The Predictive Casino

Andrew Pearson

The Predictive Casino is a casino that utilizes the latest technological developments to connect with its customers to deliver an exceptional personalized experience to each and every one of its patrons. Today, technology such as AI, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, IoT, Real-time stream processing, social media, and wearables are altering the Customer Experience (CX) landscape and casino operators need to jump aboard this fast moving technology or run the risk of being left out in the cold. The Predictive Casino reveals how these and other technologies can help shape the customer journey. The book details how the five types of analytics—descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, and edge analytics—affect not only the customer journey, but also just about every operating function of the casino. Facial recognition technology can spot a customer stepping onto a casino bus at the Macau/China border and that set off alerts that can notify a host on the floor, a restaurant manager, a dealer, or even the hotel’s GM should the player be a high-end VIP. A whole other sequence of events gets triggered as the player’s favorite table is prepared, his favorite, and his or her Theo gets added to a real-time table games revenue management model that takes into account his personal play. Labor needs are also considered and alerts can be sent to the required or unneeded staff. An IoT connected casino can make its operations smart. Connected devices can help with inventory optimization, supply chain management, labor management, waste management, as well as keep its data centers green and its energy use smart. Social media is no longer a vanity platform, but rather a place to both connect with current customers as well as court new ones. It is also a powerful branding channel that can be utilized to both understand a casino's position in the market, as well as a place to benchmark its position against its competitors. Today, technology moves at break-neck speed and it can offer the potential of anticipatory capabilities, but it also comes with a confusing variety of technology and technological terms--Big Data, Cognitive Computing, CX, Data Lakes, Hadoop, Kafka, Personalization, Spark, etc., etc. The Predictive Casino will help make sense of it all, so that a casino executive can cut through the confusing technological jargon and understand why a Spark-based real-time stream processing data stream might be preferable over a TIBCO one, or an IBM one. This book will help casino executives break through the technological clutter so that they can deliver an unrivaled customer experience to each and every patron coming through their doors.