← High Roller Retention

This case study explores how Game Show Network’s GSN Cash Games utilized SQL to analyze the spending habits of high rollers, allowing for the strategic deployment of targeted promotional offers.

  • Using SQL queries, I extracted valuable insights into the spending behaviors of high rollers, including frequency, duration, and average spend.

  • Once we acquired the data from SQL, we created a personalized offer to bring these high rollers back to the GSN Cash Games website.

  • By sending these targeted offers, GSN Cash Games saw a significant increase in high roller engagement and retention, ultimately boosting overall revenue.

A QUICK OVERVIEW: GSN CASINO VS GSN CASH

During my time at Game Show Network (GSN), I was involved in the day-to-day operations of two websites: Casino and Cash. The Casino site operated on a token-based system where users purchased tokens for gameplay, which held no cash value.

GSN Cash, on the other hand, allowed users to load real cash for gameplay, with the ability to withdraw winnings depending on the games played. The games offered on GSN Cash primarily consisted of card games, such as solitaire.

For the purpose of this case study, the focus will be on the work I contributed to the GSN Cash website.

A QUICK REFRESHER

High Rollers: a person who gambles or spends large amounts of money.

Other terms include whale or cheetah.

CONTEXT

GSN Cash had regular players who spent hundreds or even thousands annually.

One customer, at the time I was there, had spent $1.2 million on online games over 8 years.

Note: The above image is a mockup as data was proprietary

 

Analyzing Spend Patterns

Summer months were often slower for both the Cash and Casino website, so the marketing team coordinated on various offerings. For the cash website, we decided to do a targeted promotion to bring back high rollers.

To re-engage high rollers on the cash website, I accessed the last quarterly spend report. Using SQL, I then identified users who had spent a certain threshold over the past few months and had not visited the site recently.

Note: Image is property of Marc Davis

TARGETED PROMOTIONAL OFFERS

The high rollers were each sent an exclusive email offer featuring a cash incentive to encourage their return to the GSN Cash website.

Since this strategy was periodically used, we had a template that could be tailored based on the date or the specific promotional offer.

The email was crafted to resemble a personalized letter rather than a standard promotional offer, aiming to make our VIP users feel uniquely valued.

 

Note: Image is property of ResearchGate

This retention offer proved successful and GSN Cash Games was able to recapture high rollers who continued to play after using their credits.

GSN Casino used this as inspiration to do different token promotions to reengage players on their sites as well.

INCREASED ENGAGEMENT AND RETENTION