Thinking inside the box
Thinking inside the box
Casino kiosk terminals save time and hassle, assist cashless operations and provide new marketing possibilities
By Steven Marlin
When a bank customer loses an ATM card, the customer goes to a branch, reports the loss and is issued a replacement card-about a 5-minute process, excluding the trip to and from the branch. All well and good; the customer is put out at most a few hours, and can promptly get back on track with debit card transactions.
But take that same scenario to a gaming environment, and the stakes go up. The customer, in most cases, can't extend his or her stay at the casino, so if they lose their loyalty card, it means they'll sharply curtail play, resulting in a possibly hefty loss of revenue for the casino as well as customer dissatisfaction-both bad for the gaming establishment.
To prevent that from happening, casinos are installing kiosks and related software that give customers access to their debit or credit card accounts, and enable lost loyalty cards to be replaced near the slots or gaming stations, relieving customers and the establishment of the hassles of handling cash and managing player club accounts.
Yet these kiosks go well beyond mere efficiency; they are also being used to cement customer loyalty, enabling casinos to tailor slot and sports betting promotions to maximize player spending and keep them coming back.
Station Casinos Inc. has kicked off self-service kiosks at its Sunset Station and Red Rock casinos, which allow patrons to reprint lost Boarding Pass players club cards at their convenience, any hour of the day or night. Using advanced scanning technology, Boarding Pass members can go to any kiosk and scan their driver's license to retrieve their membership information. They then enter their PIN and receive a printed card. The transaction takes about two minutes.
The kiosks have enabled Station Casinos to boost efficiency and customer service at the same time. "Customers have been surprised at how quick and simple it is," said Staci Columbo, Station Casinos' vice president of marketing and advertising. The kiosks are multipurpose: in addition to reprinting lost cards, they display a customer's reward points and special offers. They may eventually be used for new player signups as well, Columbo said.
Cashless systems
A paradigm for the cashless gaming kiosk is EDITH (Electronic Debit Interactive Terminal Housing) from Global Cash Access Inc. The terminal-which was developed in partnership with International Game Technology and is set to be released shortly-uses ticket-in/ticket-out technologies to speed transaction throughput and keep customers playing. The machine is being tested at San Diego's Casino Pauma prior to general release.
EDITH is a compact kiosk that stands at the end of the slot machine aisle, where it occupies less than one square-foot of space and dispenses ticket-in and ticket-out vouchers around the clock. The machine allows patrons to purchase slot tickets with their debit card. Guests insert and remove their card, enter their PIN and amount requested. A bar-coded debit ticket is then dispensed from EDITH's voucher printer, which may be inserted into a slot machine or redeemed for cash.
By placing the kiosk in proximity to the slot machines, patrons are spared from having to abandon a favorite slot machine to trudge to a cashier's cage to get money. It's also more efficient, safer and more convenient for patrons, who are getting used to using debit cards for all types of transactions.
"EDITH closes the loop on cashless gaming by leveraging technology that casinos have already invested in," said Tom Sears, Global Cash Access' executive vice president of card services and cashless gaming. "It's a self-service kiosk where people can purchase slot vouchers with a debit card."
The goal of products like EDITH is to drive cash out of the stream of transactions and reduce the need for soft count rooms and other devices that sap the efficiency out of gaming operations.
"Handling cash is a messy business," Sears said. "Somebody has to collect the cash and perform soft counts and reconciliations. [EDITH] enables pure cashless operations, right until the patron leaves the establishment."
In conjunction with the release of EDITH, Global Cash Access is getting ready to issue a private label credit card under the brand name Arriva. Establishments belonging to Global Cash Access' network will be able to issue the cards to their patrons. The cards will feature a low interest rate, 25-day grace period and a 1.5 percent rebate on cash advances-vast improvements over the terms and conditions found on most credit card products.
"Players will be able to redeem points for cash at ATMs and cage windows. The card provides an economically better deal than a standard credit card," Sears said.
The Arriva card is a hybrid of the gaming and banking industries. It's a credit card, issued in partnership with a sponsoring bank, that's optimized for casino play. It may be used anywhere the Arriva logo is displayed, and may also be used to redeem points online, Sears said. At some point, he added, the cards may even display the Visa or MasterCard logo, thus allowing the plastic that's used in gas stations, convenience stores and supermarkets to be used on the casino floor as well.
Marketing opportunities
The evolution of kiosk software from proprietary systems to open, standards-based systems has opened the floodgates to gaming-driven promotions. The new software enables establishments to differentiate themselves with enticing promotions that grab players' attention and keep them coming back. An example is the Kiosk Management System developed by DataCom Casino Data Solutions. The product of 18 months of development, done in conjunction with more than two dozen casinos, the Kiosk Management System provides a platform for customizing player promotions.
Among its features are a user-intuitive interface with state-of-the-art graphics; ability to work with player club systems; security controls with bar-coded verification; and a management system for post-analysis reporting.
Most important, the system is designed to increase casino revenue by automating incentives for player rewards based on their casino spending and visits, ensuring that players are rewarded for their loyalty.
The system is being tested at North Dakota's Skydancer Hotel & Casino, said Tim Pudwill, DataCom's president and chief executive officer. Among other things, Skydancer has used the system to manage its football promotions. After earning the required number of player's points set by the casino, players log in to the system each week to pick their favorite pro or college teams. The system keeps track of all statistics throughout the season, eliminating the need for staff to manually enter new information.
"Skydancer had been aiming for 500 patrons to play its Football Challenge last fall; it wound up with 1,000," Pudwill said.
The Kiosk Management System comes equipped with a selection of promotions designed to maximize player spending and increase operational efficiency. Examples include daily and weekly promotions for which players qualify by earning a certain amount of points; a Win Wheel that rewards players with up to 10 times their bonus points; and a Slots Gone Wild promotion that automates the slot tournament experience from initiation to payout. Slots Gone Wild allows players to compete using any machine on the gaming floor, whereas previously they would have had to wait their turn for a specially-designated tournament machine. Casinos can stage tournaments across multiple properties, enabling players throughout a casino chain to compete against each other, thereby intensifying the action.
"The promotions are gaming-driven, meaning that players get rewarded for increasing their spend," Pudwill said. "Casinos can set up packages for each tier of player."
Kiosks are moving the bar forward for casino management by eliminating the need to touch cash, while at the same time translating the management of promotions over to a box with software. Casino establishments are continuing to familiarize themselves with these new sources of revenue-generating power.
Casino kiosk terminals save time and hassle, assist cashless operations and provide new marketing possibilities
By Steven Marlin
When a bank customer loses an ATM card, the customer goes to a branch, reports the loss and is issued a replacement card-about a 5-minute process, excluding the trip to and from the branch. All well and good; the customer is put out at most a few hours, and can promptly get back on track with debit card transactions.
But take that same scenario to a gaming environment, and the stakes go up. The customer, in most cases, can't extend his or her stay at the casino, so if they lose their loyalty card, it means they'll sharply curtail play, resulting in a possibly hefty loss of revenue for the casino as well as customer dissatisfaction-both bad for the gaming establishment.
To prevent that from happening, casinos are installing kiosks and related software that give customers access to their debit or credit card accounts, and enable lost loyalty cards to be replaced near the slots or gaming stations, relieving customers and the establishment of the hassles of handling cash and managing player club accounts.
Yet these kiosks go well beyond mere efficiency; they are also being used to cement customer loyalty, enabling casinos to tailor slot and sports betting promotions to maximize player spending and keep them coming back.
Station Casinos Inc. has kicked off self-service kiosks at its Sunset Station and Red Rock casinos, which allow patrons to reprint lost Boarding Pass players club cards at their convenience, any hour of the day or night. Using advanced scanning technology, Boarding Pass members can go to any kiosk and scan their driver's license to retrieve their membership information. They then enter their PIN and receive a printed card. The transaction takes about two minutes.
The kiosks have enabled Station Casinos to boost efficiency and customer service at the same time. "Customers have been surprised at how quick and simple it is," said Staci Columbo, Station Casinos' vice president of marketing and advertising. The kiosks are multipurpose: in addition to reprinting lost cards, they display a customer's reward points and special offers. They may eventually be used for new player signups as well, Columbo said.
Cashless systems
A paradigm for the cashless gaming kiosk is EDITH (Electronic Debit Interactive Terminal Housing) from Global Cash Access Inc. The terminal-which was developed in partnership with International Game Technology and is set to be released shortly-uses ticket-in/ticket-out technologies to speed transaction throughput and keep customers playing. The machine is being tested at San Diego's Casino Pauma prior to general release.
EDITH is a compact kiosk that stands at the end of the slot machine aisle, where it occupies less than one square-foot of space and dispenses ticket-in and ticket-out vouchers around the clock. The machine allows patrons to purchase slot tickets with their debit card. Guests insert and remove their card, enter their PIN and amount requested. A bar-coded debit ticket is then dispensed from EDITH's voucher printer, which may be inserted into a slot machine or redeemed for cash.
By placing the kiosk in proximity to the slot machines, patrons are spared from having to abandon a favorite slot machine to trudge to a cashier's cage to get money. It's also more efficient, safer and more convenient for patrons, who are getting used to using debit cards for all types of transactions.
"EDITH closes the loop on cashless gaming by leveraging technology that casinos have already invested in," said Tom Sears, Global Cash Access' executive vice president of card services and cashless gaming. "It's a self-service kiosk where people can purchase slot vouchers with a debit card."
The goal of products like EDITH is to drive cash out of the stream of transactions and reduce the need for soft count rooms and other devices that sap the efficiency out of gaming operations.
"Handling cash is a messy business," Sears said. "Somebody has to collect the cash and perform soft counts and reconciliations. [EDITH] enables pure cashless operations, right until the patron leaves the establishment."
In conjunction with the release of EDITH, Global Cash Access is getting ready to issue a private label credit card under the brand name Arriva. Establishments belonging to Global Cash Access' network will be able to issue the cards to their patrons. The cards will feature a low interest rate, 25-day grace period and a 1.5 percent rebate on cash advances-vast improvements over the terms and conditions found on most credit card products.
"Players will be able to redeem points for cash at ATMs and cage windows. The card provides an economically better deal than a standard credit card," Sears said.
The Arriva card is a hybrid of the gaming and banking industries. It's a credit card, issued in partnership with a sponsoring bank, that's optimized for casino play. It may be used anywhere the Arriva logo is displayed, and may also be used to redeem points online, Sears said. At some point, he added, the cards may even display the Visa or MasterCard logo, thus allowing the plastic that's used in gas stations, convenience stores and supermarkets to be used on the casino floor as well.
Marketing opportunities
The evolution of kiosk software from proprietary systems to open, standards-based systems has opened the floodgates to gaming-driven promotions. The new software enables establishments to differentiate themselves with enticing promotions that grab players' attention and keep them coming back. An example is the Kiosk Management System developed by DataCom Casino Data Solutions. The product of 18 months of development, done in conjunction with more than two dozen casinos, the Kiosk Management System provides a platform for customizing player promotions.
Among its features are a user-intuitive interface with state-of-the-art graphics; ability to work with player club systems; security controls with bar-coded verification; and a management system for post-analysis reporting.
Most important, the system is designed to increase casino revenue by automating incentives for player rewards based on their casino spending and visits, ensuring that players are rewarded for their loyalty.
The system is being tested at North Dakota's Skydancer Hotel & Casino, said Tim Pudwill, DataCom's president and chief executive officer. Among other things, Skydancer has used the system to manage its football promotions. After earning the required number of player's points set by the casino, players log in to the system each week to pick their favorite pro or college teams. The system keeps track of all statistics throughout the season, eliminating the need for staff to manually enter new information.
"Skydancer had been aiming for 500 patrons to play its Football Challenge last fall; it wound up with 1,000," Pudwill said.
The Kiosk Management System comes equipped with a selection of promotions designed to maximize player spending and increase operational efficiency. Examples include daily and weekly promotions for which players qualify by earning a certain amount of points; a Win Wheel that rewards players with up to 10 times their bonus points; and a Slots Gone Wild promotion that automates the slot tournament experience from initiation to payout. Slots Gone Wild allows players to compete using any machine on the gaming floor, whereas previously they would have had to wait their turn for a specially-designated tournament machine. Casinos can stage tournaments across multiple properties, enabling players throughout a casino chain to compete against each other, thereby intensifying the action.
"The promotions are gaming-driven, meaning that players get rewarded for increasing their spend," Pudwill said. "Casinos can set up packages for each tier of player."
Kiosks are moving the bar forward for casino management by eliminating the need to touch cash, while at the same time translating the management of promotions over to a box with software. Casino establishments are continuing to familiarize themselves with these new sources of revenue-generating power.
