What’s the Value of a Reactivated Online Gambling Customer?

Online casinos and sports books generally have differing ideas as to how much a new player is worth based on the country or state of origin and the type of gambling that individual is likely to engage in, whether it is on specific casino games or sports wagering.  Even with the later, a football bettor is likely to wager more than a horse gambler over the long haul.    

There is a whole formula in place to establish the value of newbies.  It can be determined by multiplying the casino’s Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) by the average length of time players stay with the casino.  

But so often ignored is the non-active player.  They, too, have value.  By “non-active” we are talking about someone who actually took the time to sign up, deposit funds and place bets but, for one reason or another, is no longer doing so.  And this is where enteractive.com comes in.  

Founded in 2008, Enteractive started with a mission to help iGaming operators build outstanding customer relationships. To talk to the individual that is the already existing customer. Being personal. Having a real conversation.

“We start talking to more and more players,” remarked Enteractive founder Mikael Hansson in an exclusive sit down interview with Gambling911.com.  “(It) Sounds rudimentary but we basically contact players and have anything between, normally, a 2 minute to a 12 minute call talking about what they are interested in.

Hansson points out that occasionally these calls can last longer based on a customer’s engagement.   

“We do this on scale, 25,000 outreach a day….actual tries.  You will not get a hold of all people.  3.5 thousand per day there is an actual conversation.  That this is not possible without our state of the art IT platform the Reactivation Cloud which we have developed over the last 6 years which orchestrates all this in an optimal way.

“It is obviously not possible to do this large scale without tailor made technology since there is so much to handle these days in terms of opt out settings, do not call registrars, GDPR, responsible gaming etc so for us our own Reactivation Cloud Software has been a game changer here and what has given us the possibility to grow so fast with improved quality and compliance.”

Mikael Hansson (pictured)

And once a customer is reached, that’s when the approach comes into play. 

“We ask questions such as ‘What do you bet on now?’,  ‘If you would come back to us?’,  ‘What can we do better?’” 

The “we” is the company an individual has previously joined.  Enteractive over the years has worked closely with Betsson and other European online gambling firms.  Enteractive does NOT make unsolicited calls using numbers obtained from the purchase of databases.  They act as third party representatives of companies the individual has already signed up with and they only call if given explicit permission to do so. 

Few, if any, companies ever considered doing this.  After all, the mindset has always been that the dormant accounts are those held by bonus seekers moving on to another site for the freebies or folks not really serious about gambling over the long haul.  

Hansson has proven that’s simply not true. 

“We actually put dollars on a reactivated player’s worth by studying  159,000 customers over 6 years across 20 different brands,” Hansson tells us.

“A reactivation return player on average we looked at how long that customer has not been playing. Over 6 months not playing up to 18 months.  What we see is that the average life time value for players over this study, which was carried out over a six year span.”

Keep in mind that not all 159,000 observed customers were playing throughout this time.  

“We started analyzing on January 1, 2016.  Over several years - $1200 on average is the value of a CHURNED player….not a new player.”  Again, this is someone who has stopped playing and whose account remains dormant for a period of time, typically six months or more.  “This is from an average European player.  And this number is as much as $1700 in some European countries.  This number even includes recent regulations and Covid restrictions.”

These are surprising numbers as the attitude has been that such customers who stopped playing will NOT be worth much. 

“I want to show the industry that taking care of your players and talking to them is actually profitable, it is worth something.  I am pretty excited that we have been able to show this over the years.  Over the last three, four, five years we are big enough to show we can validate these numbers.” 

And soon Hansson will get to demonstrate this to a new market as his company looks to enter the US.

Enteractive is in the process of setting up a US office in South Florida.

“I think this industry should understand that taking care of players is very long term customer sustainability and loyalty.  We know the numbers.  If we take care of customers in good way, some 12% will stay for long term.  This is our aim.”

- Chris Costigan, gambling911.com Publisher