One partner across a diverse business
Delaware North is a 110-year-old entertainment and hospitality company serving more than 500 million guests a year across four continents. Neuralift has worked with Delaware North for a number of years, and the engagement now spans numerous properties and divisions.
The business is diverse, but every team came to Neuralift for the same reason: they needed to break out of legacy segmentation and discover something new about their customers.
Legacy segmentation only finds what you already defined
Delaware North had already consolidated its first-party customer data on Databricks, spanning digital engagement, transactions, loyalty and operational systems. Segmentation still ran on manual SQL queries, static extracts and one-off reports. Every new question meant a new build, and the segments reflected tiers and RFM rules written in advance, so anything outside those rules stayed invisible.
This wasn't just about better segmentation and short-term growth. It was about creating a layer of customer intelligence and context across our brands that we can tap into whenever the business needs it, so we know what to do.
Holly DiCostanzoVP Marketing, Delaware North Discovery surfaced guest clusters the tiers had hidden
Neuralift ran AI-native segment discovery across a rolling 12 months of player data: digital engagement, gameplay, transactions, loyalty, winnings and visit history, more than 100 million data points in all. It surfaced guest clusters that were never visible in the existing tiers.
Each discovered segment is evaluated against the KPIs the business runs on, including net revenue, visit frequency, offer response and lifetime value. Teams use the Lift Potential forecast to prioritize which segments to act on before anything is activated, instead of defaulting to traditional tiering.
Use cases Neuralift now supports every month include:
Neuralift has transformed our understanding of player behavior and preferences across every touchpoint. For the first time, we have clear, actionable insights into the precise levers that drive player engagement and maximize ROI.
Angie McNewVP of BI & Analytics, Delaware North Built on Databricks
As a Built on Databricks partner, Neuralift is proud to support innovation at mutual customers like Delaware North, using core components of the Databricks stack to do it.
- Unity Catalog
Delaware North's customer datasets, features and derived assets sit in one governed, searchable catalog. Every segment Neuralift discovers is registered there too, so it is traceable, versioned and available across teams without duplication.
- OpenSharing
Delaware North shares its customer data with Neuralift through OpenSharing, with no separate integration and no data movement. Neuralift shares discovered segments and metadata back the same way, straight into the Lakehouse.
- Lakebase
Neuralift uses Lakebase as the persistent system of record for AI-ready features, segmentation outputs and model artifacts.
Because everything was cataloged and shared natively, we could move from data access to discovery almost immediately. There was no translation layer slowing things down.
Mike MaloneyChief Data Officer, Neuralift From episodic segmentation to continuous discovery
- Discovery cycles compress from weeks to hours.
- 400+ hours a quarter shift from manual analysis to optimization.
- Segments persist as governed assets instead of temporary lists.
- Player IDs and segments are written back to Delaware North's Databricks environment, where teams activate them across CRM, paid media, digital engagement and on-property programs.
The result is a layer of customer intelligence that Delaware North can return to whenever the business needs it, and that keeps finding new ways to lift its core KPIs.
Originally published on Databricks.com Read the Delaware North story on Databricks ← All stories & papers