Black Friday is most commonly associated with customers frantically rushing into physical stores and fighting over heavily discounted products. Although an American phenomenon, these scenes can be seen all around the world and it’s even taking off digitally in Singapore.
It raises the question of whether the same sense of scarcity and urgency can be applied to the online casino industry. For example, can Australian real money casinos run ad campaigns with a countdown to a one-day sale? Information on such strategies can be found through resources that detail various operational aspects of real money casinos. First, we need to explore the psychology behind it.
The Psychology of Black Friday
The psychology that retailers leverage during Black Friday is a sense of having one shot at a set of sales before having to wait one year again. This highlights how scarcity, which underpins economics and market forces, isn’t only about supply (the product), but the supply of a product at a discounted price.
Secondly, the fear of missing out (FOMO) is at play, which is why the publicity of Black Friday is so important. When seeing customers trying to pip each other to the post, something within us becomes concerned that we’re being left behind. If the herd is fighting so hard to attain something, we fear that we may be losing out by not joining the race – even if we don’t truly want or need the product or service.
The release of dopamine when chasing a sale shouldn’t be underestimated either, as the engagement with the sale can become exciting in and of itself. Customers can feel like they’re winning when faced with 60% off, and a feel-good hormone is released.
Translating Black Friday Sales to iGaming
iGaming marketers are no strangers to scarcity, FOMO, and dopamine. Scarcity is embedded within all casino games, whether it’s knowing there are only two other Aces in the deck during a poker game, or chasing after the rare jackpot on the slots. Likewise, seeing other players win creates FOMO, while the enjoyment and release of dopamine during casino games is well documented.
However, these three pillars can also be replicated during customers' engagement with marketing. To have a one-off day where 50 free spins can be obtained today, for free, when signing up is leveraging the idea of scarcity. When the offer expires tomorrow (which isn’t the normal way casinos advertise the offers), it can certainly create a sense of scarcity and dopamine when “winning” the offer.
The FOMO can come from a slightly more challenging tactic of virality and shareability. This is when one-off generous offers are flaunted by others on social media (or streamers) to create both awareness and jealousy among on-lookers. This can be the motivation some people need to sign up because they otherwise feel left behind.
How Prominent Are Black Friday Sales in iGaming?
Black Friday sales tactics do exist within the casino industry, but they’re not that prominent. They often consist of similar deals, in which a Black Friday banner is placed on the landing page to try and attribute the deal to the day, but really, it isn’t all that different.
This could be for a variety of reasons, such as the resources it takes to create one-day (or one-week) promotions that quickly expire, or possibly due to a lack of organic search traffic that it receives.
Another reason comes in the form of regulation. The UK’s Gaming Commission, for example, prohibits ads that create a sense of “inappropriate urgency”, and this is also the case in many other jurisdictions. The UK’s commission explicitly outlaws the use of countdown timers and reassuring quick decisions, therefore the typical Black Friday tactics of retail outlets cannot be employed.
There may be some room for creating a special day for sales, so long as the copy doesn’t use urgent-sounding language, but the capacity for this depends greatly on the regulator. Likewise, the Singapore Pools are strictly regulated, and Black Friday sales would be tough to justify.
Final Word
Black Friday tactics are profoundly effective, and we can see this in the physical altercations that it can create in brick-and-mortar stores. To create this sense of urgency would be more than possible for online casinos, but this is a concern for many major regulators around the world. Therefore, while some special promotion strategies are employed, there’s little capacity for a fully-fledged Black Friday countdown campaign.
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