Casino system companies’ first iterations of cashless gaming continue to face low adoption rates by players and they are working to overcome that with their latest introductions to the marketplace.
Ted Keenan, vice president of product management for Gaming Systems at Aristocrat Interactive, speaking at the TribalNet Conference at Tradeshow in Reno, admitted that cashless solutions in the U.S. market have had “very low” adoption rates. There’s a need to correct that beyond what’s done in some international markets where cashless is required by regulators.
“Here in the U.S., we need to focus on how we create cashless solutions that are compelling for players,” Keenan said. “Why does a player want to use cashless? Why is it more convenient for a player to use cashless? I hear it all the time: Once the player has the cashless ticket, it’s a pretty convenient mechanism. But how do you get that first ticket and new money into the environment? That’s where we look at driving engagement and using better integration with mobile devices.
“We need to get to a place in the casino where it’s easy for the player to walk up to a machine and have access to their funds without any barrier, like you have to download this app or sign up for this account. We have to make this accessible to players. That’s what we’re about at Aristocrat right now.”
Jacob Lanning, IGT’s senior director of business development, payments, is a big proponent of cashless, but insists that the external funding of the casino experience needs to change. The reason is cash is a dangerous business, susceptible to money laundering. It’s also costly and getting more expensive to manage cash on the casino floor.
“The early technologies we’ve all deployed have a few core problems,” Lanning said. “How you onboard those players is one of them. It’s easy to stick $100 in a slot machine. It’s hard to get a cashless wagering account. One of the things we invested in both the Everi and IGT sides is a methodology for direct funding. Regulations in most jurisdictions allow us to put credits on the credit meter from a bank account. They’ve been in the regulations for years, but we’ve never unlocked that technology. Direct funding is the next big component. You’ll see a couple of pieces of technology at G2E, including IGT’s direct funding.”
Lanning said that while cashless will be a big component of the future, the core business problems that operators are attempting to solve aren’t going away. Instead, they’ll only going to get harder for casinos to manage.
“We as an industry haven’t done a great job of articulating the value that operators get from cashless. The first few implementations stumbled and enrollment sucked,” Lanning said. “Until we fix those core problems, and the onus is on us to fix them, I don’t think you’ll see the expansion of cashless. But it’s coming. A lot of us have products on the verge of launching or just launched that will solve some of those core issues.”
Jon Wolfe, president of global systems and services at Light & Wonder, called cashless and wallet “version 1.0, no doubt about it.” He said they’ve been working hard to learn. They have their Rapid Play product, which is more bank in the machine. Globally, more cashless is evolving in outer markets compared to North America.
“Those will flow back into North America as we get better at it overall,” Wolfe said. “We’ll be showing our converged wallet at G2E. That’s a gaming wallet on the land-based system, while simultaneously serving sports betting, igaming, and social gaming – one wallet and one place to deposit your cash to access in a lot of different spots. That’s the evolution of cashless on this new journey that we’re on and as we do that, we’re going to get better at it and the solutions will work themselves out and be just as effortless as they are in our everyday business.”
Chad Hoehne, founder, president, and CEO of Table Trac, said they’ve done integrations with Everi Cash Club Wallet, Marker Trax, and Fabi Cash, but the adoption rate has been abysmal. No one is making the jump to use the wallets, but he’s hopeful that will turn around with the extra features.
“A mobile system to fund the game looks really cool and demos great, but no one is adopting it,” Hoehne said. “But (buying in) anonymously right from your phone and not worrying about where that money goes afterward is a bridge for people to get that first dollar on the gaming floor. Once it’s on the gaming floor, it’s easy to cash out your phone app and put it on the next game or take a ticket if you like a piece of paper.
“Getting that first dollar in and doing it anonymously, that’s the first step. You scan a QR code produced on a game that takes you to the provider’s microsite – and you pick the provider. It puts $100 on the game and starts the play. We’ve got to get that first dollar in the door and how we manipulate it afterwards will come in the future. The difficulty in opening a cashless gaming wallet, not from our side but the banking side, has caused an amount of friction that customers aren’t willing to go past.”
Cashless is considered vital to attract younger players to an older casino floor.
Hoehne said the younger generation doesn’t carry cash with them; they use their phones to pay for everything. The industry has to meet them where they live to get their business.
Keenan said apps are great and open a lot of flexibility for the players and a lot of engagement for the operator, but asking a player to download an app before they can get money is tough.
“We’re looking at how we reduce that friction,” Keenan said. “You ness some app-less engagement with the player so they don’t have to be committed to anything. They can engage with you with what they have — the browser on their phone. If you want to engage with them further, show them some value and give them an app to enable that. That’s the approach Aristocrat is taking: How do we fix this adoption problem and make this really compelling for players?”
Wolfe said their Rapid Play app is app-less, anonymous, and wallet-less. It’s about getting money out of the game in under 10 seconds without having a player’s account. They did that to make it as close as possible to an everyday cashless experience.
“Operators don’t like the anonymous feature,” Wolfe said. “A lot of operators are insisting that there still be a player’s card to use that feature.”
He also said the industry needs to help money flow through from igaming to the casino floor to satisfy players.
Younger players have different expectations with seamless processes, Lanning said. Those customers’ expectations are that it will be like when they purchase something online or at a retail outlet.
“We’re already seeing, with the adoption of our wallet product, that a prominent younger generation adopts it over and above the percentage of people coming into the casino,” Lanning said. “It’s all on us to be building technologies that ensure that experiences meet what your players need. That’s what we’re focusing on and what we’ll be delivering.”
