AltexSoft for Bally: Unique UX and Engagement Solution

Background

Bally Technologies Inc., one of the world’s top casino gaming technology and services provider, reached out to AltexSoft with a clear project concept. The aim was to create a custom, cloud-based CMS, to enable content administration and distribution across a large number of remote apps.

Later on, the project turned into a feature-rich content management portal, Mobile Concierge, with a built-in notification system, geo-fencing and indoor navigation capabilities. This SaaS solution was distributed across more than 80 casino chains that used it to attract more players, enhance their gaming experience, and thereby increase revenue.

The development process was continuous, and required full-time professional assistance from the AltexSoft team.

Challenges

The core concept behind the Mobile Concierge platform was to implement a feature-rich admin panel, which would allow for managing and distributing the content across a number of native mobile and web apps linked to the system. Additional functionality, like custom mapping, location- and activity-based notifications and mobile games, would make the casino visitors’ experience unique and drive engagement.

The tasks AltexSoft needed to solve along the way in order to be able to deliver the required results were quite challenging and involved proficient engineering resources.

Complete customization of the notification service

Adjusting the system to comply with the local law restrictions

Introducing additional marketing opportunities within the system

Providing high system performance regardless of the workload

Value Delivered

AltexSoft was working on the project from scratch, in close cooperation with the Bally Mobile team. As a result, the following valuable solutions were delivered to the client as a part of the award-winning Mobile Concierge platform:

Custom Notification Service Implementation

A third-party service used initially was substituted with a custom push notification engine, tailored to the client’s needs. This solution paid off in less than 20 months, and proved to be a valuable one-time investment. Moreover, the company was able to largely improve the flexibility of the notification engine compared to a third-party one. Specifically, having full access to the user data enables sending out notifications based on the users’ recent activity, accordingly target specific segments via personified notifications.

Local and Global Positioning

Due to the interstate legal restrictions in the gambling sphere, the team had to implement a set of localization services. GPS services allow us to locate the users within an accuracy of 20 meters. Custom geo-fencing prevents the users from accessing the built-in games or services outside of specific zones where this kind of gaming is allowed (separate cities, casino areas, etc.). The system fully complies with US federal law.

iBeacon Service Integration

Using the distributed network of Bluetooth Low Energy devices (Beacons) the system communicates with the users via indoor navigation and location-based activity (push notifications, check-ins). The Beacons are installed on the premises of the casinos and used to push reminders, special deals, or promoted content to the users; Creating meaningful contextual experiences, driving engagement and revenue.

High System Performance and Sustainability

The platform is developed using the best performance engineering practices, namely workload optimization, profiling and caching. Thus, the software can process over 1 million requests daily without sacrificing the quality of performance.

Approach and Technical Info

Working on the project from the very start, AltexSoft was involved in all stages of the process: Requirements specification, system visualization, and web development.

A dedicated team of core 5 team members, including project lead, software engineers, and business analyst, was assigned to the project throughout the development cycle, with the UX and markup engineers being involved part-time.

The technology stack included Microsoft.NET, C#, ASP.NET MVC 3, Windows Azure Cloud Services.

The duration of the project has amounted to 24 months, with the total scope of work done close to 10 man-years.

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