196: Blair Bendel: The World Of Casino Marketing And The Tech That Brings It To Life Humans Of Martech podcast

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196: Blair Bendel: The World of casino marketing and the tech that brings it to life

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What’s up everyone today we have the pleasure of chatting with Blair Bendel, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Foxwoods Resort Casino.

(00:00) - Intro
(00:49) - In This Episode
(03:39) - Evolution of Casino Martech
(06:11) - Customer Loyalty & Personalization
(09:36) - Using the Right Marketing Channel for the Right Goal in Hospitality
(12:38) - Foxwood’s Martech and Customer Data Migration to MoEngage
(15:05) - Picking MoEngage
(20:07) - Why Change Tools??
(22:46) - Implementing a New Platform
(24:58) - Building Structure for 24/7/365 Casino Marketing
(31:20) - Key Things to Track
(33:15) - Fail Fast, Learn Faster
(37:25) - Balancing Big Data with Privacy
(40:23) - Why AI Will Not Fix Casino Marketing Overnight
(43:23) - Exploring AI
(46:59) - Human Experience Drives Long-Term Casino Revenue
(49:05) - Human Side
(52:12) - Why Face-to-Face Conversations Strengthen Marketing Teams

Summary: The casino floor never sleeps. Lights hum, cards shuffle, and people come not just to gamble but to feel alive. While other industries went digital overnight, casinos stayed grounded in human moments, and Blair’s mission has been to connect those experiences through smarter tech. At Foxwoods, he replaced a maze of disconnected martech with a single platform, giving his team one clear view of every guest. Push messages became quick nudges, emails carried depth, and silence built trust. In a business that runs 24/7/365, his team moves fast, learns constantly, and protects what matters most: guest privacy.

About Blair

Blair Bendel has spent nearly two decades shaping brands that make casinos feel alive. As SVP of Marketing at Foxwoods Resort Casino, one of the world’s largest gaming and entertainment destinations, he leads strategy across brand, digital, loyalty, and guest experience for a property owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.

Before Foxwoods, Blair drove marketing for Boyd Gaming and Pinnacle Entertainment, guiding multi-property teams through high-stakes launches and rebrands. Known for blending data and instinct, he’s built campaigns that turn foot traffic into fandom and moments into measurable growth.

The Evolution of Casino Martech

Casinos thrive on the energy of real people in real spaces. Blair has spent his career in that environment, where the hum of slot machines and the rhythm of foot traffic define success. He points out that while other industries rushed to digitize, gaming and hospitality focused on the on-property experience that drives most of their revenue. Technology in this world serves the guest standing in front of you, not a distant audience online.

“There’s a lot of innovation, but it’s all centered around that customer and that on-property experience,” Blair said.

Walk across a modern casino floor and you see how far that innovation has gone. Slot machines now reach twelve feet high, lit by curved screens that feel more like immersive art installations than games. Even bingo, once a paper-and-pen ritual, lives on tablets. These changes reflect more than aesthetic upgrades. They mark the blending of digital personalization with in-person entertainment. Each new machine and experience collects data, interprets patterns, and helps casinos understand what keeps players coming back.

Blair sees the next phase of progress in the pairing of martech systems and artificial intelligence. Casinos have long collected data on player habits, but much of it stayed locked in isolated databases. AI now connects those dots, linking preferences, visit frequency, and loyalty activity into one living profile. That way you can predict what a guest wants before they ask for it. Personalized dining offers, targeted game promotions, or well-timed follow-up messages all become part of a continuous loop that strengthens engagement.

Still, Blair focuses on the human side of this transformation. “People assume tech makes everything easier, and it doesn’t,” he said. Each new platform requires training, integration, and trust. Martech without people who know how to use it becomes clutter. Blair spends much of his time ensuring his team understands the technology deeply enough to keep the guest experience effortless. The strategy depends on teams who can think like data analysts and act like hosts.

Key takeaway: Martech and AI can elevate on-property hospitality when used to deepen human connection instead of replacing it. Integrate systems that unify guest data, but prioritize training and comfort among your team. When your people trust the tools and your guests feel known, technology quietly fades into the background while loyalty takes center stage.

Customer Loyalty and Personalization in Casino Marketing

Casino marketing has operated on autopilot for too long. Guests still get dropped into massive segmentation buckets, treated as if their weekend habits, entertainment tastes, and spending patterns are interchangeable. Blair describes it bluntly: “We still send show offers to guests who’ve never been to a concert in their life.” That single sentence captures the outdated logic behind much of hospitality marketing. The data is there, but the systems fail to translate it into actual relevance.

Blair’s vision for Foxwoods looks very different. He wants every guest communication to reflect an individual’s real-world behavior across the property. The system should recognize the guest who booked a John Legend concert last year, scheduled a spa visit before dinner at the steakhouse, and played slots into the night. That pattern should generate communications that align with their habits instead of contradicting them. The goal is not another loyalty campaign; it is a personalized experience that extends far beyond the walls of the casino.

“Pre-booking, post-booking, everything in between should feel connected and meaningful,” Blair says. “It should never just be noise.”

The complexity behind that ambition is immense. Each behavioral variable—favorite artist, time of year, dining preference, game type—multiplies the possible outcomes. A small addition in logic can create thousands of potential message combinations. Casinos also face stricter rules on data sensitivity than most industries, so scaling personalization demands precision. The technical lift is enormous, but the payoff is real: when every offer feels relevant, engagement increases without resorting to gimmicks or discounts.

The most important shift is cultural, not technological. Marketing teams need to stop thinking of messages as promotions and start thinking of them as part of the guest experience. When personalization is treated as hospitality, not marketing automation, it starts to feel natural. That mindset transforms every text, push notification, and offer into something that extends the stay rather than interrupts it.

Key takeaway: One-to-one personalization in casino marketing depends on operational discipline, unified data, and a mindset shift. Start by mapping how guests actually experience your property, then use that data to inform relevant communication across every channel. That way you can replace noise with value, and marketing becomes an extension of the hospitality experience itself.

Using the Right Marketing Channel for the Right Goal in Hospitality

Coordinating multiple marketing systems inside a casino is like running a live concert with half the band still tuning. Each channel (email, mobile, social, in-property signage) operates on a separate timeline, using different data and often speaking a different language. Blair knows this chaos well. His goal is to make those systems play in harmony, producing a s...

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