Increasing average deposit values

In June, safe gambling charity, Gambling Aware, revealed that just 10% of UK gambling accounts are responsible for a whopping 79% of the British Gross Gambling Yield.

For operators, it’s never a bad thing to be raking in the profit from high rollers. But with 79% of this all coming from just 10% of players, the question on everyone’s lips is: how can we increase the average deposit value from the other players?

Suggest a higher default value to your customers. This is so effective due to the principle of cognitive load, which is a measure of how much mental effort we need to put into completing a certain task. Unclear, UI, having to do mental maths a lot of new information and especially decision making weighs in on our cognitive strain when trying to complete any process. The reason the human brain is so compelled to go with the defaults is the fact that changing the value will require the user to go through the whole decision making process again, including weighing pros and cons, checking the minimum and maximum deposits amounts, and even typing the numbers to the deposit box from scratch. It seems like those decisions are so minuscule that they should make no noticeable change to the outcome of the deposit process, yet we can never underestimate how reluctant our brain is to add any additional cognitive strain at any given time. 

It’s always important to define your value proposition, so that when a player lands on the deposit page, they know exactly what to expect from you. By adding gamification, you’re doing exactly that! By engaging them with pre-registration minigames, you’re showing them a taste of what they’ll experience fully when they sign up to the website - the addition of pre registration gamification tactics using minigames makes it crystal clear what the user will get in return when they sign up.

Reducing friction on the registration process is a key way to optimise first-time deposit conversion. Use form design best practices to improve the user experience and encourage users to open an account. For gambling sites there are also some unique challenges due to the nature of regulations. This is often given as a reason why registration forms on gambling sites are so poor. This is just an excuse as regulations don’t prevent companies from improving their account opening process.

In iGaming, it’s important to be aware of average first time deposit values. Many companies can often use the average value of a first time deposit as a KPI. Obviously, this may be handy in some circumstances, but with such variation between each type of customer, there really is no such thing as an ‘average’ player - as it can be skewed by a small number of VIP players who deposit very large amounts.

Instead, you should optimise your website for the lower value players that you have more of - and segment your players to be able to market to them effectively to keep them warm and give them reasons to keep coming back.  

Despite this data many gambling companies pay too much attention to VIP players because they often generate a high proportion of gross gambling revenues. However, what managers often fail to appreciate is that VIPs are survivors of a process and they are not a fixed pool of players. They are a fluid group and players are constantly moving between different value segments. For this reason it is important not to optimise a site for VIPs. Instead companies should seek to use personalisation to target different customer segments and avoid being obsessed with VIP players.

A great user experience gives a remarkable boost to the overall performance of a gaming platform. When players feel that they are using a premium website or app, they are more inclined to engage with the platform. A smooth UI enables the deposit process to remain simple, therefore pushing players to make their first time deposits easily.

If possible, if you’re able to display personalised content based on the behaviour, this will help to boost first-time depositors’ engagement and conversion rate. The last and mostly played games can be anchored on the wall to pull the players’ attention immediately.

Don’t forget your CTAs! They urge players to take specific actions on your website. Personalised CTAs can promote relevant bonuses at the right time. Operators can use deposit callouts, and smart deposit presents to help improve their first deposit rate and deposit frequency.

The preferences of players are challenging to foresee and subject to change. Under such circumstances, it is imperative to understand player behaviour with the help of AI. Suitable games, bets and content can be made viable upon implementing those learnings. You can easily ensure deposits from said players based on their movement on your website. 

Influence the players’ purchase decisions by deploying customised deposits that are prone to expiration within a certain time frame. This will create value in the players eyes and push them to take action more quickly. Increase demand by reducing time to promote exclusive offers because people understand the actual value only when it comes with an expiry.

Maximise the players' time on your platform, engage target players with personalised and relevant content around the clock. Constantly recommend new games that they might be interested in, make them feel at home and unique to increase their playing time and therefore increase potential deposit amount. Particularly if they have been playing pre-registration minigames! 

By integrating with a variety of different payment gateways, you’re more likely to reduce friction during registration and deposit process - which will substantially increase FTDs. Additionally, if a player is confident with a platform, it increases the likelihood that they will place a larger deposit. Generally, the faster and easier a payment process is, the more willing players are to deposit more money to the casino.

Withdrawal time is also important when it comes to impacting FTDs. In this day and age where everything is instant, players also want their winnings as fast as possible too - they don’t want to wait for them.

Besides lowering the wagering requirement, operators should offer a wider range of games to their customers. Many players aren’t interested in depositing if they can’t play their favourite games with a bonus. It’s also worth noting that some players don’t want to claim a bonus if they can’t choose their bet size. When casinos remove betting limits, we see a substantial increase in conversions consistently.

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