Old Dinosaur Finds Challenge In Becoming Cashless Casino Early Adopter
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Penn National Gaming is promoting its new "three C's" conversion to cash-less, card-free, and contact-lessly gaming. The new technology is available at the Meadows and at Hollywood casinos in Pennsylvania. Valley Forge Casino Resort is the only other Pennsylvania casino with similar technology. Boyd Gaming Corp. hopes to install it in the majority of its properties nationally by year's end. It's supposed to work like this: you transfer funds from a bank card or account into a digital wallet connected to your casino loyalty card information, scan the app at a slot machine, send designated funds to the machine and play as long as desired. When done, you cash out any winnings or remaining funds by sending them back to wallet.
The Meadows is the closest casino to Old Dinosaur. Casinos are trying to attract younger customers. Old dinosaurs are not the target demographic. The app that he downloaded to his Android phone charged him $2.25 for the transaction. The casino offers cashless transactions. It's cheaper than using ATMs. People in their 20s and 30s are more likely to use cash. COVID-19 pandemic increased public's aversion to touching and exchanging bills. They are also more willing to pay more than $5 per transaction at casinos.
Old Dinosaur finds it satisfying when he gets $50 from a Cleopatra machine and can deposit it into his account. He is not a fan of gambling. He finds the app's message of success and limits on how much he can spend. It is a journalistic experiment. The game is free. There are 2,300 machines on the Meadows' gaming floor.
Old Dinosaur finds it difficult to become a cashless casino early adopter.
Old Dinosaur finds it's impossible to become an early adopter of cashless casino.
Old Dinosaur is having problems with a card reader at the Meadows. He moves to Wolf Run to try his luck.
Wolf Run app allows you to transfer money from your wallet to a slot machine. After a series of losing spins on a penny machine, you can cash out. It's partly to preserve your winnings and also to serve the purposes of the test. It costs $2.50 for the session. The app is not intuitive but it's useful. Old Dinosaur finds it difficult to become an early adopter.
Old Dinosaur cashed out of Wolf Run slot #101966 $17.50 and his available funds have risen to $52. 50 from the original $50.
The Meadows has a new technology called Cashless Casino. It's been in place for a month and so far only a few people have tried it. The York mini-casino has an "activation center" where trained employees assist guests in creating and using their apps. The Meadows does not have that. Old Dinosaur has connectivity problems with the Ultimate X poker machine and Quick Hit Platinum machine. He goes to a nearby Dancing Drums machine to show the problems to the slots manager. Eventually, the manager, with two attendants, helps him.
Convenience sounds great, but connections critical. Having customers use their phones reduces the workload involved in collecting and counting cash inside the machines. There are people who cling to the old cash methods of gaming. The casino operators have declined to reveal information on what percentage of customers are utilizing the cashless technology in venues where it is available. If the technology isn't in place to ensure that every phone app held to a machine automatically connects to it, it will be costly in both customer satisfaction and revenue. The 63-year-old used his credits on the mychoice app to pay for a hamburger combo in the Meadows food court.
