No topic has dominated conversations and the educational agenda at G2E more than cashless gaming. No less than seven panel discussions have been dedicated to the topic, along with many more on the related subjects of online betting, crypto currencies, mobile wallets, and regulatory concerns.
On Tuesday afternoon, two payment providers and a representative from the American Gaming Association tackled the subject in a panel titled: “Modernizing Gaming Payments: Will It Take More Than a Pandemic?”
Joe Watkins from Worldpay concisely summarized why cashless is attracting so much attention. “If you look at a list of the Top Ten casino customer complaints, the first two are always tight slots, followed by cleanliness. But the next eight frustrations are all related in some way to payments.” Indeed, slow jackpot service, paperwork, and payments are all major complaints on that list. Watkins added, “Security is also a huge issue. Everyone is apprehensive when they get a large amount of cash from a big win, then have to venture alone into a parking lot.”
Credit and debit cards have been standard for years in other consumer industries, so the panel was asked what’s taking gaming so long?
Jessica Feil, the American Gaming Association’s vice president of government relations, responded. “The pandemic, together with the emergence of online, sports, and mobile gaming, prompted regulators and vendors to accelerate their development of policies and new products. The pandemic focused attention on both contamination issues associated with cash and labor issues, which remain critical today.”
She emphasized, “Regulators are our partners, and we (AGA) worked with them to help with the reopenings, ways to make our guests feel safe, and improving the comfort level of all our demographics.” She added that regulators, like many others in gaming, “didn’t know what they didn’t know” about the world of digital wallets, cashless gaming, and payment controls. “The pandemic served to bring everyone up to speed.”
On the show floor this week, it was evident that every major slot vendor has either developed a new proprietary cashless product or partnered with others in the payments and/or delivery side of the technology. Several new joint agreements or developments were announced recently, including several this week.
Scientific Games, for example, is promoting flexibility via compatibility with Everi, Sightline, and others. Their preferred provider is the Global Payments’ VIP Mobility solution. Scientific Games also announced that they’d acquired ACS Play On, a leading cashless provider for table games. Sightline was seeking approvals this week on facial recognition to improve cashless convenience. IGT also offered flexibility promoting their Resort Wallet/IGT Pay solution, as well as options to pair with other leading mobile apps.
When will cashless really arrive on casino floors, beyond some trials now? Moderator John Parsons, director of customer service for payment-provider Trustly, was the most optimistic, predicting that within five years, 90% of transactions on the casino floor could be virtual. Watkins was a bit more cautious, saying the five-year window would probably see a 50/50 mix of cash and cashless.
However, Watkins also recalled the days in the early 1990s when ticket-in ticket-out (TITO) arrived. “It was really the first form of cashless gaming and despite some initial resistance from customers and skepticism from operators, within just a few months, it became standard. Today, we can’t imagine a world without tickets. Hopefully in the future, we will say the same about cashless.”
