As some companies integrate cashless technology into their casino gaming experience, JCM Global continues to fill their needs with innovative cash transactions and payment solutions that are efficient, consistent, and dependable.
Dave Kubajak, Senior Vice-President of Sales, Marketing, and Operations, has been with JCM Global for 25 of the company’s 70 years of service to the gaming industry.
He speaks from a rare perspective when he acknowledges that, “If you go back 10 years, I was not sure what the future held. I was worried about mobile or account-based cashless technologies. I was not sure how it was going to affect our business.”
“When you reflect on the last decade, look at the COVID transitions and the challenges that the global pandemic created,” Kubajak continued. “Yet in the economies around the world today, there is more physical currency in circulation than at any point in history.”
While he was conducting research to better understand exactly what the breakdown was of cash versus cashless at some major properties, and the opportunities for new technologies that JCM could develop, Kubajak was surprised to see that the amount of cash on any casino floor dominates the amount of tickets.
“In most casinos across America, TITO (Ticket In Ticket Out) technology, the original cashless technology JCM helped introduce to casinos, is only running about 30 percent of the total items put into a slot machine. The remainder is all cash transactions. The breakdown for the gaming floor of most casinos, to include slots and table games, is small, at less than 10 percent.
“People use cash across all aspects of the casino floor, so when it came to the gambling aspect, the numbers were surprising to me because I thought that TITO and mobile or account-based cashless would have had a much bigger penetration rate. But we do not see it. It just is not happening.
“When you hear ‘Cash is King,’ the phrase is true in the gaming industry. People bring cash when they come to a casino. They want to play with cash.”
Kubajak acknowledged the fact that adding mobile or account-based cashless transaction technology does add to revenue generating opportunities for casino properties across the retail, food and beverage, and hospitality sectors. It is not a replacement for cash, but at the same time it does provide more options for guests.
“It is absolutely amazing the amount of cash that casinos process on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis,” he revealed. “If you look at any city, state, or regional bank, none of them come even close to processing the amount of cash that casinos process. It is overwhelming.”
Reasoning that because only a fraction of gaming floor transactions is mobile or account-based cashless, Kubajak said that JCM tackled the problem of how to help casinos process the massive amounts of cash.
Because of all the different systems and technology that JCM has brought to the gaming industry, according to Kubajak, it is possible for casinos to monitor and track the play from a financial perspective to understand how the transactions break down in a casino environment.
One of the JCM innovations was ICB ASAP (Intelligent Cash Box with Automated Secure Asset Processing). This next generation of the original ICB system unveiled by JCM Global in 2001, takes count room operations to a new level of productivity, efficiency, and operational security.
In researching a solution, the JCM Global team reimagined an existing technology: robotic automation. Such technology has been a component of the automotive industry for over six decades and has been utilized within JCM Global’s manufacturing and quality departments.
ICB ASAP installations include a network of four industrial-grade robots that operate in one secure automation unit and meet all robotic safety requirements. The solution is compact to meet the footprint of limited count room space, and is user-friendly through the incorporation of HMI (human machine interface).
When used in concert with JCM’s bill validation solutions – including iVIZION, UBA, and UBA Pro – security, accountability, and player convenience are optimized through exclusive patented technologies.
The technology has the capability to process up to 4,000 banknotes per minute, which equates to approximately four full cash boxes every 60 seconds.
“We also have a systems technology called FUZION,” Kubajak continued. “What this allows a casino to do is track in real-time every transaction that occurs on the casino floor. Not only do we track it, digital imaging and iVIZION technology on the bill validators record the image of every transaction.”
This makes it possible, he continued, to not only track, but to match every transaction – including every note, and every TITO transaction – to the guest playing the machine with real-time, high-resolution digital images of their playing history.
“You can take it a step further,” Kubajak said. “If you have somebody who comes into your casino who happens to be a security risk, a threat, or someone who tries to defraud your casino with a counterfeit or fake ticket, JCM Global technology makes it possible to track it, capture it, and match it back to them in real-time and allow security to take over from there.”
FUZION provides reporting data for every JCM component of the casino floor that is cash or TITO transaction related. It enables casinos to utilize the data to optimize the drop process by using data to accomplish cash collection in the most efficient way possible.
JCM Global takes pride in working one-on-one with each individual operator to create a unique technology roadmap that builds a bridge to future success. The collaboration results not in a one-size-fits-all solution, individually customized to each casino based on specific needs and goals.
The personalized roadmaps, uniquely crafted to meet a property’s individual needs, illuminate a pathway to success founded on FUZION technology’s expanding capabilities, such as real time peripheral health monitoring, remote firmware upgrades, and mobile transactions for the gaming floor.
“JCM Global is an engineering-focused organization,” Kubajak said. “We have a building full of dreamers who are looking out there and saying ‘What exists in the world today? What do we think the world is going to need tomorrow? How can we make it and bring it to them?’
“It is that kind of spirit of innovation, the desire to introduce something new, that really drives this company. Our engineering component is the dominant group within our business.”
