Part 1: Omnichannel Isn’t a Feature — It’s Your Strategy

The word omnichannel has lost meaning. It’s become shorthand for “we’re on mobile too” or “our platform works everywhere.” However, omnichannel isn’t about availability — it’s about continuity. It’s not a feature to check off, it’s a strategy that defines how operators engage with guests, earn their loyalty, and drive lifetime value.

“The ideal state of Omni channel is regardless of when, where and how I interact with a brand, the customer experience is unified and consistent,” said Victor Newsom, SVP Product, Payments Solutions for Everi. “You should be able to enter and exit a given channel within that brand and continue on with your customer journey or experience in a different channel.”

Multichannel Does Not Mean Omnichannel

Operators often confuse the two. Multichannel allows for showing up in many places. Omnichannel means unifying those places into a single, consistent customer journey.

In a fragmented system, a guest may browse a promotion on a casino’s website but has to repeat themselves when calling support. Another example, in the payments sector: a patron signs up for a wallet in one app but can’t use it in another. In the hospitality space, a guest may receive an offer via email but can’t redeem it at a kiosk. All of these describe experiences that feel siloed, inconsistent, and frustrating.

It’s an illusion of integration; different screens running the same disconnected experiences. Real omnichannel means recognizing a guest across every touchpoint and adapting to their context in real time.

“Despite all the information available, we still have all the disconnectedness,” Newsom said. “That's why, to me, Omnichannel is not just a word, it's a DNA encoding that companies need to have to express throughout their entire being.”

Don’t Just Deploy — Design for Value

Overuse of the word “omnichannel” in product marketing dilutes the term and can cause confusion with the end user.

“They're not telling you why putting their product in different channels makes sense and they're not addressing the value it creates for the end user,” said Francis Keyser, SVP Product Management (Loyalty and Mobile). “A true omnichannel approach means someone can access a product's value from different channels. Remember, value could be a full product or a subset of features that are really tailor made to work in each specific channel. You need to ensure your features have deep integration between platforms to feel seamless and thoughtful.”

Within the gaming industry, promotional offers are an example of unlocking additional value for guests by maximizing each channel. A food offer could appear in a mailer, a push notification, on a kiosk, or be tied to a player card at the POS.

“Each channel should present the offer in a way that enhances the guest experience — not just replicates it,” Keyser said. “Each one represents a valuable way to interact with the same product.”

Successful omnichannel strategies, as Keyser and Newsom outlined, should focus on utility and value, not ubiquity. It’s more about matching each channel to the context the patron exists in. That exposes the value that matters most, where and when it’s most relevant.

Continuity Is the New Competitive Edge

Guests expect personalization, recognition, and ease. They expect their loyalty tier to matter across the resort, their payment methods to work across systems, and their experiences to carry over from one platform to the next. When you deliver that kind of continuity, you build trust and long-term engagement. When you don’t, you risk abandonment and churn.

The real opportunity isn’t about meeting expectations, it’s exceeding them through connected, curated, and frictionless experiences. Omnichannel isn’t just about being everywhere, it’s about connecting everything: the systems, the teams, the data — and most importantly, the guest experience.

Coming Up in Part 2: How outdated regulations, fragmented payments, and misaligned priorities are standing in the way. How do we move forward?