There’s more to cashless gaming than just an app and Global Payments Gaming Solutions will detail all its products during the Indian Gaming Tradeshow Convention in Las Vegas. The conference kicks off Monday, the trade show on Wednesday, and Global Payments will be located in booth No. 709 at the Caesars Forum Convention Center.
Global Payments recently launched VIP Mobility, the industry’s first mobile solution that “enables true cashless casino gaming” at the Viejas Casino & Resort in San Diego.
Global Payments, however, is more than VIP Mobility. Its other products help enable “a great self-service guest experience,” said Josh Swissman, founding partner at The Strategy Organization, a company consultant.
Global Payments’ representatives at the trade show will talk about the patron experience in terms of how VIP Preferred (check cashing and fund management) and VIP Financial Center (kiosks) tie together cashless components for contactless and touchless gaming.
“Everyone talks about cashless gaming and apps and not much about anything else,” Swissman said. “Creating a payment floor of the future is more than just having an app. You need the banking and payment processing behind it, as well as the appropriate hardware on the floor in terms of kiosks. Those types of interactions, if done successfully, should start before the customer goes online or into the casino with informative marketing programs.”
Swissman said the reason cashless gaming is “gaining a big head of steam outside of the pandemic” is that it’s the way customers want to transact, not only in their daily lives, but with gaming as well. The gaming space has been so narrowly built that it doesn’t give consumers flexibility, which they have come to love in casinos with all their gaming options, he said.
While other competitors’ products drive people through “their singular and stringent user experience, Global Payments is more flexible, not only in what a particular casino would like to offer on its floor, but also the ability to handle many consumer preferences to fund their gaming activities,” he said.
“It has created this ecosystem with VIP Mobility — with the cashless app at the forefront — in which you can transact from your phone, so you don’t have to get up from your favorite slot machine or table game. At the same time, it provides consumers with access to their funds in a number of different self-serve and convenient ways,” Swissman said.
VIP Preferred, the check-cashing product on the market for more than two decades and in casinos across the country, allows the cashing of paper and electronic checks. And the transaction can be done not only at the casino cage, but also through the kiosks. In some jurisdictions, customers can choose when those transactions settle to their accounts, sometimes a week or longer.
The flexibility doesn’t stop there, Swissman said. Some customers like to get cash advances via their credit cards, but rather than do it at the cage, Global Payments also allows that transaction to be handled at a kiosk. The kiosks also serve as traditional ATMs and bill breakers and handle TITO-voucher redemption.
“You only need to sign up for VIP Preferred one time and download the VIP Mobility app one time,” Swissman said. “Once you do that, you can use both products at any casino where VIP Preferred is offered and any online sports betting or igaming site. It’s the same with VIP Mobility. When you go to a new casino, you don’t have to download it again like you do with some of the competitors.”
Because of this, Global Payments’ products create an omnichannel experience for both online and land-based operations, with a collection of funds that follow patrons as they move from place to place, Swissman said.
What Global Payments has that other competitors aren’t as well versed in — because Global Payments is a large vertically integrated company — is a “whole different level of bank-grade security for cashless gaming,” Swissman said. It’s a consumer-security and safety-first approach that Global Payments brings from other industries it touches, from banking to gift cards.
“They bring all of that experience, technology, and security know-how into the gaming space, where a number of other competitors don’t,” Swissman said. “That has allowed Global Payments to build, from the ground up, these products that are solely built for the gaming space.”
As for responsible gaming, the VIP Mobility app allows people to customize and tailor any limits or spending thresholds from their phones for both online and land-based gaming.
“This modernization of the payment process does afford more customization, flexibility, and self-service ability, not only for the end user, but also for the casino when it comes to responsible gaming and in a more sophisticated way,” Swissman said.
Its technology also allows for better anti-money-laundering monitoring through Global Payments’ VIP Shield. All of those transactions can now be identified automatically, he said.
Overall, Global Payments leads the pack in customer engagement on the gaming floor or logged in online, Swissman said. The company “goes to great lengths” to make sure its patrons remain educated on its products and services and it’s done in an innovative way. It’s educational, but at the same time, it’s an entertaining marketing approach that requires interaction with the patrons to ensure its messages are understood.
“Global Payments has partnered with one of the gaming industry’s best, Engaged Nation, which has been at the forefront of the gamification, educational and entertaining direct marketing, and consumer engagement fields for a long time,” Swissman said.
