SEARCH NEWS:

 

Conversion to Cashless Slots Continuing

Park Place Entertainment Corp. is wrapping up its roll-out of ticket-in, ticket-out slot technology, with two of the company's Las Vegas casino resorts soon to be the first major Strip properties to fully adopt the new system.

The company this week completed the conversion of nearly 3,100 of the 3,211 slot machines at Paris Las Vegas and Bally's Las Vegas to the state-of-the-art, ticket-in, ticket-out technology.

The other 111 machines are awaiting regulatory approval before their ticket-in, ticket-out features can be activated. After that, only a handful of novelty machines at Paris and Bally's, such as the Colossus Reel Game and the Silver Strike Games that pay out in specially minted coins, will lack the new capability.

By the end of the year, Park Place expects to have completely converted Caesars Palace, with nearly 1,900 slots, and the Flamingo, with more than 1,700 slots, to the new cashless system.

"Not just Park Place but also MGM Mirage and other Strip operators are being converted (to cashless) because customers want it. The technology has had great customer acceptance," said Joe Greff, gaming analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, an independent Wall Street investment research firm.

Ticket-in, ticket-out slot machines pay out cumulative winnings with bar-coded tickets that customers can exchange for cash, or insert into other cashless machines for added slot play. Ticket-in, ticket-out slots also accept cash.

MGM Mirage, Mandalay Resort Group and Harrah's Entertainment Inc., are all also converting to the new technology.

"The benefits for gaming companies are greater velocity of play and lower costs of labor," Greff said. "It's a win-win for the casinos and also something customers want."

IGT marketing manager Brian Casey said more than 60 percent of the slot machines his company is manufacturing feature EZ Pay ticket-in, ticket-out technology, which is being installed at 125 casino properties across the country.

MGM and Park Place alone have received about 10,000 such machines, each which have been or are about to be installed.

Park Place President Wally Barr said customers are demanding the new technology and operators are finding it improves efficiency.

Park Place started testing the new technology with 250 slot machines almost two years ago. After winning regulatory approvals, the company started large-scale installations early in 2002, said Tony Santo, head of the company's Western and mid-South regions.

During the test period, change personnel did not have to make any "slot fills," and avoiding the down time added to the revenue stream, he said.

The company plans no layoffs because of the new machines although personnel needs will be re-evaluated as the casinos adjust to the new technology, Santo added.

Instead, ticket-in, ticket-out technology is helping Park Place shift floor personnel from making change for players to offering customer service, he said.

"The real value (of ticket-in, ticket-out) will be redeploying floor personnel to work with customers. Now our staff can be more geared to helping the customer understand the games, the Connection Card and the casino," Santo said.

By the end of 2003, Park Place will have installed and activated 22,000 ticket-in, ticket-out slots at its 18 casinos, representing nearly 60 percent of the company's total slot product. In Nevada that will represent more than 8,300 ticket-in, ticket-out machines; Indiana, Mississippi and Louisiana together will have 5,700; and New Jersey will have more than 8,000.

IGT's Casey said the EZ Pay technology has been available since 2000 and has won wide acceptance as installations have accelerated with regulatory approvals and the availability of machines coming off the company's Reno production line.

Looking to the future, it is likely that many slot floors will be coinless within the next two years and cashless within the next five, Casey said. Players can use coins and paper money in the current generation of equipment now being installed.

The new technology makes it easy for players to change the denomination of games they play, and is encouraging players to use multi-line, multi-coin video slots, he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see half-penny games in the near future. They're already popular in Australia," Casey said.

Operators and analysts agreed the interest in these new machines is increasing the amount of money individual players wager even while the denomination of their bets is decreasing.

< Gaming News