Understanding Slot Machine Players
Subject: Understanding FanDuel Casino’s slots players as a distinct customer group from Casino’s table games players.
Role: Lead Researcher (Team of 3)
Business Context
High-Level Research Goal
Methodology
Approach: Mixed Method generative research
Methods:
Literature Review
25 hours of interviews and contextual inquiry
Survey (n = 1400)
Key Takeaways
Impact
Slots bring in about 70% of our casino revenue. They're also where we're growing fastest and where our margins are highest. But when I asked the Casino product team what set slots players apart from table game players, nobody had a clear answer. Without one, the roadmap kept falling back on small tweaks and copying what competitors shipped.
What motivates slots players specifically? How are their needs different from those of table game players? I started by collecting 15 questions from Casino product leadership and used them to set the scope.
Process
Effort 🧠
Slots are harder to learn than they look. One player told us "7 and 8 reels are difficult," and plenty of others said learning a new game felt like a chore. They cared less about the rules than about what the bonus round would look like.
Players stick to their favorites. They go back to the same themes and mechanics over and over, usually without knowing why.
Slots take more focus than social media. You're playing for money and trying to win, so they're harder to squeeze into a lunch break or a wait in line. As one person put it, they're "not as bite-sized as TikTok."
Some table players use slots to rest. They told us they play slots to "downshift" their brain between blackjack or roulette sessions.
Acceptance & Audience 👂
Table players look down on slots. We heard "dumb luck" and "a game for grandmas," and my favorite: "If only you were smart enough to blackjack." That makes it hard to get table players to try slots.
We're missing older players. People 65 and up are only 3% of our slots players, even though playtime goes up with age and land-based casinos earn most of their slot revenue from this group.
In-game Experience 🎮
Interruptions hurt more in slots. It's a game of luck, not skill, so stepping away can feel like walking out on a hot streak. "Every next spin could be a winner."
The spin itself is the big moment. Players told us they hold their breath while the reels settle, and the game does almost nothing with that moment.
This was discovery research, so a lot of the payoff showed up in ideation and follow-up studies. Some of it shipped, though.
We rebuilt game info pages around bonus rounds (#1). Bounce rate on games that were new to a player dropped 9%.
We launched a "New" page that recommends games to players stuck on their favorites (#2). The players we targeted opened 8% more games and played a 20% wider mix.
We trialed easier slots and slots-style games like Crazy Time inside Blackjack Go (#4, #5) to test slots as a break from the table.
"Control" became a big theme for the team (#7, #8). I ran ideation workshops with Casino leaders up to the SVP level, which led to prototypes of a pause button and a game frame that plays up big wins.
The product team voted on my recommendations and moved 10 of them forward, some to build and some into more research.