Operator News
Dave & Buster’s adds social betting to loyalty app
By Lewis - 1 May 2024
US arcade chain, Dave & Buster’s, is to start offering social wagering via the company’s app, allowing players of skew-ball and hot shots basketball to make wagers on the outcome of games. D&B’s five million loyalty members will earn rewards while competing, which could boost the time and cash they spend at arcades.
D&B’s is teaming up with gamification software startup Lucra to power its betting features. Lucra’s contests are open to adults in 44 states, and D&B’s said there’ll be a limit on the size of bets allowed. Dave & Buster’s has more than 223 venues in North America, offering everything from bowling to laser tag, plus virtual reality.
The new strategic partnership integrates Lucra’s proprietary gamification software into the Dave & Buster’s app, allowing loyalty members to digitally compete with each other, earn rewards, and unlock exclusive perks while competing with friends at Dave & Buster’s – bringing together the sports arena and the arcade for a gamified experience.
Social betting already takes the form of ‘Venmo’ing’ friends and is a smaller industry than sports betting, but companies like Lucra are emerging to formalise (and monetise) these friendly bets. Lucra even signed a deal with the pickleball ratings system to allow players to compete for cash. Dave & Buster’s plans to allow its loyalty members to compete with one another and earn rewards in a bid to incentivise its customer base to spend more money at its venues. The company’s stock is up more than 50 per cent over the past year.
“We’re thrilled to work with Lucra to bring this exciting new gaming platform to our customers,” said Simon Murray, SVP of Entertainment and Attractions at Dave and Buster’s. “This new partnership gives our loyalty members real-time, unrivaled gaming experiences, and reinforces our commitment to continuing to elevate our customer experience through innovative, cutting-edge technology.”
Lucra aims to disrupt traditional forms of competition, by providing a safe and trustworthy experience for people to challenge their friends, inside a platform or place they already know and love. Lucra’s approach will help to destigmatise cash-based competition by evolving it into a fun, friendly, and social experience.
After running a successful direct-to-consumer company for several years (growing it to 150K+ customers, 1M+ real-money contests, and $20M+ of handle), Lucra realised there was a bigger opportunity if it embedded its gamification tech directly into existing communities & established platforms.
Lucra offers two products that can be natively integrated into third-party platforms in as fast as two weeks. Handling 90 per cnet of the implementation work and 100 per cent of the risk management, Lucra allows brands (big and small) to add gamification in 1/10th the time for 1/10th the cost.
Lucra and Dave & Buster’s said there will be a limit placed on the size of bets it will allow, but that they’re not publicly disclosing that threshold just yet. Lucra said across its history the average bet size has been $10.
