Your World Cup sign-ups made one deposit. Here's how to get the second.

Why do tournament sign-ups go quiet after the first deposit?

Big tournaments bring a wave of new accounts, and the hard part starts after the final. In fast-growing markets the wave is large: in South Africa, online betting revenue grew 53.5% in the year to March 2025, and online now makes up 85.5% of all betting revenue. Many of those new players deposit once, for the tournament, and stop.

The second deposit is the early signal that a player is staying. Lifecycle analysts treat the second-deposit rate as the best early predictor of whether a new player will last. Timing matters too: Optimove research across more than 5 million players found the best return from acting on the first day of inactivity, with the first week the critical window.

Why don't automated welcome journeys fix it?

Most operators already run automated welcome journeys: emails, push notifications and bonus reminders. They are the right tool for volume. But they are easy to ignore, and a player who deposited once for a tournament has little reason to open the fifth email. A phone call is different. It rings, it is personal, and it is a conversation rather than a message. The practical answer is automation for everyone, and a call for the players worth one.

What does an AI welcome call actually sound like?

The agent speaks naturally, on behalf of your brand. Every player is told at the start of the call that they're speaking to a virtual assistant. It welcomes the player, explains the offer your team has approved, and answers questions within the guidelines you set. It works only from the offer and guidelines your team gives it. It doesn't discuss the player's account or anything financial beyond the script, and anything outside its guidelines is passed to your support team. The offer is sent by SMS only if the player agrees on the call.

Is an AI caller better than a human one?

For welcome and reactivation calls at volume, usually yes. Not for everything.

Where the AI caller is stronger:

• The same call every time. It follows the script your compliance team approved on the first call and the thousandth. There are no bad days, and it never improvises an offer you didn't sign off.
• No pressure to hit a target. It isn't paid on commission, so it has no reason to push a player who isn't interested.
• A harm check on every single call. A human team can't review every conversation. Here, three independent checks run on each call, and every flag goes to a named person on your team.
• A complete record. Every call is logged, and flags sit in a record that can't be edited afterwards, which is useful when a regulator or your own compliance team asks what was said.
• Speed and scale. It can work through the whole list in the first days of inactivity, when a win-back is most likely, instead of whatever a team can reach that week.
• Fixed cost. A monthly fee for up to 1,000 calls a day, not headcount that rises with the size of the list.

Where a person is still better:

• Your top VIPs. Long-term relationships with high-value players belong with a dedicated human host.
• Complaints and disputes. Anything about an account, a payment or a grievance needs a person with authority to fix it.
• Players who need support. The agent spots the signs and hands over; your trained team gives the help.

The strongest setup uses both: the agent for the volume, and your people for the conversations that need them.

How do you keep welcome calls safe?

• Harm checks on every call. The agent can flag harm during the call, the outcome is classified when the call ends, and a separate scan reads the player's own words. Every flag goes to a named person at the operator, and those numbers are blocked from future calls.
• Consent by channel. In Great Britain, operators must offer marketing opt-ins per product and per channel, so a player who opted in to casino emails hasn't agreed to betting calls. Incentives also can't mix product types, such as a sports bet combined with casino spins. In other markets, local data and gambling rules decide whether a marketing call is allowed, so check before the first call. This isn't legal advice.

How do you know it actually worked?

Three numbers get mixed up constantly: players who accepted the offer on the call, players who made another deposit, and players who made another deposit because of the call. Only the third tells you whether to keep paying for the calls.

To measure it, keep a random group uncalled before anything starts. That group shows how many players would have come back anyway. Operators who claim credit for every returning player without a holdout overstate what their CRM achieved.

What should a retention team do this month?

1. Pull the list: players who first deposited during the tournament and haven't deposited since.
2. Check that each one has opted in to phone marketing for that product.
3. Set aside a random holdout group before anyone is contacted.
4. Agree the offer with compliance. In Great Britain, one product per incentive.
5. Name the person who owns the harm-flag queue, with a response time.
6. Fix the measurement window, for example deposits within 14 days, before the first call.

Related service: AI player reactivation for iGaming operators