The influence of customer experience with automated games and social interaction on customer engagement and loyalty in casinos

Drawing on experiential marketing theory, This study examines the relationship between casino customers’ experience with automated games and their engagement and loyalty responses to casinos. Social interaction as a proxy of visiting motivation is modelled as a moderator in the relationship. Customer behaviours include word-of-mouth, visiting frequency, and average spending. The study focuses on Australian land-based casino members with automated game experience. The results show that customer experience with some features of automated games had a positive and significant impact on customer engagement with the casino, which led to positive loyalty. Automated game experience also had an indirect effect on customer loyalty. Social interaction exhibited a significant moderating effect on the relationship between customer engagement and visiting frequency. Discussion and implications of these findings for the literature and practitioners conclude the paper