For years, the gaming industry has relied on broad player classifications and standard game metrics to understand customer behaviour. Yet both approaches often fall short of explaining what operators actually see on their gaming floors and online platforms every day.
In this intensive 5-hour Masterclass called Beyond RTP and Traditional Player Segmentation, gaming consultant Lucien Wijsman challenges two of the industry’s most common assumptions, one about who players are, and one about how they experience the games in front of them.
Why This Masterclass Matters
An incomplete view of player behaviour affects decisions across the entire casino operation.
For too long, the industry has relied on broad classifications, Fun Players, Time-on-Device Players, Gamblers, and technical metrics like RTP and volatility, to explain how customers behave. But these categories often fail to reflect what operators actually see on the floor and online. Product teams may select games using metrics that don’t capture how customers experience them in a real session. CRM teams may group together players with fundamentally different motivations. Marketing campaigns can miss the factors that genuinely drive engagement and retention.
The result is that many commercial decisions are built on assumptions about players, rather than a clear, evidence-based understanding of how they actually behave, or how they actually experience the games in front of them.
A more accurate picture of player behaviour, both who players are and how they experience game mathematics, can support stronger portfolio decisions, more relevant communication, and gaming experiences genuinely built for the customers they’re meant to serve.
What You Can Expect
Here’s what you can expect from the Masterclass:
- A modern player segmentation framework: Move beyond broad categories like Fun Players, Time-on-Device Players and Gamblers, and learn to distinguish between land-based-only, hybrid and online-first players, each made up of distinct behavioural and psychological archetypes.
- A clearer picture of what players actually want: Understand how different player types vary in their expectations across the Extended Marketing Mix, product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical environment, and why many casinos unknowingly build experiences for players they don’t actually serve.
- Working examples based on real gaming experiences: Examine how players perceive slot mathematics during actual sessions, and understand why RTP and traditional volatility metrics don’t always tell the full story.
- Hands-on application of Expected Session Volatility: Learn how to use ESV to model and compare different slot experiences, assess real player sessions, and communicate game characteristics more clearly than RTP or volatility alone.
- Direct access to an experienced instructor: Ask detailed questions, test your current assumptions, and receive feedback from Lucien Wijsman on how these concepts could apply to your business.
- Techniques you can use immediately: Leave with practical approaches that can inform game selection, portfolio strategy, CRM segmentation, customer communication and responsible gaming initiatives.
Who Should Invest in This Masterclass?
- Casino Product Managers → Gain a better understanding of how players experience games to make more informed decisions around game selection, portfolio strategy and product development.
- CRM and Retention Teams → Move beyond broad demographic segmentation to create more personalised campaigns, improve customer journeys and strengthen long-term engagement.
- Casino and Commercial Leaders → Gain a clearer framework for evaluating player behaviour, helping inform investment decisions, commercial strategy and overall casino performance.
- Game Studios and Suppliers → Better understand how operators assess player behaviour and game performance, helping develop products that more closely match customer expectations.
- Land-Based and Online Operators → Learn how player motivations and expectations differ across land-based-only, hybrid and online-first channels, and use those insights to build more consistent player experiences, wherever they play.
Meet Your Instructor, Lucien Wijsman
Lucien Wijsman has more than 35 years of experience in the casino industry. Through his consultancy work, he provides operators and suppliers with audits, training and strategic advice designed to improve their land-based and online casino offerings.
His work combines academic research with practical industry experience, making him well placed to challenge established thinking around player segmentation, game mathematics and how customers experience slot products.
Wijsman has worked with leading gaming companies and casino operators around the world, including:
- IGT
- Novomatic
- Sun International
- Casinos Austria
- SBM Monte Carlo
- Genting Casinos UK
- The Hippodrome Casino
How the Afternoon Works
The Electronic Gaming Academy Masterclass is split into two focused sessions: the first builds a deeper understanding of modern casino players, and the second turns that into a practical framework for evaluating the games they play.
Session 1: The Player Does Not Exist
Wednesday, 30 September 2026 | 12:00-14:30
The first session introduces a more modern framework for player segmentation. Traditional categories, such as Fun Players, Time-on-Device Players and Gamblers, remain relevant, but on their own they no longer explain modern player behaviour. The Masterclass builds on these by distinguishing between land-based-only, hybrid and online-first players, each made up of distinct behavioural and psychological archetypes with fundamentally different expectations of the gaming experience.
By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
- Understand why traditional player segmentation, such as Fun Players, Time-on-Device Players and Gamblers, no longer fully explains modern player behaviour.
- Identify and cater to land-based-only, hybrid and online-first players.
- Understand the behavioural drivers behind eight distinct gambler archetypes.
- Apply limbic profiles and motivational psychology to build a more detailed picture of player needs and expectations.
- Map player expectations across the Extended Marketing Mix, assessing how product, price, place, promotion, people, process and physical environment shape behaviour.
- Apply these insights to practical decisions across casino design, CRM, product selection and marketing.
Session 2: Beyond Volatility
Wednesday, 30 September 2026 | 15:00-17:30
The second session shifts focus from player psychology to game mathematics. RTP and volatility remain the industry’s default tools for describing how a slot game behaves, but on their own, they often fail to predict how a player actually experiences a real session.
This session introduces Expected Session Volatility (ESV), a practical framework for understanding, modelling and communicating the player experience. Attendees will learn why two games with identical RTP and similar volatility can create dramatically different player experiences, how ESV is calculated, and why it may become a more meaningful metric for operators, suppliers and players alike.
By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:
- Understand why RTP only tells part of the story, and where traditional metrics can fall short when assessing player experience.
- Explain the relationship between variance, volatility and player perception, and why players often experience games differently than the mathematics alone would suggest.
- Apply the Expected Session Volatility (ESV) framework to model and compare different slot experiences.
- Assess real player sessions more effectively, using ESV to understand how games may perform across different play styles and environments.
- Compare land-based and online gaming experiences, identifying where player expectations and session dynamics differ.
- Calculate and communicate ESV in practice, supporting decisions around game selection, responsible gaming and customer communication.
Education+ and How to Secure Your Place
The Electronic Gaming Academy Masterclass forms part of Education+, SBC Summit’s dedicated learning upgrade for delegates who want a more practical, classroom-style experience alongside the main conference agenda.
The upgrade gives attendees the opportunity to choose a Masterclass or Tech Academy, with each session designed around specialist instruction, applied learning and practical skills that can be taken back into the workplace.
Alongside the Electronic Gaming Academy Masterclass, the wider Education+ programme includes learning opportunities across areas such as AI, marketing, Web3, player experience, sportsbook trading, electronic gaming and responsible gaming marketing.
Masterclasses are CPD-certified, meaning attendees may be eligible for employer funding through their professional development budget, adding even more value to their SBC Summit experience.
To attend, delegates must add the Education+ Upgrade to their SBC Summit pass and register their interest in the Electronic Gaming Academy Masterclass.
Get the Education+ Upgrade.
Register Your Interest here.
Can the €249 Education+ Upgrade Pay for Itself?
The value of the Masterclass lies in the decisions attendees make after it.
A stronger game-selection decision could improve portfolio performance, while a better-informed CRM campaign could increase engagement among valuable player groups. Clearer communication around game characteristics may also improve the customer experience, while a deeper understanding of player behaviour can support more relevant responsible gaming interventions.
When even one improved product, marketing or player-management decision can generate measurable value for a business, the €249 Education+ Upgrade quickly justifies its cost.
