Coin-In uses social game rewards to get people into physical casinos

Coin-In has launched a new service that uses social casino games that drive foot traffic into brick-and-mortar casinos. It does so with a loyalty platform that keeps players engaged on the mobile devices and prompts them to cash in their rewards at physical casinos.

Los Angeles-based Coin-In recently rebranded itself, as it was formerly known as P4RC. When it debuted in 2013, P4RC had a service that used rewards to increase the frequency and duration of mobile game sessions. The new program competes with Playstudios’ MyVegas platform, which uses mobile games to offer rewards in MGM casinos and other gambling resorts.

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Coin-In said that is first customer reported more than 10 percent increase in earnings during a 90-day trial. The apps on iOS and Android are aimed at providing continuous engagement for the customer away from the casino. The platform keeps casino players connected to their favorite real-world casinos 24/7, anytime and anywhere via Android, iOS, and Facebook.

Over the past year, Coin-In has worked exclusively with a prominent casino to build its new platform. During a 90-day casino trial, the casino reported a 15 percent year-over-year increase in casino player count, a 100 percent increase in real-world casino visits for those redeeming a reward, a 196 percent increase in coin in, a 248 percent increase in theoretical win, a 286 percent increase in new player’s club sign-ups, and a 150 percent increase in the casino’s e-mail database.

“The cost of traditional casino marketing efforts can easily exceed 20 percent of gaming revenue,” said Jason Seldon, founder of Coin-In, in a statement. “With our platform, we aim to dramatically increase the efficiency of casino marketing to bring in more players and get them to play more often. Our platform costs a fraction of what is currently being spent by casinos to market to their players, and we have already been proven to deliver a return on investment of more than 400 percent.”

Now Coin-In hopes to expand among other land-based casinos in the U.S. Coin-In was founded as P4RC in 2011, and it has 10 employees. Rivals in social casino games include Scientific Games, IGT, and Playtika.

The team uses its proprietary social gaming and rewards platform to rapidly develop custom Unity-based casino applications that are deeply integrated with its HTML5-based loyalty platform. For brick-and-mortar casino’s, the solution is easy to manage and service via a robust back-end application.

Coin-In has raised $3 million to date from investors including 37 Technology Ventures, Ace Fund, Chaotic Investments, Tech Coast Angels, and Wavemaker Partners.

Seldon said, “As P4RC (Coin-In), our engagement and loyalty platform delivered impressive metrics, with uplift in days of gameplay as high as 1,000 percent when comparing users of individual games on and off our platform. We also discovered that we are very good at getting people to redeem prizes. In fact, more than 60 percent of the rewards we gave out during gameplay resulted in a purchase on sponsors’ sites.”

Then the company pivoted.

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“Eighteen months ago, we realized our strengths would play beautifully in the casino market, where physical casinos easily spend 20 percent of gaming revenue on marketing programs designed to drive people in the door,” Seldon said. “Our strengths play perfectly in this market. We can quickly deliver custom Unity-based gaming applications, target users within driving distance of the casino, and offer rewards that are compelling enough to bring people to casinos’ doors. The results were truly impressive, with even higher reward usage rates than we delivered in the original version of our platform.”