The big thinkers at Boyd Gaming say they are on to something important with recent refinements of their B Connected player loyalty program.

The super highway to the casino industry’s future is relying more than ever on technology, which companies of every size are using to sharpen marketing strategies.

One result of this continuing evolution: computerized databases and how to grow them have taken center stage as a hot subject of conversation during recent months.

The biggest of the big, MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment, have both been touting elaborate overhauls of their respective programs – M Life and Total Rewards. MGM has added nongaming spending to its tracking of customer activity, but the work is going on everywhere.

Station Casinos has spent millions advertising the merits of its club. As for Boyd, Chief Operating Officer Paul Chakmak says the company now offers, “the first comprehensive nationwide social gaming platform linked to a casino loyalty program. B Connected taps into the growing popularity of online social environments.”

He notes that “millions of people” turn to various social websites on a daily basis, spending a lot of hours earning recognition that comes in the form of points, badges and what have you.

“B Connected Social applies these dynamics to B Connected Online and our other websites,” Chakmak explained during a conference call with financial analysts. “With this new program our customers earn social points for routine transactions which can then be redeemed for entries into regular contests.”

In addition, the new Boyd program “ties into major social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.,) recognizing customers for sharing information through these services. Customers earn social points for promoting us through social media and we receive the benefit of word of mouth marketing directly from our customers.”

Chakmak stressed, “These social elements are far more extensive and broad-based than anything else in our industry and we believe they will further extend B Connected Online’s leadership position.

And this has led to a changing industry landscape.

Financial analysts usually have questions about the difference between rated and unrated casino play during their quarterly conversations with top officials, but Chakmak said casinos (those of both Boyd and its competitors) appear to be nearing a point in time when the notion of unrated casino activity by most customers will vanish.

“We and certainly our competitors have gotten much better at putting loyalty cards in the hands of our customers,” Chakmak said. “The group of unrated (gamblers) becomes a difficult group to find anymore. They’ve sort of become extinct to some extent.

“For instance, you can’t check into one of our hotels without getting handed a players club card. So you basically only stay unrated for one trip and then you end up in the database where you stay as long as your play continues.”

He continued, “Future conversations about unrated play may go away because it is so easy to get a players club card…It’s almost unofficially mandated as you walk in the door."