Fishing for whales: a segmentation model for social casinos

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new customer segmentation model for the social casino industry. The key contribution of this model is the introduction of original psychographic/taste data, including a player emotions scale.

The data for this research are based on player feedback from 22 countries, with evaluations of the top 100 social casino titles (apps). The new segmentation model splits the industry into distinct customer groups based on spending patterns, behavioral dimensions and attitudinal dimensions.

The results provide insight into game mechanics, social dynamics, player emotions, spend, price sensitivity, loyalty and other elements that impact monetization. Critical behaviors and preferences of social casino players that will help companies better understand and connect with their target customers are described.

This is the first study to develop a rigorous segmentation model of social casino games based on behavioral and psychographic data.