Building the Data Management Platform

About the Client

Our client is a well-established European hospitality and gaming group with a 50-year heritage in the industry. Operating casinos, hotels, and restaurants across multiple countries, the company employs thousands of staff and maintains a strong reputation for innovation and premium entertainment experiences.

Building on this legacy, the group launched a Swiss online gaming platform to meet evolving customer preferences and expand into the digital market. The online operation offers a comprehensive portfolio of casino games while maintaining strict compliance with Swiss regulations and responsible gambling standards.

The Challenge

From its launch in late 2020, the Swiss online operation aimed to be strongly data-driven. However, during the first months, several critical data challenges emerged:

1. Volume & Performance: Processing high volumes of granular transaction data while maintaining system performance as the player base grew rapidly
2. Data Fragmentation: Consolidating data from multiple source systems (gaming platform, CRM, marketing automation, affiliation tools, acquisition channels) into a single source of truth
3. Query Limitations: Complex SQL operations frequently timed out or overloaded production systems
4. Regulatory Compliance: Meeting data requests from Swiss regulatory authorities in a timely manner
5. Manual Overhead: Teams spent excessive time manually collating and cross-checking data exports instead of focusing on analysis and strategy

These issues prevented the organization from deriving actionable insights, limiting marketing effectiveness and the ability to proactively monitor player behavior for responsible gaming purposes.

The Opportunity

Recognizing the need for a unified data management platform, the client engaged us for an end-to-end data modernization initiative to:

• Automate reporting and meet regulatory demands efficiently
• Enable self-service analytics across marketing, compliance, and operations
• Enhance responsible gaming through sophisticated player behavior analysis
• Unlock revenue opportunities through data-driven marketing and retention strategies

Our Solution

We implemented a comprehensive data management platform built on Microsoft Azure, encompassing a data warehouse, reporting infrastructure, and predictive analytics capabilities.

Cloud Infrastructure: We established a secure and scalable Azure environment optimized for online gaming analytics. The architecture met ISO 27001 certification requirements, including network isolation, advanced security controls, full audit trails, and data residency compliance.

Data Warehouse: We consolidated 30 source system, including the gaming platform, CRM, affiliation software, web tracking tools, and marketing channels,into a unified repository. This created a single source of truth with consistent KPI definitions and cross-departmental data alignment.

Reporting & Analytics: We deployed over 100 interactive Power BI reports spanning Operations, Customer Service, Marketing, Responsible Gaming, and Compliance. This automated repetitive reporting tasks and enabled teams to focus on insight generation rather than manual data collection.

Predictive Modeling: We implemented machine learning models for player segmentation and churn prediction, enabling proactive retention campaigns that extended player lifetime value and generated incremental revenue.

The Results

The data platform transformed the organization into a truly data-centric operation:

• Performance: Query times dramatically reduced and system overload issues eliminated through a dedicated analytical environment
• Compliance: Regulatory reporting requests handled promptly and accurately
• Efficiency: Teams now rely on centralized data and automated dashboards for daily operations
• Insights: Marketing and compliance teams gained deeper visibility into player trends, campaign ROI, and risk profiles

Over three years, the business grew by over 200%, with reliable data access serving as a cornerstone of this success.

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