The number one player at a casino in the southwest was unhappy. The woman had sheaths of tickets for a drawing. But there was a problem: She had to sign her name on each in order to qualify for the drawing.
“She walks into the general manager’s office and said she’s not signing all these tickets,” said CasinoTrac SVP, Commercial Strategy Jeff Baldi. The general manager of the casino didn’t blame the woman. Who has time to sign a thousand tickets?
Enter CasinoTrac, which runs the casino’s casino management system. With assistance from TransAct Technologies, the CasinoTrac team devised a remedy using CasinoTrac’s SlotSUITE solution: When a TITO ticket emerges from a slot machine the player’s name is printed on it, saving time for high volume customers who don’t want to develop writer’s cramp.
The team from CasinoTrac, with assistance from TransAct, came up with the solution in about 60 days.
“We can do whatever we want to do with the ticket printer. With TransAct we’re able to create pre-populated drawing tickets that spit right out of the ticket printer,” Baldi said. “All the customer has to do is drop them in the barrel.”
Simply, when a patron earns a drawing ticket while playing with their loyalty card, the pre-populated ticket is produced.
The benefits of installing SlotSUITE are immense. The carded rate of play increased by 58.6 percent, CasinoTrac found. Rated players had a coin-in increase of 21 percent.
“It’s important to note the overall casino coin in went up three percent because of rated play going up,” Baldi said.
But what about those who don’t use cards? SlotSUITE identifies those individuals and can issue an offer to drive enrollment.
“For the uncarded hot player, maybe SloTSUITE prints a ticket introducing the general manager and shares his/her contact details. The ticket says, “I’m the general manager, this is my cell phone number, maybe we can have a cup of coffee, or can I buy you a steak.” Baldi says. “There’s an interaction there that’s created by the functionality of the solution that just never existed before because it’s in real time. And once that ticket spits out in front of you while you’re playing, you’re going to grab it, you’re going to look at it. You may throw it away, but we’re giving the operator a chance at touching that very valuable player.”
SlotSUITE can be used for other functions. It’s especially useful when a player hits a jackpot. The SelfPAY function allows players to sign up and submit their personal information ahead of time. When a player reaches the taxation threshold, they can hit a key, commit a percentage to taxes, and continue play.
“If you’ve ever had a taxable jackpot, the process usually takes 20 minutes and three to four casino staff. We’re doing this in less than a minute with the player at the machine,” Baldi said. “You save 19 minutes, and those slot machines typically can do 14 spins a minute. The increase in coin in just by giving that player the time back, that’s one thing, but then you’re also saving the labor of three people making two or three trips back and forth to the cage and all the other back & forth that goes on.”
SlotSUITE also prints a legitimate W2-G form for the player’s records.
But perhaps SlotSUITE’s biggest contribution is that it can identify players with responsible gaming issues. It tracks the spend of carded and uncarded players and can create a process where players are identified who may have issues. Casino management can suggest a break, be it get a hot dog or play a round of golf.
“It gives you the opportunity to reach out and say maybe you need a break,” Baldi said. “I know you’ve had a rough day, let me buy you dinner. It creates some really unique opportunities to anticipate something happening for a guest.”
