Introduction

Grosvenor Casino is part of The Rank Group, one of the UK’s largest gambling and entertainment companies.

The digital platform serves 1.7M customers annually, generating over £200M in digital revenue.

Context.

For new players, the first deposit represents the moment they move from exploring the product to committing real money.

It is also one of the most commercially critical moments in the player lifecycle, directly impacting acquisition performance and long-term player value.

To encourage deposits, players are typically offered a welcome bonus additional funds or free play awarded after their first payment.

These rewards are governed by eligibility rules and wagering requirements that determine how and when players receive value.

While the system behind these promotions is deterministic, it is not always visible to players creating a gap between system behaviour and user expectations.

The Problem

Internal data and customer support signals indicated that the first-time deposit journey was generating significant confusion around promotional rewards.

Bonus-related queries averaged 2,200+ support cases per month, with many users believing their reward had not been applied correctly.

The issue was not friction in the payment flow, but a lack of clarity in how bonuses worked particularly how they related to deposits and when rewards would be received.

As a result, users reached payment without a clear understanding of the value, leading to hesitation, support dependency, and reduced confidence.

How might we make the value exchange of the first-time deposit clear and predictable so users understand what they will receive, when they will receive it, and can complete their deposit with confidence?

Discovery

While the data highlighted confusion around promotional rewards, it did not explain where or why this breakdown was occurring within the journey.

To understand how users interpreted promotional value and where confusion was introduced, discovery combined support insights, journey analysis, behavioural observation, and system review.

Discovery Outcome.

The issue was not a single point of friction, but a breakdown in how value was communicated across the journey.

Users formed expectations early but lacked clarity at key decision points, leading to hesitation at the point of deposit.

Addressing this required making the value exchange explicit linking deposit, bonus, and reward.

To pinpoint where this breakdown occurred, the experience was analysed across three perspectives: support insights, journey analysis, and system understanding.

Created to address: lack of visibility into how users experienced and described issues with promotional rewards.

What it does: support cases were analysed to identify recurring themes in bonus-related queries, focusing on how users understood reward eligibility, application, and timing.

This revealed consistent patterns of:

• Perceived missing rewards

• Misunderstood bonus conditions

• Unclear reward states

Created to address: unclear points within the deposit flow where user expectations broke down.

What it does: the end-to-end journey was mapped to identify where value was introduced, how it was communicated, and where uncertainty emerged.

This focused on:

• Offer selection and expectation setting

• Payment method selection and compatibility

• Deposit confirmation and reward outcome

Created to address: mismatch between user expectations and how the system applied and delivered rewards.

What it does: the bonus system logic was analysed to understand how deposits, eligibility conditions, and rewards were processed and delivered.

This made visible:

How bonuses were triggered

When rewards were applied

Where delays or ambiguity occurred

The solution focused on improving these moments within the deposit experience itself, allowing the team to address the most critical confidence gaps without redesigning the entire onboarding journey.

The final experience therefore focused on reinforcing confidence across three critical moments of the deposit journey:

These moments occurred within or immediately around the cashier experience, making the deposit flow the highest-impact area to address first.

SOLUTION

The final experience focused on reinforcing confidence across the three moments where journey analysis showed expectations breaking down.

Design decisions were therefore structured around the deposit journey itself: before the transaction, during payment, and immediately after confirmation.

Problem: players struggled to understand what the selected bonus actually meant before committing money.

Key conditions such as wagering requirements and reward activation were not always clear during selection.

Design decision: the bonus selection experience was redesigned to make reward value, eligibility rules, and wagering conditions easier to interpret before entering the cashier.

Outcome.

By clarifying reward mechanics at the point of selection, players could make a more confident decision before entering the deposit flow.

Problem: as players moved into the cashier flow, visibility of the selected bonus weakened, creating uncertainty at the moment they were asked to commit payment.

Design decision: the cashier experience reinforced the selected bonus throughout the payment flow, allowing players to verify the reward while entering payment details.

Outcome.

Maintaining visibility of the active reward reduced uncertainty during the transaction and helped reinforce trust in the outcome.

Problem: after completing the transaction, players often struggled to confirm whether the bonus had been applied correctly.

Design decision: confirmation screens were redesigned to clearly communicate reward status and next steps after deposit.

Outcome.

Clear feedback after the transaction helped players understand the reward outcome without needing to contact support.

Impact

The redesign focused on improving clarity and confidence at the moment of commitment. Success was measured across behavioural outcomes, user understanding, and operational efficiency to ensure the changes delivered meaningful impact beyond interface improvements.

These results confirmed that improving clarity directly influenced user behaviour at the moment of commitment.

Users required fewer interactions to understand bonus mechanics, and post-deposit uncertainty decreased substantially.

Together, these changes showed that the redesigned experience improved users’ understanding of both value and outcome.

Support data showed a sustained decline in bonus-related queries following rollout, particularly in the largest category of confusion-driven contacts.

These reductions demonstrate that improved clarity translated directly into operational efficiency and reduced support reliance.