You’ve heard about Artificial Intelligence but can it really be used in the casino business? After all, doesn’t the casino already have a house edge?

However, even before the pandemic, major casinos which cost millions of dollars to operate were experiencing stiff competition. Several casinos in Atlantic City were closed, and many Las Vegas casinos were on a tight financial rope.

Now that the pandemic has happened, and casinos throughout both Europe and the US are facing fiscal challenges, many casino operators are looking to Artificial Intelligence to ensure the casino remains in the black.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science that uses computers to accomplish tasks that would normally require human intelligence.

Of course, when we talk about computers accomplishing tasks that mimic human intelligence, we’re not talking about simple tasks like exchanging 5 dimes and two quarters to make a dollar’s worth of change, or a vending machine sending 20 cents in change after you buy a bag of peanuts.

No, Artificial Intelligence is used in manufacturing robots, creating smart chat boxes for websites, and operating as a virtual travel assistant, and a thousand other tasks.

So how are casinos using Artificial Intelligence?

One thing is for sure and that is the gambling games will remain the same. Playing blackjack will still be playing blackjack. New Zealand casinos pokies will still be the one-armed bandits they have always been, with of course some progress in technology that comes with time.

However, one of the cardinal rules of casino managers is that it is significantly easier and more profitable to target a return gambler than it is to court a never seen before gambler.

What’s the solution? Artificial Intelligence to the rescue.

The single biggest use of Artificial Intelligence is to provide a database of players, what their preferred method of gambling is, the amount of money they spend on various games as well as how much time they spend in casino gambling.

Naysayers will say that is impossible to do but remember, there are eyes in the sky everywhere at physical casinos. By using artificial intelligence to survey casino security footage, plus information used on casino player cards, casinos have more information than ever before.

Using AI tools such as predictive analysis, the casino’s marketing department is more armed than ever before.

The object, of course, is to be able to analyze who are the most valuable players to the casino. And while a lot of popular lore centers on ways that the casino attracts high-value “whales” to gamble at the casino, the AI focus is on the more affluent younger generation.

Why is younger better?

One thing learned from the pandemic is that older gamblers are fickle while younger gamblers in their mid-20s to 30s are easier to attract.

For the next few years at least, casino managers have decided that younger gamblers are their bread and butter.

Using Artificial Intelligence, marketing departments are very eager to attract these younger gamblers for a return trip. In addition, the major players in the casino staff are paying attention to what facilities and shows attract the younger crowd.

Customer service is greatly improved where AI is involved and is very useful in areas such as nearly instantaneous check-in to avoid long 2-hour waits.

Security

Security is also greatly enhanced using Artificial Intelligence.

The use of facial recognition prevents gamblers who have been banned by the casino for activities such as card-counting at Blackjack from returning, and potential trouble makers are also screened out.

Conclusion

It seems that Artificial Intelligence is going to be a big part of everyone’s lives, and casinos are no exception. AI can be very useful not only for the casino but to provide a better experience for the player.

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Have you ever thought about an AI-based machine playing poker with you? If your imagination has gone that wild then Facebook is all set to make it a reality with its new general AI framework called Recursive Belief-based Learning (ReBeL) that can even perform better than humans in poker and with little domain knowledge as compared to the previous poker setups made with AI.

With ReBel, Facebook is also going for multi-agent interactions – which means that the general algorithms will soon have the capacity to be deployed on a large scale and for multi-agent settings as well. The potential applications include workings like auction, negotiations, and cybersecurity or the operation of self-driving cars and trucks.

Facebook’s plan of combining reinforcement learning with search for AI model training can lead to some remarkable advancements. This is because Reinforcement Learning is based on agents learning to achieve goals in order to maximize rewards whereas search is basically defined as a process that starts from the plan to the stage of setting the goal.

One such example is of Deepmind’s Alpha Zero that is based on a similar program to deliver state-of-the-art performance in board games like chess, shogi, and Go. However, the combination falls short when it is being applied for games like poker because of imperfect information that can arise as a result of how the situation in the game changes. Actions then take help from probability or the playing strategy.

Hence, proposing a solution to the problem in the form of ReBel, Facebook researchers have now expanded the notion of “game state” while including the agent’s belief which relies on the state they are in while playing – counting the common knowledge and policies of other players as well.

When working, ReBel trains two AI models; one is of a value network and the other is of policy network. There is reinforcement learning happening with search during the self-play which eventually has resulted into a flexible algorithm that now holds the potential to beat human players.

For a high level, ReBel operates with public belief states rather than going for world states. If that has surprised you then public belief states are there to generalize the notion of “state value” in games with imperfect information like Poker. PBS is also more often regarded as a common-knowledge probability distribution over a limited arrangement of possible actions and states, which we sometimes call history as well.

Now in perfect-information games, PBS can be distilled down to histories just like the way it distills down to world states in two-player zero-sum games. Not to forget that a PBS is actually the decisions that a player can and also the outcomes of the possibilities on one hand.

As soon as ReBel starts to work for every new game, it creates a “subgame” in the beginning which is very much similar to the original one, except for the fact that its roots go back to the initial PBS. The algorithm actually wins by repeating the runtime of “equilibrium-finding” algorithm and then take advantage of the trained value network to create estimates on every stage of the iteration. Furthermore, with enforcement learning, the values come out easily and then added back to the network as training examples. The policies in the “subgame” are also added as examples. The process continues to repeat itself until PBS becomes the new subgame root and completes a certain accuracy threshold.

The researchers also benchmarked ReBel, as a part of the experiment, for games of heads-up no-limit Texas hold’em poker, Liar’s Dice, and turn endgame hold’em. They used 128 PCs with eight graphic cards only to generate the stimulated game data and of course place random bets and stack sizes (ranging from 5000 to 25000 chips) to test its abilities.

ReBel was also trained on a game with one of the best heads up poker players in the world Don Kim and the results turned out to be ReBel playing faster than two seconds per hand across 7,500 hands and how it didn’t take more than 5 seconds for any decision. Overall ReBel scored 165 thousandths – which is a pretty good result when compared to the previous poker playing system by the social media giant Libratus that resulted in 147 thousandths.

To prevent cheating, Facebook has decided that they will not release ReBel’s codebase for Poker. The company only open-sourced Liar Dice’s implementation, which according to researchers is easier to understand and adjust.

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It would almost seem like there are no businesses that experience rapid growth as much as online casinos and gaming industries. The gaming industry’s alienated overnight growth has turned it into a very lucrative delight for many entrepreneurs who want off the chart returns on their capitals. The big question to this magical growth would be; how do they do it?

One invaluable tool used by the online casino industry in accomplishing such astounding growth is the big data analytics for effective marketing as well as quick payment processing. It’s a way gaming industries evaluate their customer’s gaming needs and provide the solution to it. However, it really might not be that plain as black on white paper. It is all blurry without revealing the dynamics of how they get it done precisely! How do online gaming industry use big data analytics to grow? It starts from understanding online casino players’ behaviors, how revenues are generated from circumventing around their needs and also help reshape your future expectancy from the industry.

Collating data online

Data is one thing online casino players readily give, right from first visits, registrations to withdrawing their winnings with according payment methods they player chose to use. No need for secret hackers sitting in a dark room and closely watching your online records! That’s just a mere fantasy.

Gaming industries are government regulated; hence they collect track record and internet trails legitimately using already available sources for such information. iGaming companies collect these data the same way every other online business collects it; by tracking your online history and monitoring online activity.

Immediately you register with any online gaming industry you have added to their data points, which helps in profiling players for a specific website or service. Vital personal information such as location, age, gender, etc. are great tools for providing targeted services and marketing – one of the drives behind the industry’s growth.

How are big data used?

Notably, the viable justification for collecting these data is to repurpose marketing campaigns and target them towards the right set of customers. Data help to determine popular games and also games that hinge towards extinctions. Having such valuable data gives any gaming and gambling services business hint to what games need more marketing and exposure than others.  Some of the focused uses of data analysis are;

Creating Personalized Gaming Experience

Beyond creating a focused campaign for their advertisement, one of the premium use for data analytics is to create a gaming experience that is seemingly custom for each gamer.  The gambling industry understands that its customer’s loyalty is solely dependent on the individual gaming experience. Using big data analytics, they could certify which of their bonuses and promotions get each customer’s attention. They can also accurately state the game that holds more attention and the info-graphics, which is useful in hypnotizing their customers.

Improved Gaming and payment experience

Intending to achieve the utmost result by providing personified gaming experience, the gambling industry major players are employing big data analytics to create intriguing gaming designs and also for providing better odds for consumers.

Giving the whole gaming experience similar to the once you would get only in typical real-life casinos to their players is now a realistic goal for an online gaming company.

Due to the necessity of financial backing for creating the tailored gaming experience for each gamer, not all iGaming companies can get it right. In addition to offering a generous range of games also giving the player plenty of options regarding financial transactions I a key factor, as in the end of the day gamers come to win and take their money home. Still, those that do get it right have the majority of the consumers’ attention as compensation, with big data a great tool.

Players can also use big data analytics

Many casinos that use data analytics and enhanced technology significantly focus on consumers and make every player believe the gambling is all good and that nothing is worse than missing out. The gaming industry knows that; the effective way of getting more customers is by offering bigger jackpots, better odds, and adding more competition.

The player naturally gets pulled towards gaming sites with better odds. In all of these, the experienced casino players also make good use of data analytics; a trait is widespread with poker players. PokerTracker is one of the readily available sites for getting hold of poker game statistics worldwide and using it to get the deal and improve your chances.

Final Thoughts

There you have it!  The right way to leverage big data analytics if you are interested in owning a gaming industry. Alternatively, if you are a gamer, then you know why your favorite games keep popping up to lure you in. It is a supply and demand chain; everybody gets what they want.

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CasinoBeats Malta Digital’s Future of Gaming track will see some of the leading lights of the igaming industry share their ideas about the next major developments in online casino, slots and poker, and how they will impact on both players and operators.

The virtual conference and exhibition takes place on 30 June – 2 July 2020, with the Future of Gaming content staged over the final two days and accompanied by a programme of themed networking events. 

Highlights of the track include the Leaders Panels that will open each day. On Wednesday, a session sponsored by ICS Digital will examine how operators adapted to the COVID-19 crisis and what opportunities emerged during the changed market conditions of recent months. Speakers include Mårten Forste (COO, LeoVegas) Petra Zackrisson (CCDO, Betano Stoiximan), Americo Loureiro (Director, Solverde) and Shelly Suter-Hadad (CEO, Casumo), with William Scott (Director, Warrenside) handling moderator’s duties. 

Thursday’s panel features a group of high-profile executives offering their insights on how to tackle the major challenges facing the gaming industry today and where the best long-term opportunities may lie. It features Pontus Lindwall (CEO & Founder, Betsson), Jesper Karrbrink (Chairman, Green Jade Games), Ariel Reem (CEO, Genesis Global) and Alexander Martin (CEO, SKS365), with Dinos Stranomitis (COO, Alternar) in the moderator’s chair. 

Stewart Darkin, Managing Director of CasinoBeats, said: “The gaming industry is evolving rapidly to keep pace with constantly changing player tastes and technological advances, and it can be difficult to stay up to date with all the latest developments.

“The high-level speakers on the Future of Gaming track will help CasinoBeats Malta Digital delegates to stay one step ahead, by sharing expert insights on the direction of the industry from the perspectives of major operators, games developers, platform suppliers and leading affiliates.” 

Other sessions on Wednesday include the Affiliate Leaders Panel sponsored by Intertops. It will see Fintan Costello (Managing Director, Bonusfinder.com) moderate a panel of Tobias Svensen (CEO, CasinoGrounds), Jonathan Edelshaim (CEO, Natural Intelligence), Hamish Brown (VP Casino, Catena Media) and Marcos Oliveira (Chief Affiliate Officer, Clever Advertising Group) as they examine how the changing regulatory climate will alter the way affiliates operate. 

The growing importance of casino platforms to the industry will be in the spotlight during the Platforms & Aggregators panel. Melvin Ritsema (MD, Royal Panda), Rui Pena (COO & Co-Founder, Darwin Interactive) and Stian Hornsletten, CCO of session sponsor EveryMatrix, will assess what the platforms’ influence on the market means for both games studios and operators. 

Concluding the Future of Gaming content for 1 July is Live Casino: At A Crossroads, which is sponsored by Pragmatic Play. A panel consisting of Jeremy Taylor (MD, Genting Online), Christos Mavridis (Live Casino Mgr, Stoiximan / Betano), Sam Brown (CCO, Hero Gaming) and Stefania Mincu (Head of Casino, Ellmount Interactive) will consider how the sector can develop new game concepts, cross sell to slots players and stay up to date emerging technologies. 

On Thursday, attention switches to Gamification, its future role in the online casino industry and whether it is of real value to operators. The panel features Ross Parkhill (MD, Rhino Entertainment), Andy Braithwaite (CCO, Scatters), Uri Admon (CEO, Captain Up) and David Flynn (CEO, Swintt), with Karolina Pelc (Strategic Advisor, Basic Strategy) chairing the discussion.

The resurgent Online Poker sector is the next part of the gaming ecosystem to face scrutiny, as Manuel Lopes (CEO, Pokio/Qufan Technology), Sergii Romanenko (COO, Pokerok) and Ivonne Montealegre (Event Director, Malta Poker Festival) look at how the game can sustain its popularity and become a profitable long-term proposition for operators. 

Concluding the track is Acquisition & Personalisation, which sees a panel including Assaf Stieglitz (Founder, Odds1x2.com) and Tal Itzhak Ron (Chairman & CEO, Tal Ron, Drihem & Co) outline the next generation of strategies for attracting and then optimising the lifetime value of players. 

The CasinoBeats Malta Digital agenda also includes tracks about Working in Malta, Technology & Innovation, Regulation & Compliance, and Payments. 

Away from the conference rooms, the 3,000 industry delegates will have multiple opportunities to make new contacts. In addition to the schedule of themed networking sessions, attendees can take part in workshops with sector experts, join in group discussions in the virtual networking bar or use the event platform’s chat facility for one-to-one conversations. 

There is also a 40-booth interactive exhibition showcasing the latest products from both leading suppliers and innovative start-ups, along with a programme of product presentations running throughout the event.  

Find full details of CasinoBeats Malta Digital, including information about how to register and the discounts available on company group passes, at the event’s official website. 

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From finding bugs to creating a tailor-made experience for gamers, AI, artificial intelligence, has been involved in the gaming industry since the olden days. Video games have remarkably changed and are getting smarter, thanks to the artificial intelligence. In the gaming industry, AI usually focuses on algorithm development which imitates human behavior.

In 1952, artificial intelligence was introduced in chess, checkers, and “Nim”. But now, every game developer eye to create boundary-pushing games that produce realistic illusions, this is where AI comes in play. An extraordinary example of AI can be assessed in Red Dead Redemption 2 where non-playable characters of a game can interact with players in manners so detail-oriented that requires a multi-layered complex algorithm; an event happened to one player in RDR2 will never be experienced by any other player, it is so detail-oriented and user-focused.

Artificial intelligence has access to available information and data and creates a character and makes it perform various basic actions.

To perform such actions, AI is given plenty of data to give the best responses to certain stimuli. By using the given data, AI is making games more creative and smarter. Characters inside the game, via AI, self-learn from observing their behavior and player’s behavior, evolves respectively and progressively. This is achieved by reinforcement realization and design acknowledgment techniques.

Moreover, artificial intelligence is also making games look more and more real. Games like RDR2, GTAV, HALO, and F.E.A.R are perfect examples. AI is also enhancing the overall gaming experience by creating high-end and customized events. It is also revolutionizing the approach of game developers.

Game developers are now incorporating “Reinforcement Learning” in their game development to create a vivid and realistic gaming experience. Though Gaming, artificial intelligence might feel a bit static but it will surely continue to create a huge impact in the gaming industry.

Currently, new AI algorithms and processes are being developed and it will give game developers an exciting opportunity to further introduce a whole new concept in gaming, like artificial intelligence in virtual reality!

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Data-mining for the win, as once again it seemed to have hit it right on the nose. While we recently reported about a data-miner finding multiple references to Valve’s Steam platform gaining some form of Steam Cloud Play.

Valve has stepped forward and assured fans that the data-mining was not only accurate but that they’re ready to start pushing forward with the official Steam Cloud Play (Beta). Lest you get too excited, Valve makes this statement upfront:

“Steam Cloud Play is currently in Beta and features are being added over time. We are now accepting a limited amount of games into the service as we continue to build features and server capacity for players – Valve via SteamWorks Documentation”

Further, this is, as we previously suspected, an addition to Nvidia’s GeForce Now program that has been rolled out (and taken more than a few hits, truth be told). Developers can opt their title into GeForce Now through Steam (instead of needing to opt-out via legal notice).

Within the documentation (which you can reach here) Valve clearly states that users will need to purchase the game before being able to play it through GeForce Now, which is done by users linking their Steam library to Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming library.

Thankfully, the requirements necessary for developers to get their titles on GeForce Now is surprisingly low. An addendum authorizing usage of the title within GeForce Now, and having Steam Cloud enabled. Valve states that if issues arise during testing the application in a GeForce Now environment, they will reach out to developers for help to solve specific issues on a case by ca see basis.

They finish their documentation (a sparse read as it stands) by stating that they may add additional Steam Cloud Gaming services in the future.

All in all, this is a win not only for GeForce Now, but developers and fans as a whole. Developers can easily opt-into the GeForce Now program which ensures their titles can be played everywhere that GeForce Now can reach.

GeForce Now now has a potentially large pool of developers not beholden to publishing rights that are eager to have their games experienced by everyone possible.

Lawyers no longer need to enter the fray that has been Nvidia’s streaming service.

The real news here is that fans, with this knowledge in their pocket, can now begin harassing their favorite developers (pleasantly, of course) to opt-into GeForce Now. It’s as easy as clicking a few buttons within the Steam Developers Panel.

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As almost all forms of digital gaming have online elements to them, be it the game being hosted on online servers or customers connecting to the internet via their consoles for head-to-head battles and DLC purchasing, video game industry companies can stack up heaps of data every single day. This includes statistics on how often a certain title is played, what times of the day are most popular with each demographic, the replayability of their titles or even the likelihood that players will purchase additional content.

Starting with such data, gaming brands use complex tools to enhance their products, make marketing decisions, choose the most likely to succeed promotions, or even select the genre and themes of upcoming games. It is safe to say that regardless of the platform in use, gaming is becoming increasingly driven by big data.

Vital in the free-to-play space of mobile gaming

For developers in the mobile gaming sector, big data couldn’t be more crucial to the creation and further development of their IPs. In mobile gaming, especially so in the “casual” genre, the vast majority of games are “free-to-play,” arguably with most people rarely looking at premium mobile games. Despite this, mobile gaming revenues make up nearly half of all global gaming revenue.

The games may be free to play, but developers have discovered ways of monetizing their game space to ensure that their development time isn’t wasted. However, in mobile gaming too, over-monetization or aggressive advertising within a freemium model can turn players off, so companies use big data to measure, predict, and track player behavior to then be able to enhance the experience for the player as well as further encourage in-game spending without going overboard.

A necessary tool for providers to offer the best deals

This point is especially relevant to iGaming, namely the sector that pertains to all real-money games available online. As iGaming is such a competitive field, operators have to utilize big data constantly to try to find ways in which they can enhance their websites, range of games, and, perhaps most importantly, their bonuses and promotions. This can easily be seen in the way that all websites are now organized with the popular slots as their main feature as well as in how bonuses have expanded and become more sophisticated.

By analyzing engagement statistics, times when bonuses are taken, and customer data such as gender and age, platforms that use big data analytics have been able to hone in on the perfect offers for their target audience. For example, the casino bonus in its optimum form now comes as a 100% matched deposit bonus and also includes free spins – as online slots are always among the most popular iGaming titles.

Breaking stigmas in home console gaming

One of the most important breakthroughs to come from the implementation of big data in video gaming is how it has been used to uncover audience splits in home console gaming. It was found that nearly 80% of gamers play games on more than one device – dispelling the notion that most players will buy just one of the home consoles on offer. In turn, this has encouraged game developers and hardware producers to bring in cross-platform online features.

Furthermore, and most importantly, big data finally gave credence to the female audience in gaming, showing that 46% of women indulge in gaming of some form. This was how we learned that there isn’t a significantly dominant audience gender. For decades, there has been the stigma that video gaming is for men, but now developers can explore other avenues to appeal to this huge segment of the player base.

Big data is helping companies all over the world hone in on ways to better serve their respective audiences. In gaming, across all platforms, companies are now being driven by this innovative technology – and the future is set to bring even more of this.

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