Rachelle Rabago, IGT director of casino systems product management, demonstrates cashless gaming technology as she transfers money from an IGT Pay resort wallet on a smartphone to a video slot machine during the Global Gaming Expo at the Venetian Expo, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021.
Friday, Oct. 8, 2021 | 2 a.m.
At this week’s Global Gaming Expo, cashless gambling is a hot topic.
Companies are showing off their latest payment technologies, and London-based International Game Technology’s cashless casino management system was recognized as the product innovation of the year.
Yet just outside the Venetian Expo, where the annual convention is taking place, gamblers are busy feeding paper bills into slot machines on the casino floor and slapping greenbacks on blackjack tables in exchange for clay chips.
Despite all the buzz, there is still an obvious gulf between the industry and the millions of gamblers used to doing things the old-fashioned way.
“There’s no doubt that cashless is, from the operator’s perspective, hugely beneficial,” said Rich Schneider, chief product officer at Scientific Games, which is headquartered in Las Vegas.
“The key question is what’s in it for the player and what will the player adoption rate be? This isn’t a logical business that we’re in — it’s an emotional business,” Schneider said.
Attempts to introduce cashless solutions at casinos have had mixed results, Schneider said. Nonetheless, there is a “tipping point” in favor of cashless gaming on the horizon, he said.
The pandemic has advanced the trend by making people more conscious about handling common items like money and coins, he said.
“Players will demand a more frictionless experience,” Schneider said. “Sports betting and online gaming will move it along as well. Prior to COVID, I would have said that point was seven or eight years off. Post-COVID, given the general adversity to money and tickets, that’s different now.”
More and more Scientific Games customers, including Las Vegas casino operators, are asking about cashless products, Schneider said.
At Resorts World, the tech-savvy resort that opened on the north Strip in June, gamblers can play slot machines without cash through their players card. The system runs through SYNKROS player tracking software developed by Konami Gaming.
Sports betting has also been on the leading edge of cashless, mobile betting, with multiple sports books offering online wagering.
Gaming equipment manufacturers in Las Vegas and around the world are jockeying for position in the race to cash-free gaming.
At this week’s convention, companies like Sightline Payments and Global Payments Inc. have booths on the showroom floor.
On Tuesday, IGT’s cashless casino management system — IGT Advantage — earned the Product Innovation of the Year Award at the Global Gaming Awards, an annual part of the expo.
IGT Advantage includes an avenue for players to gamble with funds using either a card or by having their smartphone linked to the casino floor.
It is being tested at some Nevada casinos.
Cashless technology is also being used at some casinos in New York and Michigan, two of eight states where digital payments are accepted at casinos, according to the American Gaming Association.
Also this week at G2E, MasterCard announced a partnership with tech companies AptPay and NRT Technology to introduce a cashless system called smartSEND, which is geared toward the gaming industry.
The system will enable casinos to instantly disburse casino winnings to bank accounts or other mobile wallets, the companies said.
“Everybody kind of has their own secret sauce on how they make the cashless experience seamless,” Schneider said. “There’s a need to meet player and operator demand. There’s a flurry of activity right now.”
Since online shopping and near-field technology options like Apple Pay — where an iPhone user can pay by simply putting their phone near a payment device — have become popular, some observers wonder why similar options for gaming aren’t more widely available.
Nasr Sattar, senior vice president of innovation at NRT Technology, said the gaming industry lagged other businesses when it came to monetary convenience innovations.
“The pattern of innovation, in both hardware and software, seems to go from retail to banking to gaming,” he said. “There’s various reasons for that, but that’s the general path.”
Phil O’Shaughnessy, vice president of global communications for IGT, which has offices in Las Vegas, said that with so many people used to the convenience of cashless payments in other areas, “it’s certainly time for this to really gather some momentum in gaming.”
But will cash one day completely disappear from the gaming floor?
“What will happen is players will, over time, get used to the convenience of cashless. You’ll see momentum continue to build for cashless,” O’Shaughnessy said. “But cashless and cash with always, I think, co-exist nicely in the gaming space.”
