Koin Payments, a specialist in cashless solutions for casinos, is evolving into an information source for gaming and related types of entertainment, co-founder Gary Larkin says.
“Koin’s mission is really to be an entertainment/gaming lifestyle brand that also has a payment capability,” Larkin said. “We anticipate there will be customers who will choose Koin because of the information they can gather through it, rather than a gaming wallet.”
The Las Vegas-based company is taking a major step toward that goal with Koin 3.0, the newest version of its app. A beta release is planned for mid-April, and clients are expected to begin switching to the new platform in late May, Larkin said. Version 2, which debuted last fall, enabled players to use their Koin wallet at any participating casino, and company officials predicted additional upgrades for this year.
“Probably uncharacteristically for both gaming and technology, we’ve been able to map out a long-term redesign and build and keep on time with delivery,” said Larkin, a payments industry veteran who is Koin’s president. Other co-founders are Gary Ellis, owner of Ellis Island Casino in Las Vegas, and chief innovation officer Maner Puyawan, whose background is payment technology.
Larkin said Koin embraced the idea of transforming itself after a 6-month-long “discovery project” by Apply Digital, a Canadian firm formed by the originators of Apple Pay. The research focused on the preferences of gaming operators – ranging from destination resorts to slot route operators – as well as leaders in “aligned” industries such as sports, entertainment, shows, and restaurants, and high-value gamblers and non-gambling resort customers who enjoy other entertainment options in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and large regional gaming markets.
“What we saw was a desire to have a more customizable relationship with their lifestyle/entertainment activities and payment methods, an ability to be treated as an individual (in) what we call a cohort-of-one approach,” Larkin said. Currently, almost all gaming customer data is based on past activities, with rewards determined by which player segment an individual is assigned to. “Koin is committed to changing that by giving operators better tools to communicate with customers not only as players but also as restaurant diners or patrons of their entertainment facilities and in a more immediate way that truly benefits the consumer while adding value to the operator,” he said. For example, a customer whose Koin payment history shows she likes to gamble, enjoys dining out in the evening, and is near a casino at 6 p.m. could receive a limited-time offer to stop in.
Larkin described Koin 3.0 as a re-engineering of the app’s infrastructure that will allow quick future upgrades based on what customers want. That could include using advanced AI to gather and analyze player data, building partnerships with sporting venues or other entertainment options outside casinos, or establishing Koin as a gaming/entertainment social media site. The app will get more improvements later this year, but customers will determine exactly what they will be, he said.
In the world of cashless payments, “the one thing you learn quickly is to not be smarter than your customer,” Larkin said. “Don’t try to think you know better what they want than they do.” Koin will continue to work with Apply Digital to understand which features the customer base most wants next.
The research preceding Koin 3.0 showed customers want a cashless casino experience to mirror the “anywhere-anytime-for anything” payment systems they use day-to-day. “They wanted cost effectiveness, connectivity between their activities and their rewards, and the ability to gain value from their transactions and their individual choices.”
He expects casino customers will find Koin 3.0 more like their social media interactions than like a traditional payment wallet. “It’s going to have a fun element to it,” he said, and will allow individual configurations such as listing their favorite casinos in order or receiving notifications of specific types of entertainment events.
Operators can implement Koin at no cost, paying only the cost of transactions as they do for debit or credit cards, and the system meets AML and KYC requirements. Unlike a virtual wallet that handles payments only within a single casino or brand, Koin works with a variety of payment types, including those who are former competitors. In those cases, Koin simply becomes a funding option.
Larkin said that while working with multinational companies in previous roles, he has seen “a lot of morphing of payments” involving many business verticals that previously considered themselves separate from all others but eventually found shared ground. For example, sporting events and the gaming industry appeal to many of the same customers around the world.
“There is a tremendous intersection of lifestyle activity that may emanate from gaming but quickly bleeds out into all these other verticals,” Larkin said. “That became part of the greater roadmap for us.”
