Inside Asian Gaming

IAG AUG 2020年8月 亞博匯 43 D uring a balmy Sunday afternoon last August, Zhang Wei, a paunchy middle- aged punter from Guangzhou, travelled to Macau for his monthly afternoon of baccarat and dim sum. Within 40 minutes of crossing the border he had boarded a shuttle bus to his favorite property, redeemed an offer for HK$1,000 in free-play and settled in front of a table with a promising trend – a ritual which is both mindless and filled with excitement. Mr Wei epitomizes the stickiness casino patrons feel for their preferred property, which makes market share gains tedious and time consuming. We estimate that only one in five players in Macau are loyal and regular visitors to a given property, but those loyal players can contribute between 60% and 80% of revenues. This statistic is consistent globally. The forced closure of casinos during the COVID-19 pandemic is both a short-term revenue risk and a unique opportunity to gain market share while players, like Mr Wei, are out of their typical visitation pattern. There is, of course, a yawning gap between knowing this is an opportunity and doing something about it. In better times we could have simply juiced up offers and hoped for the best, knowing that a handful of great players would subsidize a lot of inefficiency. In a post- COVID world, marketers may need to be more efficient. We think operators can reduce reinvestment while gaining market share by getting more strategic and segmented in their thinking and leveraging analytics more deeply. To do this, we think operators need to rethink their marketing in at least three ways: consolidate patrons who are loyal elsewhere, reactivate patrons who are defectors and reinvest with clear behavioral objectives. To illustrate the analytics behind these strategies, consider two fictitious patrons – one loyal and one promiscuous. See Exhibit 1 for a numerical illustration of these two patrons. 去 年八月一個天氣溫暖宜人的週日下午，一 位來自廣州名叫魏漳的中年賭客，拖著肥 胖的身軀前往澳門，他每月必會花一個下 午在澳門吃點心及賭博百家樂。出境後40 分鐘之內，他登上了前往心宜賭場的發財 巴，免費兌換了港元1000元以進行賭博，並選擇了一張他看似 能夠掌握趨勢的賭枱上玩樂，當然這過程既是愚昧但又充滿驚 喜。 魏漳正好說明了一位賭客對心宜賭場的忠誠度，令賭場可 搶佔市場份額，但過程實在是乏味且耗時。我們估計，在澳門只 有五分之一的賭客時常到訪同一賭場並抱有忠誠度，但這些賭 客通常為賭場貢獻收入的60％至80％，而這數據在全球各地大 致相同。 在新冠肺炎疫情期間，賭場被迫停業，令像魏漳的賭客無 法定時出行玩樂，雖然為賭場構成短期收益風險，但亦提供了搶 佔市場份額的獨特機遇。 當然，知道這是機遇的存在與為此有所作為，兩者之間存在巨 大的鴻溝。若情況理想許可，我們可以簡單地加大推廣配套，希望 藉此帶來理想的成績，因為只要能夠吸引少數的忠誠賭客，便可彌 補推廣的低下效率。但在後疫情時代，市場推廣員需提升效率。 我們認為賭場營運商可通過更深入細心的策略思維以及更 深入的數據分析，減少再投資的同時，搶佔市場份額。為此，我們 認為營運商至少需要重新思考其推廣策略，大致可分為三方面： 鞏固到處去的賭客、重新吸引已背叛遠離的賭客，以及在訂下明 確的行為目標後進行再投資。 要清楚分析這些策略，請虛構以下兩位賭客，一位是忠誠賭 客，另一位是到處去的賭客。就這兩位虛構賭客的數據，請參見圖 表一。 專欄