As the gaming industry pushes for greater adoption of cashless payment systems by patrons amid some hiccups in its rollout, casinos continue to implement the technology to gain a competitive edge.
The growing importance of cashless technology in casino gaming was evident at Raving’s Casino Marketing & Technology Conference in Las Vegas this week, where two sessions featured the same panelists 30 minutes apart.
Panelist Melanie Heskett, general manager of the Indigo Sky Casino in northeast Oklahoma, told the audience they implemented cashless gaming on Tuesday, the same day of the panel. It was a soft launch involving about 30 patrons; also this week, they’ll deploy an app for funding.
“The biggest decision (for doing this) was, in the northeast portion of Oklahoma, we have 12 competitors within a 25-mile radius,” Heskett said. “We’re always looking at what’s next. What’s the next technology? What’s the next practice to get us where we need to go? We all market to the same players, so what makes us different from anyone else down the road? Cashless happened to be on the roadmap that we set forth a few years ago with our systems provider. In the course of the project, we decided to deploy it a little bit sooner, now that the competition is a bit more fierce. COVID changed the landscape as to how we market and how people are gaming these days.”
Panelist Noah Acres, chief marketing officer at Acres Technology, said their devices are installed at all Penn National properties across the U.S., with 13,000 games running cashless at nine casinos. Overall, Acres has installed its technology in 26,000 games and by the end of the year, they expect to be live in more than 30,000 games, he said.
The Acres Wallet application is built on the company’s Foundation casino-management system that enables cashless gaming.
Technology companies understand, however, that not every player will take advantage of cashless gaming.
“A certain percentage of your players will continue gaming like they game today,” said Tracey Chernay, a senior vice president with TransAct Technologies. “You have to meet the players how they want to be met in the casino and make it the experience they’re looking for.”
The panelists said cashless is here to stay and has a bright future in gaming, but also talked about some of the hiccups in the industry with its rollout.
Christopher Justice, president of Global Payments Gaming Solutions, cited plentiful ways to implement cashless gaming, but warned people not to choose a system unless they see it in person.
“This industry is amazing at creating the world’s greatest power points that will never work in your casino,” Justice said. “Go test them out and don’t take anybody’s word for it. See if you would put yourself through the trouble to go through it. Candidly, if your customer won’t adopt it and it’s not better than what you have today, you’re wasting all your time and effort. There are a few in Las Vegas and you’ll see what we saw. The most notorious one is Resorts World, a $4.7 billion resort with the most amazing technology ever. Good luck. It’s disappointing.”
In response to Justice, Acres said that to be fair to Resorts World, there were Nevada regulatory problems, including remote signups, that are being addressed. He said it’s best to see how that plays out first.
“I think the one that’s more challenged is Aliante (Casino in Las Vegas),” Acres said. “Two of those properties combined have set the industry back in terms of going cashless. I have heard operators checking it out and saying I could never do this to my customers. It will be fixed over time and be a good offering. There are good solutions out there. It’s important to go out there and put yourselves in the shoes of your customers for sure.”
Ryan Bevens, regional general manager of Maverick Gaming who moderated the program, brought up Amazon and how everyone wants the use of technology to be easy. People can pick up their phone and push a few buttons and have an item at their doorstep in 24 hours. People can buy a house or car the same way, he said.
“Everyone is aspiring for the cashless gaming world to be instant, but there will be roadblocks, jurisdictional (issues), and challenges,” Bevens said. “Everyone wants the end-all be-all final product, but it’s going to take a long time to get there. Some people have gone through those challenges already.”
