Bringing the Gambling Industry Out of the Recession With Eye Tracking

Similar to the alcohol and tobacco industries, the gambling industry was once thought of as recession proof. But in today’s economic slump, slot machines have suffered.

Why are gamblers drawn to some slot machines and not others? There’s quite a bit of marketing and usability testing done to determine the factors that draw a player in. It may be the colors, the animation, or even the sounds that affect whether a player enjoys their experience and continues playing. Eye tracking technology can better help analyze these variables, and the research used to design slot machines that players are better attracted to.

There has long been a gambling industry dogma that said that only specific colors could be used in slot machines. The belief was that certain colors stimulate a person’s desire to gamble while others cause them to gamble less. With eye-tracking, it’s possible to test these industry-wide assumptions. By incorporating eye-tracking technology, for example, we can track what part of the game screen a player focuses on. Are they really paying attention to the color themes? Or are they paying attention to something else? With eye tracking studies, we can track how many games someone plays per hour, and then determine the revenue generated hourly.

Animation is essential to attracting gamblers as well—initially drawing attention from passers-by and then by enhancing game play itself. But how players are paying attention to these animations specifically can be better understood with eye-tracking tests.

The best way to resuscitate the gambling industry is through player usability testing. By monitoring their attention to visual detail in the game and then correlating that with slot machine revenue performance, developers can better produce machines that make money, and in effect around an industry-wide slump.

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