Hit Utopia’s CEO Dennis Korthouwer and Global Brand Manager Carolina Quintero Builes explain how the company uses innovation to increase market share of casinos.
Everyone has felt it at some time or another, that deep-rooted desire to be a pathfinder, to explore and chart new terrain. However, somewhere along the way most people come up against a range of limitations and end up feeling trapped in path dependency. Most hunker down and resign themselves to the idea that “the industry is the way it is, you have to play it safe and stick to the established framework to survive”.
But does it really have to be this way? After all, if innovators never dared to raise their heads above the parapet and try something new, companies – and by extension whole business sectors – would eventually stagnate and die.
With this in mind, we decided to pioneer with the foundation of Hit Utopia. Our company helps casinos overcome a diverse array of challenges and ultimately make operators’ lives easier. After successfully implementing an innovative “market share increase strategy” in the media industry and gathering first-hand insights from casinos in over 80 countries, CEO Dennis Korthouwer customized this success formula to the casino industry. Together with CTO Anton Hofland – who previously held top IT positions at UBS and Nomura – he brought together a team of over 20 programmers to develop a patented state-of-the-art technology, which is rich in functionality. It’s an easy to use system for tables and slots with unique scaling capabilities that helps casinos attract new visitors, convert them into players, and then ensures they play for longer.
MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE. Of course, your players want to win cash prizes, but non-players need other incentives to bring them to a casino venue. Hit Utopia uses exclusive experiences, which we call “Experiences You Can’t Buy,” that instantly differentiates your casino from competitors and turns it into a ‘must visit’ destination. These prizes target emotions and incentivize people to visit you. Experiences as promotional prizes also attract players from competitors, generate free publicity before and after a prize is won, and convert visitors into brand ambassadors. Giving away experiences profitably is a unique benefit of our system. It can be implemented for any casino, regardless of size.
COMMON GROWTH. We believe that great products should not just be limited to the big fish. With Hit Utopia, also smaller casinos can offer “Experiences You Can’t Buy” that would otherwise be beyond their budgets, without paying more than what they currently pay for progressives. Alongside this, when a casino buys one experience, they get the rights to five, so they can instantly build a bigger audience and winners can choose the prize that most appeals them.
While the market share of casinos grows, their employee satisfaction should grow as well. Hit Utopia motivates front-line casino employees on the gaming floor by granting managers key performance data to place dealers at tables where they feel and perform the best besides financially rewarding them for great performance. This establishes a virtuous circle, providing a new incentive for employees to outperform, and helping operators raise and refine their quality of service. Ultimately, it’s a win-win situation where both dealers and casinos earn more.
INNOVATION. At Hit Utopia we are revolutionising the way casinos award prizes. Additionally, we analyse, manage, and optimise them. To profitably offer prizes that continuously attract players, the first thing you need is scale. It allows for better and more frequent prizes. Although traditional progressives claim to be ‘wide-area’, the fact of the matter is that their design limits scalability to a single country and at best a handful of states due to legal constraints. While a misconception has developed that creating a worldwide system is impossible, Hit Utopia has busted that myth by offering a single jackpot system in casinos on three continents, including North America. This is a big advantage for casino chains because, as an example, they could offer in all their venues promotional and side-bet prizes on any gaming table or slot machine without the need to integrate. Bigger economies of scale lead to better and more frequent prizes that further boost player attraction, conversion, and playtime.
The second important factor is urgency. You can have great prizes, but if there are not guaranteed winning timeframes, they won’t play. To solve this, the Hit Utopia system displays short timeframes for selected prizes in which players win. This creates urgency, incentivises people to start playing, and makes them play longer until the prize is won, even beyond!
To discover exactly how and how much other innovative casinos benefit, visit hitutopia.com.
