Infingame has released internal performance findings indicating that games built for real-money casinos do not automatically produce the same results when placed in sweepstakes environments.
The company reviewed session-level data across its sweepstakes-facing catalogue and found that titles ranking among top performers on real-money brands sometimes land in the middle of the pack once moved to sweepstakes platforms, even without changes to the games themselves.
“Operators kept asking us why a game that was a top performer on their real-money brand was landing in the middle of the pack on their sweepstakes brand,” said Jana Filagina, Head of Commercial at Infingame.
“Once we looked at the session data side by side, the answer wasn’t about the game being worse. It was built for a different relationship between the player and their money, and sweepstakes players don’t have that relationship,” Filagina added.
Four patterns tied to stronger retention
Infingame identified four recurring characteristics among titles generating stronger retention among sweepstakes players.
Sustained play accounted for more engagement than high-value individual rounds. Players in the sweepstakes catalogue tended to favor longer sequences of lower-value interactions over the high-stakes anticipation patterns common in real-money environments. Titles built around frequent feedback and steady pacing held attention longer than those centered on single large outcomes.
Visible, frequent progress indicators also correlated with stronger response from sweepstakes players. Rather than depending on anticipation tied to one large outcome, better-performing titles offered players more intermediate signals of activity throughout a session.
Onboarding friction carried a larger cost among new sweepstakes players. Infingame’s data suggested new players were more sensitive to unclear mechanics, cluttered interfaces or extra steps before gameplay became intuitive, in part because many were still forming an impression of the platform itself during that first session. Titles able to communicate their core mechanic quickly showed a better rate of turning first-time discovery into continued play.
Return mechanics outperformed added complexity in driving repeat engagement. Infingame found that giving players a clear reason to come back the next day had more effect on retention than adding further mechanical depth within a single session.
Recommendation for portfolio evaluation
Infingame said historical gross gaming revenue or ranking data from real-money casinos can provide useful context for operators but should not be used as a direct predictor of how a title will perform in a sweepstakes lobby.
The company recommends operators instead track first-session continuation, repeat visits, rounds per session, interaction with progression mechanics and performance among newly acquired players when deciding which titles warrant long-term placement in sweepstakes lobbies.
“There probably won’t be one mechanic that defines sweepstakes,” Filagina said. “What matters is being able to see what players actually respond to, test different content quickly and adjust the portfolio based on behaviour rather than assumptions. The operators that get this right won’t necessarily have the biggest lobby. They’ll have a lobby where more of the content has a clear reason to be there.”