When I was offered the chance to meet someone who’s an expert in behavioural psychology as it pertains to gaming, but also the direct descendant of a legendary brewer, it didn’t take too long to accept... Despite the fact that my guest Dan Thwaites did not, in fact, bring along a barrel of “samples” to our meeting, the insights he spoke of were well worth the time and effort.

Some readers may remember the Government’s Behavioural Insights Team – better known as the “Nudge Unit.” It’s fair to say that when the general public found out about it, it didn’t get the best reception, but there’s a big gap between the target population being told that an apparent quango is going to be influencing their behaviour, and Dan and his Co-Founders finding subtle (and invisible) ways to improve betting and gaming businesses.

A standard approach with a new client for Dan (or, more accurately, his company Capuchin Behavioural Science) would be to build a quantitative psychometric instrument to work from – basically a survey of either the customer’s existing (anonymised) database, or a more wide-ranging target list from across the relevant market. This latter is an important distinction – looking at your own database of players has enormous value, but if you’re trying to reach a market you currently don’t have great access to, you’re going to need to look outside of the people you know. If you don’t have the reach within, the typical method would be to use a survey.

Then you’re into use cases, and there are evidently a number of areas where behavioural science can help operators, with growing sales value being a headliner. We’re all familiar with demographic segmentation – age bracket, gender, expected discretionary spend based on postcode etc etc. The principles of how to use the behavioural science approach to grow businesses revolve around segmentation based on psychological segments.

For example, and to use a bit of a blunt-force case, Dan told me you can make a reasonably accurate assumption about personality types based on how people bet on, for example, a football match. There’s a clear split (on average) between personality types of people who make multiple small bets in play on a game, to people who’ll have one larger bet on the same sport, late at night the day before the game. The former tend to be younger and more sociable, where the latter tend to be more disagreeable characters, and skew older. Obviously most operators would tailor their incentives for these players based on the bets they prefer, but having insight into their character should also lead to a way to optimise how you try to build loyalty with them. The nature and presentation of offers to those two groups would be very, very different.

Then there’s the subtle art of persuasion – or rather in this context, while it’s still subtle, it’s as much science as art. Dan talked me through how our brains have a ton of stuff to deal with, so aggressively filter out the noise to only allow through stuff that’s high priority. Part of the list is the 3 F’s – food, faces and fu… erm … sex. You won’t get far as a species without food, dealing with other people and some element of procreation, so if you’re trying to get attention in a world of distractions, those three are good options.  Similarly, cuteness (Andrex puppy, anyone ?) sparks the parenting / caregiving urge, and tickling our other emotions, John Lewis Xmas ad style, will jump the brain’s queue to get people interested.

Then there are the custom nudges. None of us are especially comfortable thinking we’re being manipulated (although obviously we are relentlessly being manipulated every time we open our eyes), and it’s important to note that not every nudge method works for every person – but you’re trying to change behaviour on the meta scale (not Meta, although actually …). Dan talked me through one online betting client his firm helped simply by redesigning their primary digital ads. While, for obvious reasons, he asked me not to share the before and after actual ads, the contrast is fascinating and, with reference to the above concepts (and more subtle points he articulated to me) he tells me the difference in actual measurable results was very material.

Finally, it’s hardly a secret that our business is a bit different from most sectors.  Dan and his team work across free main sectors, with betting and gaming being just one of them. When I asked him what was the primary difference with our trade, he pointed out the responsible gambling angle. In most other sectors in which Capuchin operates, the primary objective is simply to boost sales, whether that’s new customers or increasing spend levels. With betting and gaming, there’s a bit more to it – not every customer is one who should be spending. The behavioural science approach can help here too, however, with profiling being helpful in identifying players who might need to throttle back a bit; and the whole nudge concept being tailorable to suit the long-term objectives of (most) operators. Which, of course, is to make their money only from genuinely discretionary spend.

So, overall, this was a fascinating topic. We all have some knowledge of the base material to some extent, whether consciously or not, but speaking with Dan helped me understand just how far you can take this topic. Sticking a fluffy puppy on your ads isn’t rocket science, but the depth and detail to which a genuine sector specialist can poke customers is wildly larger than I would have anticipated and certainly gave me food for thought. Not all marketing material has to be sledgehammer simple – why whack them over the head when you can give them a little nudge…