Cashless gaming has been simmering on the edges of the gaming industry for about five years. Multiple companies have invested in the technology, spending enormous sums to bring it to masses.
The results so far? Mixed, at best. And for that, cashless gaming operators partially have themselves to blame.
During Tuesday’s “Regulatory Best Practices and Potential Pitfalls of Cashless Gaming” session at the Indian Gaming Association Tradeshow and Convention at the San Diego Convention Center, panelists agreed more education is needed.
“Younger folks are probably more predisposed and trusting to try it, but upper-end customers, they don’t understand,” said Pavilion Payments Chief Legal Officer Jeff Silvestri. “It should start with education. There’s a lot of different ways you might approach it. Getting into some sort of dialogue and understanding the perspectives of your patrons are vitally important, then providing some real feedback to them so they understand.”
Part of the hesitancy to adopt cashless systems is also due to perceived adoption rates and impatience by the operators. They expected it to take off, if not immediately, much sooner than it has.
But cashless gaming operators might want to look at recent history in the gaming industry.
“There’s a reason that consumers have been slow to take this up,” said Trustly Vice President Gaming John Parsons. “You can go into the psychology of what that is and you can go through adoption and so forth. If you go back to TITO, it wasn’t an overnight thing. But it didn’t fail. The adoption wasn’t there and now it’s revolutionized gaming. So we’re at that point now.”
It might seem strange that the cashless revolution hasn’t been embraced more by patrons. After all, cashless payments, from paying bills to buying a cup of coffee, seem to be part of everyday life.
Perhaps one reason is that no one wants to talk about it. Noting that she was at a panel earlier in the day where there were “crickets” when the subject was broached, Sightline Payments Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Carleton said that gaming operators are often reluctant to discuss cashless.
“I think we can all agree that you can have a very sophisticated casino operation, very sophisticated regulators from your tribe, and they don’t want to know how money moves if it’s not cash in your hand,” said Carleton, who moderated the panel. “But if you have any form of internet wagering in your state or on your reservation , you already have it, right? You have money moving in and out for any kind of internet wagering.”
Brian Parrish, chief operating officer for the Osage Nation Gaming Enterprise, thinks that operators don’t spend enough time making sure that they and their customers understand the benefits of cashless gaming.
“You have a product that works,” Parrish said. “You have to regulate it, explain it to the operator and customer. And it’s got to be cost effective. It’s got to be put in way where the installation of the cashless system, whichever one that is, makes sense. You have to talk about what it’s going to cost, how much construction is involved, how much disruption, how much testing has to happen for your forecast to work. … It sounds daunting, but it really isn’t with proper due diligence and the right provider and the right understanding.
“There are so many benefits to it,” Parrish added. “We’re going to Starbucks, we’re using Apple Pay. Everywhere you go, you’re just putting your phone out. And if you have a cashless system that can enhance that and can bring in ease of use at the right price and is regulatorily approved, you’re going to win on that.”
