Social Casinos: Winning Isn't Everything

Abstract

Are players who win more likely to be loyal to social casino games, and better customers for the social casino industry? In this research, we investigate the relationship between social casino player success and customer loyalty. We make a case that winning is not a good predictor of customer loyalty for social casino games. Our proposed theoretical model integrates loyalty and spend level with a player’s perceived level of gaming success. The unexpected diminished role of winning as a contributing factor to loyalty challenges the traditional view of thinking that success in a gambling environment is necessary to ensure valuable ongoing customer relationships. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.