Full House: Engaging Today's Player in Canadian Casinos

At Ipsos, our Lottery and Gaming practice studies the habits, attitudes and desires of Canada's gaming population. We ask them what they are looking for in casino entertainment, what their expectations are, what they do inside the casino, how much they spend and how they rate the entire experience. In 2013, we fielded a study on the attitudes and behaviours of Canadian casino visitors to take a clear measure of the market in this country and to uncover opportunities to help casino operators better identify gaps in services with ways to improve their offer.

And once again, we repeated the study this year, allowing us to assess whether the efforts being made by casinos to boost engagement are working. We're pleased to present some of our findings here.

INSIDE CANADA'S CASINOS

We wanted to get a look at the kind of people who frequent casinos, how often they go and what they do once they pass through the doors. Over the past year we surveyed 1,000 casino goers across Canada and asked them about their activities and interests in casinos. Respondents had to have made one or more visits to a casino in the past year to be eligible for the survey.

When we conducted this study in 2013, we found that on average, visitors who visited a casino in the past month did so twice. Looking at this year's data, these levels of visitation remain stable. When it comes to visits per year, the regular casino visitor increased ever so slightly from 5.5 to 6.2 visits. Most casino visits are infrequent, with half visiting only one to two times per year. More than one in five visit monthly or more often.

These numbers indicate that casinos are successfully expanding their player base. In order to maintain this traffic, casinos need to continue with their advertising efforts and continue to tailor their offering to customers' needs.

PLAYING THEIR CARDS RIGHT

As would be expected, people primarily visit a casino to play games. Of the gambling activities played, slots continue to dominate as the most popular. However, overall participation is decreasing. In 2013 almost half (49%) played slots always, but that number drops to almost two in five (38 per cent) in 2015. This is likely a symptom of a growing younger cohort, one that prefers games that offer social interaction. Following slots, buying lottery tickets, VLTs, and playing card games like blackjack and poker lead in popularity.

When it comes to most gambling, Canadians are partaking in more activities. This is especially the case for table games, poker and blackjack. Again, this is a positive trend for casinos as it suggests an increased enthusiasm among the younger demographic. As the typical player profile of these games tends to skew towards those of younger ages, social features may be an appealing draw.

To continue this upward trend, casinos should include gambling activities that involve more social interaction and group play in their offering. It could also be beneficial to include more gambling activities integrated with digital technologies for innovative gameplay.

For detailed charts and the full article, please click here.