Background
Earlier this week, Nevada-based casino giant Tropicana Entertainment announced that they have entered into a collaborative partnership with social gaming studio Ruby Seven Studios to develop a new social gaming product.
Tropicana Entertainment is a collection of nine land-based casinos, with one of their most prominent operating out of Atlantic City, called, not surprisingly, Tropicana Atlantic City. They have an online presence in New Jersey with a real money gaming casino that was launched in partnership with Gamesys.
Ruby Seven Studios was founded in 2012 by Michael Carpenter and Jugul Thachery, and is a social gaming studio with a heavy focus on social casinos.
Why is this important for land-based casino operators?
While this is major news for the land-based sector, it is not surprising given recent trends in the industry. Land-based casinos are going digital by adopting social casinos as part of their acquisition and retention strategies. In a recent webinar, our CEO Nicky Senyard spoke about this at length with Rory Shanahan of Scientific Games.Depending on individual business goals, land-based casinos can leverage the digital opportunities available today to increase customer acquisition and retention, engage with players online, diversify revenue streams and even grow their customer database in preparation for real-money regulation. Adopting a digital strategy offers multiple benefits for land-based casinos. According to Eilers Research, social casino revenue reached a whopping $2.8 billion in 2014, which reflects an increase of 38% from the previous year.
What can land-based casino operators do?
