Finland has continued to rise, according to the survey, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. The ministry had sought to determine how merging the three state-run gambling operators into one entity had impacted gambling and gamblers. The study was ultimately conducted by the Institute for Health and Welfare in conjunction with Helsinki University, Statistic Finland and Peliklinikka, a problem gambling prevention organization.

The survey saw participation from around 2,600 Finnish citizens aged 18 and older. Yle, a Finnish media outlet, points out that problem gambling among males has declined over the past several years, but gambling addiction and problem gambling has become more severe.

In 2017, Veikkaus was running the country’s national lottery. It merged with gaming machine operator RAY and horse betting operator Fintoto that year, ostensibly to provide better oversight of gambling activity in Finland and to reduce the instances of excessive gambling.

Kazuo Okada is starting to see some redemption in his fight with Tiger Resort, Leisure and Entertainment Inc. (TRLEI), the promoter of Okada Manila and his former company. Calvinayre.com has learned the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office has thrown out perjury accusations against the tycoon for reasons of “lack of sufficient evidence and merit.”

Okada was originally accused of perjury by attorney Kenji Sugiyama, representing Tiger Resorts. That was based on two contradictory claims in a complaint filed by Okada, in which he said that he never lost majority ownership of Okada Holdings Limited, Universal Entertainment Corporation, Tiger Resort Asia Limited and TRLEI, but also claimed to have regained ownership of the companies.

Although true that the comments are contradictory, it’s pretty obvious he wasn’t attempting to mislead the court. The prosecutor’s office felt that way too, and in their 12-page resolution, Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Francisco Salomon said:

“A conviction of perjury cannot be sustained merely upon the contradictory sworn statements of the accused…The prosecution must prove which of the two statements is false and must show the statement to be false by other evidence than the contradicting statement.”