The Traditional Casino VIP Program Is Dying — Here's What Should Replace It
Bronze. Silver. Gold. Platinum. Diamond. We've been doing this for more than 30 years. Jörn-Peter Thiessen on why tiering should be an internal tool — not a VIP strategy — and why the future is the player, the host, and the relationship between them.
The Traditional Casino VIP Program Is Dying — Here's What Should Replace It
Bronze. Silver. Gold. Platinum. Diamond. We've been doing this for more than 30 years. Surely VIP has to evolve.
By Jörn-Peter Thiessen
Founder | VIP Legacy Club
Quick links: Meet Jörn · The perfect VIP department · What does a casino VIP host do? · How one VIP relationship lasted a decade · Past VIP events · Free AI concierge
Walk into almost any casino loyalty programme and you'll recognise the formula.
Bronze. Silver. Gold. Platinum. Diamond.
Play more, accumulate points, move up a tier and unlock another collection of benefits.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with tiering. Operators need segmentation, and players often enjoy having visible levels and benefits.
But tiering should be an internal management tool.
It should not be your VIP strategy.
The concept has been around for more than 30 years. During that time, technology has changed beyond recognition. Online gaming has changed. Payments have changed. CRM has changed. Data has changed. Customer expectations have changed.
Now AI is changing everything again.
Yet much of the casino industry still treats its most valuable customers using essentially the same Bronze/Silver/Gold philosophy.
I believe that model is becoming outdated.
Not VIP itself.
The traditional VIP programme.
The future should be individual treatment based on behaviour, preferences, responsible long-term value and genuine relationships.
Because Bronze isn't a personality.
The Lesson I Learned More Than 20 Years Ago
More than two decades ago, I had a mentor and boss who taught me an enormous amount about the online gaming business.
A Harvard MBA graduate, he introduced me to a philosophy that has influenced how I have approached VIP management ever since.
He told me:
Your objective is to build a team and create one-to-one marketing.
At the time, that sounded ambitious.
How do you create one-to-one marketing when your casino has thousands upon thousands of customers?
His answer was remarkably simple.
Start with your top 1,000.
Build a team of VIP hosts.
Give each host approximately 100 to 150 clients.
Then make it their responsibility to know those clients.
Not just their deposits.
Not just their gaming activity.
Not simply which slot they play most often.
Know the person.
That philosophy became the foundation of my approach to VIP management for the next 20-plus years.
And I believe it is even more relevant today.
Your Top 1,000 Are 1,000 Different People
Imagine two customers sitting in exactly the same Diamond tier.
Commercially, they may look very similar.
But one loves golf, travel, restaurants and meeting other people.
The other hates events and wants very little personal contact.
One loves receiving a physical gift.
Another prefers cashback.
One enjoys cruises.
Another would never get on a ship.
One wants their VIP host available whenever there is an issue.
Another wants complete privacy and only wants contact when absolutely necessary.
The CRM system may put both customers into the same segment.
As people, they couldn't be more different.
So why should the same VIP programme determine what both receive?
This is where traditional tiering reaches its limit.
Stop Asking What Tier the Player Is
Ask:
Who is the player?
Internally, casinos absolutely need segmentation.
Understand value, frequency, profitability, deposit behaviour, potential value and intent to play.
Use that information to establish which customers deserve genuinely personal service.
Maybe that is your top 500.
Maybe your top 1,000.
Maybe your top 2,000.
But once you have identified them, stop believing that a colour or status level tells you how they should be treated.
It doesn't.
Their individual preferences should.
Give Every VIP Host a Real Portfolio
I remain a strong believer in the portfolio model.
A genuine VIP host should not have thousands of supposedly VIP customers.
Give the host approximately 100–150 meaningful relationships.
Then expect them to understand those people.
What do they enjoy?
What frustrates them?
Which games do they prefer?
Do they like cashback?
Would they rather receive something tangible?
Do they play golf?
Do they travel?
Do they enjoy sporting events, concerts, cruises or restaurants?
Do they like meeting other customers?
How do they prefer to communicate?
And sometimes the most important question:
Do they actually want to be contacted?
One-to-one marketing does not mean sending somebody more marketing.
Sometimes knowing your customer means knowing when to leave them alone.
Customers Don't Build Relationships With Databases
This is where I believe some casino management teams make a serious mistake.
Operators invest enormous amounts of money acquiring valuable customers.
They then invest further money recruiting, training and employing VIP hosts to look after them.
Those hosts spend months—and sometimes years—building relationships.
They answer messages.
They resolve problems.
They remember preferences.
They know when somebody is frustrated.
They learn about hobbies, travel, families and interests.
They attend dinners.
They meet customers.
They travel with them.
They share experiences with them.
Over time, something extremely valuable develops:
Trust.
Yet management can sometimes assume:
"These are our customers. They're loyal to the casino."
Not necessarily.
Very often a significant part of that loyalty sits with the person who has looked after them for years.
That shouldn't surprise anybody.
Customers don't build relationships with databases. They build relationships with people.
Relationship Equity Is a Real Asset
Imagine a VIP host has managed the same portfolio for five years.
The operator has paid five years of salary, training, bonuses and perhaps travel and event costs.
But something else has been created during those five years that doesn't appear neatly on the company's balance sheet.
Relationship equity.
History.
Trust.
Familiarity.
Personal knowledge.
The customer knows who to contact when there is a problem.
The host knows how that individual prefers the problem to be handled.
That can take hundreds of conversations and years to establish.
Then the host leaves.
Only then does management sometimes discover an uncomfortable truth:
The customer may not have been as loyal to the logo as everyone assumed.
They were loyal to the relationship.
Don't Stop Your Best Hosts Building Relationships
This creates one of the strangest contradictions I have seen in online gaming.
Some companies want VIP hosts to retain important customers but don't want those hosts becoming too close to them.
Management worries:
What happens if the host leaves?
What if the customer follows them?
But consider the logic.
We want you to build a strong relationship with our customer—but not one strong enough to matter.
That isn't VIP relationship management.
If you are frightened of losing your best hosts, don't prevent them from building great customer relationships.
Build an organisation where your best hosts want to stay.
Invest in them.
Train them.
Listen to them.
Give them the authority to solve problems.
Give them good technology and information.
Include them in important decisions.
And recognise that a senior VIP host managing significant customer value should be considered one of the important frontline employees in the organisation.
Reward Retention, Not Extraction
How you incentivise those hosts is equally important.
If a host is primarily rewarded according to how much their clients deposit or lose this month, you shouldn't be surprised when the relationship becomes transactional.
Deposit.
Deposit again.
Here's a promotion.
Can you deposit more?
That's not one-to-one marketing.
That's short-term monetisation.
I believe hosts should be rewarded far more strongly for responsible retention and sustainable long-term customer value.
Is the customer relationship still strong after 12 months?
Has the customer remained satisfied?
Are valuable clients choosing to stay?
Is the relationship sustainable?
Is the host developing their portfolio responsibly?
Those are much healthier measures than simply:
How much did your portfolio lose this month?
The VIP host should behave like a relationship manager—not a salesperson trying to hit Friday's revenue target.
The UK Shows What Happens When VIP Goes Wrong
Of course, any discussion about VIP relationships today also has to acknowledge what happens when the model is abused.
In 2020, the UK Gambling Commission introduced much tougher requirements governing high-value customer schemes after identifying repeated failures in the way some VIP customers were managed.
The UK did not ban VIP hosting.
Instead, operators were required to introduce significantly stronger safeguards around high-value customers, including affordability and sustainability considerations, assessment of gambling-related harm and vulnerability, appropriate identity and source-of-funds information, ongoing monitoring and senior management accountability.
At the time, the Gambling Commission reported that the number of customers enrolled in VIP schemes had already fallen by approximately 70% following regulatory intervention.
That history matters.
But I believe an important distinction needs to be made.
The problem wasn't that a host knew the customer too well.
The problem was when the commercial relationship and its incentives were used to encourage increasing gambling without sufficient regard for affordability, sustainability and customer welfare.
Those aren't the same thing.
Official UK Gambling Commission sources:
- Gambling Commission — "New rules to stamp out irresponsible 'VIP customer' practices", 30 September 2020
- Gambling Commission — High Value Customers: Industry Guidance
Don't Blame the Relationship. Fix the Incentive.
The regulatory response has understandably made some operators cautious about personal VIP relationships.
But I think the industry should ask a more useful question.
Was the relationship itself the problem—or was it how the relationship was governed and incentivised?
If somebody's compensation depends heavily on encouraging customers to spend more, there is an obvious potential conflict.
Change the objective.
The host shouldn't be thinking:
How much more can I get this customer to deposit tonight?
The question should be:
How do we manage this customer relationship properly and responsibly over the long term?
And there must be clear boundaries.
Responsible-gambling and compliance teams need appropriate independence and authority.
When indicators of harm appear, customer protection has to take priority over commercial targets.
A great VIP relationship cannot come at the expense of the customer.
The Host May Actually Help Identify When Something Is Wrong
There is another side of this argument that shouldn't be overlooked.
A genuinely experienced host who has known someone for years understands what normal looks like for that customer.
If behaviour suddenly changes, the host may notice.
Communication becomes different.
Playing patterns alter significantly.
The customer sounds distressed.
Behaviour becomes unusual.
A long-standing host might recognise the change because they know the person—not simply the account number.
That doesn't replace formal responsible-gambling systems.
But personal knowledge and technology can complement each other.
And this is exactly where the future becomes interesting.
Ask the Customer What They Want
The gaming industry has access to extraordinary amounts of information.
We analyse behavioural data.
We calculate customer value.
We analyse sessions, game preference, deposits and churn probabilities.
Soon AI will analyse even more.
All of this is valuable.
But there is another remarkably effective method of discovering what a valuable customer wants.
Ask them.
What do you enjoy?
What kind of recognition actually matters to you?
Do you enjoy events?
Would you prefer not to receive promotional contact?
What would make the experience better?
Sometimes the simplest conversation produces more useful information than another algorithm.
The BMW M3 Lesson
Many years ago, one high-value customer told us about something he genuinely wanted.
A BMW M3.
Rather than assuming he wanted the same generic incentives as every other valuable player, we explored whether a bespoke long-term reward could make commercial sense.
It was an early lesson for me in individual recognition.
The important part wasn't the BMW.
It was the principle:
Understand what matters to this particular customer.
Today, any gaming incentive of that nature obviously has to be considered through the regulatory, affordability and responsible-gambling requirements of the relevant jurisdiction.
The example comes from a very different regulatory era.
But the lesson about personalisation remains.
One customer may value cashback.
Another may value an experience.
Another may value convenience.
Another may simply want exceptional service.
Don't assume.
Ask.
Experiences Can Create Something Bonuses Cannot
This is one reason I have always believed strongly in real-world experiences.
Over the years I have organised and participated in VIP dinners, road trips, golf events, cruises and international experiences.
Something changes when customers and hosts interact away from a screen.
You talk.
You travel.
You play golf.
You have dinner.
You discover shared interests.
You learn what people enjoy.
Eventually the customer isn't simply "Diamond Player 48271".
They're a person.
And you aren't simply "VIP Department".
You're the person they know and trust.
That type of relationship is extremely difficult for a competitor to reproduce with another percentage bonus.
A Relationship Should Have Value Without a Deposit
For me, this is one of the clearest tests of whether you genuinely have a relationship.
If the only time a VIP host contacts a customer is when they want them to play again, you don't really have a relationship.
You have a sales channel.
Some of the strongest customer relationships I have developed over the years extended far beyond individual gaming sessions.
We talked about golf.
Travel.
Food.
Business.
Families.
Events.
Life.
Sometimes there wasn't a casino conversation at all.
And I believe this is where VIP needs to go next.
Less obsession with extracting the next gaming session.
More emphasis on creating a valuable long-term relationship with the individual.
Acquisition Has Become the Obsession
Modern online gaming businesses spend enormous amounts of money on acquisition.
Affiliates.
SEO.
Paid media.
Welcome offers.
Conversion optimisation.
First-time deposits.
Everyone is chasing the next customer.
Meanwhile, some organisations appear to have reduced the resources dedicated to genuinely understanding the exceptional customers they already have.
That's a mistake.
Acquisition brings somebody through the door.
Retention determines whether they stay.
And the higher the value of the customer, the stronger the argument becomes for personal service.
AI Should Make VIP More Human
This is where I believe the next generation of VIP management becomes extremely exciting.
AI should not replace the VIP host.
It should make the host dramatically better.
Imagine giving a host a portfolio of 100–150 customers and allowing AI to help understand:
- customer preferences,
- communication habits,
- gaming behaviour,
- service history,
- previous rewards,
- travel interests,
- golf interests,
- event preferences,
- customer feedback
- and responsible-gambling indicators.
AI can surface changes.
It can remind the host about preferences.
It can help organise customer histories.
It can identify potential service issues.
It can suggest relevant experiences.
It can also help identify circumstances where marketing should stop rather than increase.
The result should not be less human contact.
It should be better human contact.
VIP 2.0: From Casino Host to Personal Concierge
I believe the future extends even further than this.
Why should the relationship revolve exclusively around gaming?
If you truly understand a valuable customer, their interests may include golf, hotels, restaurants, travel, cruises, sporting events, wine, concerts or other experiences.
The future VIP host could increasingly become something closer to a personal concierge.
Gaming remains part of the relationship.
But it isn't the entire relationship.
That is also one of the reasons I have continued organising events and cruises through VIP Legacy Club.
Many online casinos have moved increasingly towards acquisition and automation.
I wanted to continue something I believe still matters:
real relationships and real experiences.
Technology absolutely belongs in that model.
AI belongs in it.
Data belongs in it.
Compliance and responsible gambling absolutely belong in it.
But so does the human being.
Bronze Isn't a Personality
That brings us back to where we started.
Bronze isn't a person.
Silver isn't a preference.
Gold doesn't tell you what somebody enjoys.
Diamond doesn't tell you whether someone loves golf, hates events, prefers privacy or dreams of travelling somewhere special.
A tier can help an organisation understand what a customer may be worth commercially.
It cannot tell you how that person wants to be valued.
Those are two completely different questions.
The next generation of VIP shouldn't require another status above Diamond.
It requires a better philosophy.
Identify your most valuable customers.
Give them a real host.
Give that host a manageable portfolio.
Invest in the host.
Reward responsible retention rather than short-term extraction.
Understand customer preferences.
Respect customer boundaries.
Use responsible-gambling safeguards properly.
Let compliance do its job.
Use AI to give hosts better information and more time.
Create meaningful experiences where appropriate.
And build a relationship that has value beyond the next deposit.
More than 20 years ago, my mentor called it one-to-one marketing.
Today, we finally have technology capable of taking that philosophy much further.
Perhaps the future of casino VIP has been hiding in that old idea all along.
The future isn't Bronze, Silver, Gold or Diamond.
It's the player, the host and the relationship between them.