New phone app changes casino gambling

ST. LOUIS – New technology could keep you from being targeted at a casino. Casino gambling via a phone app has just arrived in St. Louis.

All you need now to gamble at River City Casino in Lemay and Hollywood Casino in Maryland Heights is your phone. From the slots to the craps tables, you can just point your phone to cash “in” and “out” via Penn Entertainment’s “My Choice App.”

It’s all about convenience and personal safety, too.

“Not having to carry cash in your wallet, in your purse, hit an ATM before you come, or carry money on you,” said Mike Jerlecki, the casinos’ vice president and general manager. “In a parking garage or in your car, you don’t need to have that worry anymore with this functionality.”

If you “hit it big,” you can roll your winnings right into your connected bank account through the app, instead of walking back to your car with all that cash.

Police said they liked the idea.

Though rare, St. Louis area casinos have had reports of thieves tailing gamblers and robbing them after they leave a casino. So, there’s one less thing left to chance for the thousands already going “cashless” since the app’s rollout in St. Louis over the past few weeks.

Penn offers “cashless” gaming at more than 20 casinos in OH, MI, PA, and now Missouri. No other St. Louis area casinos have it, according to Jerlecki.

The app also lets people put a cap on how much they lose.

“You can set a limit in terms of how much you’re willing to spend on your gambling by day or for a year,” Jerlecki said. “Once you set that limit, you can’t change it, or the casino, we can’t change it either.”

Gamblers get a $50 credit for trying it out. The two casinos have spent millions adding the technology to thousands of slot machines and coordinating it with state reporting requirements.

Jerlecki said it’s taken two years to get everything up and running.