When we started planning improvements for our VIP program, we did the obvious thing first: we listened to the people who use it. We asked our support team to flag every complaint, idea, and comment players had shared with them, especially from VIP members, and then went through all of it.
We expected a few rough edges, but found that the core concept and mechanics don’t work for most players. We have a program that asks players for a lot of loyalty and gives very little back to most of the people who showed it.
This is the second post in a short series ahead of our VIP relaunch. In the first, we looked at why casino bonuses and wagering requirements so often work against the player. This time the mirror points at us, at the five-tier program we run until now, what it rewards, and who it leaves out.
What the audit turned up
We went through every small thing our players highlighted. Four problems appeared again and again.
Five loyalty tiers make for a very tall ladder
Our program runs from Bronze to Diamond across five tiers. In theory, that looks easy to follow, but in practice it means long stretches between promotions. A regular player can bet steadily for a long time and see almost nothing change on their VIP page.
Tier progression works when players can feel it. But a progress bar that barely moves makes you feel like the next rank requires too much effort to reach.
Five rungs spread across a tall wall is a ladder most people look at once and then stop climbing.
Cashback waits at the very top
Cashback is the easiest of all player rewards to understand, and we’ve overlooked it as a strong incentive for players to come back. It returns part of a player’s net losses and is available at Platinum and nowhere below it.
Bad runs happen at every rank, and a reward that cushions them makes sense for everyone who plays with us. Keeping it at the top means the majority of players never receive it at all.
Nothing brings players back tomorrow
The current program gives you a little reason to open Sportbet.one on an ordinary Tuesday. You can get rewards only when a tier changes or a bonus period closes, and between those moments the VIP page stays the same.
A good loyalty program gives people small, regular reasons to return, the way a coffee card fills up one stamp at a time. Ours has the equivalent of a card with five stamps spread across a year, and most people lose the card long before the free coffee.
New players start outside the program
A new player signs up, receives a welcome bonus, and only discovers the loyalty program later, if they discover it at all. Our welcome offer just lives in a separate place from VIP.
The first weeks on a platform decide how people feel about it, and we spend those weeks sending newcomers down a path unconnected to the system built to reward them. By the time VIP comes into view, it looks like a club they have not been invited to, and joining it feels like starting over.
What we have built is a velvet rope
What did we see after putting those four findings side by side? A sad picture. A loyalty program that was supposed to reward people for staying benefits only a small group for already being at the top, and hands everyone else a list of perks to admire from a distance.
A top tier should feel special, and there is nothing wrong with exclusivity at the summit of a VIP program. The trouble starts when exclusivity becomes the whole design.
The irony is that the players we most wanted to keep are the ones the program ignores. A new player weighing up a second visit gets nothing from a perk they might reach in a year. A regular who plays a few times a week gets nothing from a cashback rate reserved for a tier far above them.
There is a second layer to the problem too, which we covered in the first post of this series. Many of the rewards that exist arrive as bonus balance tied to wagering requirements, so even players who reached them often receive money they can’t yet withdraw.
A VIP program with few reachable rewards, paid in a form players can’t freely use, gives people very little reason to care about it.
What the new program will change
The new VIP program starts from the problems above and works backward from them. We will share the full details at launch, but the direction is set, and in broad strokes it looks like this:
- Many more ranks: Smaller steps between promotions, so progress shows up often enough to feel real.
- Cashback much earlier: It moves down from the top of the ladder to a point regular players can reach.
- Rakeback on every bet: A share of what you play comes back to you, win or lose, based on your rank.
- Something new every day: A daily reason to log in, built into the program itself.
- VIP from day one: New players join the program the moment they sign up, with no separate welcome track.
- Real money rewards: VIP rewards pay out as real money, and none of them come with wagering requirements attached.
- Once again: zero wagering requirements: Every VIP reward is free of wagering, so what you earn is yours to keep.
Rakeback will sit at the center of the new system. Every bet you place earns a small return based on your rank, and cashback covers the rougher runs on top of that.
The idea behind all of it is simple. Rewards should start from your first bet, arrive often, and pay out as money you can use straight away. The top ranks will still feel like an achievement, and every rank below them will have a next step in view.
Full details at launch
Everything above explains why we decided to rebuild, and the launch will cover what the new program contains, with every rank, rate and reward laid out in full. We will publish those details the day the new VIP program goes live, and you can follow along on our blog, Telegram, X and LinkedIn in the meantime.
Auditing your own work is an uncomfortable process, and this audit was no exception. We would still recommend it to anyone who runs a loyalty program. Our players’ feedback told us plainly what wasn’t working, and its their comments that’ve shaped everything that comes next. We look forward to showing you the results.
