Pay-by-phone won’t replace cash on the gaming floor, but casinos should embrace it to offer what many current and future customers want, Dave Kubajak says.
“It’s just an alternative payment technology,” says the senior vice president of sales, marketing, and operations at JCM Global. “That’s accretive to the business. The best thing to do is give your customers the choice, let them decide how they want to interact with you.”
(click to enlarge) Customer scans a cashout voucher using the iTITO app on their cell phone.
JCM, a 65-year-old company that pioneered slot machine bill validators, has partnered with casinos and equipment manufacturers to offer a virtual-wallet system that Kubajak says meets the needs of customers, operators, regulators, and banks. He expects it to be available by the end of this year.
He sees virtual wallets as a third option for casino customers to pay for their gaming, joining plain old cash and well-established slot machine TITO tickets.
“It’s about convenience and comfortable use,” he says. Some people will always want to use cash, and TITO is necessary for those who can’t or don’t want to use a phone for payment.
The casino push for cashless gaming payments began about two years ago but has picked up speed because of the coronavirus pandemic. In June, the American Gaming Association announced that an 18-month industry study showed digital payments on the casino floor allows customers more control to set personal gambling limits while increasing transparency of financial transactions for regulators and law enforcement. Also in June, the Nevada Gaming Commission amended regulations to allow cashless payments.
JCM’s iTITO (intelligent TITO) system, the result of more than 10 years of research and development, lets players use their phones to buy in or cash out at slot machines or table games.
Users download an app for the casino they’re visiting, verify their identity, and connect to their bank account. Once they’re on site, they can transfer money from their bank account to their gaming wallet; they also can load their gaming wallet at a casino kiosk by tapping their phone and inserting cash or TITO tickets.
(click to enlarge) Customer navigates the iTITO app interface to activate voucher scanning
“It has to be money you actually have,” Kubajak says. “That’s a big thing from a regulatory perspective.”
At a slot machine, players tap their phone on a designated button to buy credits. When cashing out, players tap their phone on the button again. They can choose to have the amount transferred to an electronic ticket in their virtual wallet or they can print a physical ticket.
“The same technology that’s being used at the slot machine will also be used at the table games, so you get a universal currency across the casino floor,” he says. JCM already has another product that allows regular TITO tickets to be used at table games.
Players would need a different virtual wallet for each casino they visit. If regulators allow, the same wallet could be used at all properties affiliated with a single owner such as MGM.
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The money in this virtual wallet can be used only for gaming; non-gaming purchases such as meals must use other means, including Apple Pay, cash, or traditional credit or debit card.
iTITO is designed for land-based casinos. It does not interact with the player’s account at a casino’s online gaming site.
Kubajak noted that the system is based on the TITO concept, which operators, customers, and regulators all know and accept. Also, it works with any gaming management system.
“Our system is completely agnostic,” he says, “It’s a lot of flexibility that others don’t have. We’re the back-end highway that allows the functionality to happen.” Casinos control the images and messages that appear on a player’s phone.
The system uses NFC (near field communication) technology, a secure standard that requires a player’s phone to be within 4 centimeters, about 1.5 inches, of the casino device to complete a transaction, like the tap-to-pay credit card option in supermarkets and other businesses.
Kubajak says iTITO builds on concepts that operators, regulators, banks, and players trust.
“Every casino you walk into already has a TITO system,” he says. “We just virtualized that.”
