Bookmakers use AI to study users
According to the British newspaper The Guardian , sportsbooks would now use artificial intelligence (AI) to study the behaviors of their users in order to predict their consumption habits and be able to design personalized promotions that keep them hooked on the game.
Operators use third-party big data to learn more about their users. ©PixaBay/geralt
It is well known that, for a long time, bookmakers have been using artificial intelligence systems to predict the results of matches and set the odds that best suits them in real time to maximize their profits. However, what we are referring to in this article is the systems that scrutinize the activity and the pages visited , they study and learn from the behaviors of each individual to create personalized promotions for each user, although they can often harm them.
Employees and former employees of the main bookmakers are those who have made these statements to the British newspaper The Guardian. “ The industry is using AI to create a profile of each customer and predict their behavior in a way that becomes frightening”" says Asif, a former employee in the sector. He also points out that "every click is analyzed to maximize profit, not to improve the user experience.”
Every click, transaction and page visited by the user is examined to present him, through platforms such as Facebook and Google, personalized ads and promotions . Let's imagine, for example, that in the last few days someone has been searching the internet for information about two teams that are going to face each other in a match next week; it would then be very likely that this user would receive a special offer to bet on that event.
The worst thing is that, in most cases, the users would have given, without knowing it, their consent to use your data in a way that you are not aware of, due to the length of the terms and conditions. In this way, they are allowing their information to be legally used for these purposes.
Bookmakers use third-party "big data” to tackle ex-players
In August 2017, the same newspaper that now revealed the use of artificial intelligence to attract users revealed that the online gambling industry uses the services of other companies to collect information about users and to be able to define a personalized strategy for each one.
As confirmed by some employees, the use of "big data” is key to the success of these systems . All the messages that users receive are personalized; they are not, at all, a matter of chance and would be, in most cases, focused on people who would be susceptible to developing addiction problems. Under the report on the social perception of gambling in New Zealand , presented by Codere and Carlos III University, this percentage is between 0.5% and 0.7% of the Spanish population.
Once someone registers with an operator, they can do whatever they want with it. [...], they are not random messages, everything is personalized; profiles are built from the collected user data based on the behavior of bettors. – Anonymous employee , digital marketing agent for the gaming industry.
Although top executives boast that they keep their bettors loyal thanks to marketing campaigns, the reality is that advertising is becoming more and more expensive for online operators , and have been faced with the need to look for cheaper alternatives, which has led to the use of data analysis.
Data stores have information about users such as your age, income, possible debts and details about your transactions, which they then share with the operators , which carry out campaigns tailored to each player. Thus, bookmakers can also focus them on a specific profile; for example, someone with children and a former player of casinos or online betting houses.
A very common method used is the so-called dynamic retargeting , which consists of re-capturing former users who, in this case, may have stopped playing or even request to be excluded from the online leisure pages .
