While gaming operators and their customers have been slow to adopt cashless gaming since its introduction, the experts agree that customer use is growing and rollouts will increase as casinos look for a competitive edge.
Payment providers and other industry experts expect at least half of properties will adopt it over the next five years, in part driven by the fear of losing higher-worth players to competitors. Just like TITO technology took over the slot floor from coin-fed slot machines, cashless will become the standard and a competitive requirement in casino gaming.
Andrew Crowe, senior vice president of investor relations and growth initiatives for Sightline, the U.S. sports betting and casino gaming market digital payments provider and mobile app developer, said there are a lot of benefits to cashless gaming in casinos. He expects the adoption rate to take off from the 60 properties that have some form of cashless gaming today.
Sightline launched its first cashless gaming technology, a carded program with Mohegan Sun, in 2016. They power the mobile cashless experience across slots, tables, and POS at Resorts World in Las Vegas which opened in June 2021 and is rolling out cashless across the U.S. with Boyd Gaming. In all, Sightline currently has cashless deployed with five operators in 22 casinos across seven states, Crowe said.
Casinos have initially been deterred because capital expenditures and upgrading casino management systems and other hardware additions on the floor “can be quite daunting for the operators,” Crowe said. Ultimately, the operators will be making those upgrades for other purposes over the next three to five years.
“We really see this starting to ramp up in 2024,” he added.
During G2E in October, Sightline announced its Project 250 to invest up to $300 million to implement cashless gaming at slot machines across the U.S. and in collaboration with Acres Manufacturing. The objective was to facilitate digital payments technology at 250,000 slot machines across the country within 36 months.
At the time, casinos in 10 of 44 states that offer gaming had launched cashless for their customers. By investing in infrastructure upgrades for its casino partners, Sightline says it will accelerate the shift toward cashless gaming, giving millions of gaming patrons the ability to utilize the safety and security of digital payments in casinos nationwide.
“We have said to operators that if capex is the issue, we will subsidize that,” Crowe said.
Casinos made it clear, however, that they also want to see the consumer experience refined to make their investment worthwhile so that patrons will adopt the use of the technology, explained Crowe.
“When they take the leap and roll it out broadly to their customer base, we have that user experience much more improved,” he said. “The recent changes we made at Resorts World went a long way towards doing that.”
When Sightline launched cashless at Resorts World, customers needed to be ID verified on property in order to sign up and complete the enrollment process, but that’s no longer the case. At the time, it worked fairly well for 75% of the audience who could do it at a kiosk while the remainder had to go to the casino cage, Crowe said.
“There was a lot of friction at the enrollment stage which has now been replaced with a completely digital enrollment process that we got approved by the Nevada Gaming Control Board and implemented for Resorts World in November,” he said. “What was a 10-minute process for a player is down to three minutes and can be completed remotely.”
The other issue overcome at Resorts World was a layer of regulations that required that money flow through a cashless gaming account on the casino management system platform. The consumer was presented with both a Sightline and a cashless wagering account that required two steps in the process of getting money to and from a gaming device.
“We got clarification that as long as the cashless wagering account is involved in the transaction flow, it doesn’t have to be a hard stop for the consumer,” Crowe said. “Now, the consumer is presented with one single cashless balance and less friction.”
Resorts World has also increased its player promotion for cashless gaming over the last couple of months, with an increase in signage on property and communications directly to their customers through other channels.
“I expect to see a nice shift in the Resorts World market now that they’ve started actively promoting it to consumers,” said Crowe. “User experience is important with the players, but also important with the staff. One thing we overlooked, and none of the casinos implemented this, nor have our competitors, is tipping. It’s expected slot attendants will be handsomely tipped when doing a payout for slot play. It’s fine at the table because you can carve off a chip or two for the dealer, but we didn’t have tipping for slots and drink attendants. The work doesn’t stop when you launch. You have to continuously improve the user experience.”
Casino operators only need a 4% lift in revenue from players who go cashless to cover the costs, Crowe estimates. From what clients are saying, they’re seeing a 10% to 25% lift in play from consumers who adopt cashless technology.
“You have removed friction from the point of getting your cash. You made it easy to play and can take your money in and out. It’s much easier to return in the next couple of days. That’s driving a better experience and customer loyalty and better revenue for the operators,” Crowe said.
In 2021, Sightline acquired JOINGO, a leading mobile engagement and loyalty platform for the casino industry serving more than 180 casinos in North America.
Sightline’s rebranded mobile platform allows casino brands to reach their mobile users with highly personalized and interactive mobile marketing campaigns that drive increased reach, loyalty, and revenue. It provides Sightline the ability to offer casino customers a turnkey cashless gaming solution as well.
“Mobile is ultimately around loyalty and a lot of other things and not just cashless,” Crowe said. “It supports loyalty with push notifications. If the property has a hotel, it can include your reservation and room key and order your car from the valet. You can make dinner reservations. It is a modular architecture and we are constantly expanding what’s available through the loyalty app up to including any functionality supported on a kiosk.”
Crowe noted that one of the differences in their solution compared to competitors is that mobile, loyalty and payments are part of the same vertical, so Sightline’s account at Resorts World functions even though the property has Konami for slots, Genesis for table games and a separate app with IGT for mobile sports betting; it doesn’t matter because one Sightline account supports them all with brick-and–mortar and digital, he said.
“Our solution also extends to non-gaming, and that’s important because two-thirds of the revenue on the Strip comes from non-gaming,” Crowe said. “Our solution has a debit card attached to it, which means I can move money in real time between all those gaming verticals and go anywhere on property where debit cards are accepted to buy dinner or shoes. And for the locals’ market, I don’t have to cash out at the end of my visit but leave my money in my Sightline account and be ready when I return in two or three days. If I need that money in the meantime, I have that debit card in my wallet. I can use it at the grocery store or get cash at an ATM.”
