AI has been long in the works, and we see the incarnations all around us – Alexa, Boston Dynamics’ dog-like robots, phones, autonomous cars. AI is also beating world-famous players in their own fields; IBM’s Watson beat Jeopardy’s master class of players in 2011. Google’s AlphaGo defeated European Go champion Fan Hui in 2016.
The gambling industry is not far behind. All the top online casino NZ and others are increasingly using AI to predict consumer behavior and using to its advantage. And it’s a suitable candidate as well for the buzzing technologies like AI whose algorithms thrive on data as the industry collects tons of it.
How is AI influencing gambling industry?
Casinos are using AI to study patterns in consumer behavior; every click, page view, and transaction of players are now examined. By scrutinizing players’ betting habits, they can model their future behavior and are pushing specific and targeted ads that are statistically more likely to work through Facebook, Google, and other platforms.
Real-time, interactive user experiences via AI are also helping reduce player churn. AI processes the data in a few seconds and tells the casinos about any user who is planning to quit the game. The casinos can then offer them attractive incentives such as bonuses to entice them to stay in the game and continue betting.
AI-powered slot game machines are increasingly becoming popular around casinos, which help them tackle one of the most common issues – fraud. AI detects the unusual behavior or player activity and makes it easier for casinos to spot the rotten apples. The use of AI in games is also seen as a major driver in taking the luck factor out of the equation and basing the betting outcome on statistics and probability to make the games fairer.
Using AI, casinos are increasingly able to slash their ad spends and marketing budgets as data analysis is faster and the results more accurate. AI is also helping casinos to predict potential profits, so they can devise a plan in advance and attract quality traffic to their sites.
Customer service. When it comes to that, AI is proving to be a real game-changer for the casinos. As the machine has been fed all the player data about gaming, payments, wins, losses, the algorithm will process it much faster and infer from user queries. The result – automated customer support, which is efficient, accurate, and quick. But most of all, it’s human-like. A chatbot that can actually respond like a person by answering questions based on the player profile is truly revolutionizing customer support.
But all these advances also work the other way around in favor of the players. Just as how the statistical models are helping the online industry and offline clubs to formulate better strategies to win more matches, individual bettors and sportsbooks are also using AI to accurately estimate the game’s outcome ahead of time. They just have to feed the algorithm all the required variables – the historical performance of the teams, results of matches, and data on players.
Various new services like SharkScope are coming in the market, which can collect years of poker users’ data and apply machine learning capabilities to help players win consistently and win larger sums. Using AI, players can identify the statistical probability of when is the right time to bet or raise your bet.
And if there is one thing that the gambling industry is never short of – it’s data! The future poker tournaments or even sports are going to be extremely exciting as it’d be AI playing out rival AI, with humans largely behind the scenes and likely holding the puppet strings.
This isn’t all. AI also helps regulators and governments who can join in the fun. With the help of AI used by casinos, regulators can create filters to flag players whose behavior might become problematic or addictive. These players can then be recommended for self-exclusion programs that are a legal requirement in various jurisdictions. The goal of such programs is to provide options for those with potential addiction issues, in order to avoid further problematic gambling. The same sorting technique of AI helps regulators to identify fraudulent money transactions that could be used to finance trafficking, terror or drug syndicates.
Then there are other players like Optima Gaming that are incorporating auditing (ISO-standard) solution within their systems. This is to help casinos flag those players who have addiction issues.
So…
We’re barely scratching the surface with AI. The possibilities are endless. The technology has the potential to take the industry in new directions. It’s already influencing game developers to come out with newer variations to entertain players, and teaching casinos to introduce responsible gaming. AI‘s future looks bright in the gambling industry, that’s for sure!