CASH HANDLING


choosing a debit card system for their locations are customer support, cost of upgrades, cost and the willingness of the vendor to implement custom features – and, of course, the vendor’s and system’s track record.


John Carroll: The trend to higher-end cabinets and


VLTs shows more opportunities for TITO [ticket-in, ticket-out].


Casino International: How do you think most


payments will be made in the gaming sector in five years’ time? Will e-payments, stored value cards, and the like completely replace cash, or will coins


What’s on the market? Cash handling systems exist for every size of business and every set of


cash management requirements. So it’s important to look at a broad selection of vendors to ensure that you’re investing in the system that best fits your needs, both now and in the future.


For example, CMI’s Multi Cash Terminal (MCT) range handles coin


and note recycling as well as cashless gaming and player tracking. The modular system can be adapted to each venue’s requirements, and the higher-end units are networkable. CMI has achieved prominence with MCT in German arcades, and is now looking to move deeper into other European markets.


Cummins-Allison introduced its Jetsort in the UK more than 20


years ago and still relies on the same core sorting technology, although it’s been much embellished. The range runs from desktop models to larger, faster free-standing machines. Data from a cash count can be directly recorded to a PC, improving security and minimising errors.


Two subsidiaries of the Gauselmann group are also significant


players. Merkur is well-known for its Dispenser 100, a bank note recycling device that fits into a gaming cabinet – more than 45,000 Dispenser 100 units have been produced, according to the firm.


Security is a prime consideration for Merkur. Says Kai Buenger,


International Sales Manager for the firm: “The cash box and the dispenser unit are secured via separate locks. The bank notes are verified during insertion and before they are dispensed. The further advantage is the encrypted communication between the dispenser acceptor and the gaming machine to prevent any manipulation within the product.”


The Dispenser 100 is also incorporated in the high-end Mega-Cash


Recycler from GeWeTe, another Gauselmann business, which has a broad range of cash-handling systems. The Mega-Cash Recycler, the company’s first money-changing system in a desktop format, can handle up to ¤50,000 in coins and 6000 bank notes – numbers which illustrate the heavy-duty work these machines are given.


Of course, in an increasingly card-based world, cashless systems have


many advantages. Embed, for example, points out that its systems don’t only deal with payments received for gaming – they can also integrate other transactions such as food and beverage charges.


and notes still have their place? Miren Jiménez Calvo: Cashless is a payment system


that co-exists with bank notes and coins. Despite the fact that in recent years the use of cashless has increased, cash is still the most common way to play in this sector. However, cashless systems such as TITO or cards


have well-defined application areas such as the casino. Phaedra Marsh: Certainly in North America, there


are no more coins accepted in slot machines, only in VLTs – they are simply too costly to maintain and sort. In Europe, however, the trend to accept the full


Because they are entirely electronic, cashless systems also make it


easy to vary pricing by day of the week or time of day, or even according to the status of the individual customer; reporting is in real time; and security is inevitably much improved.


There are less immediately obvious benefits to cashless payment, too:


branded cards can become souvenirs for customers and thus act as permanent marketing tools, cashflow is improved because payments may be received long in advance of services being delivered, and downtime caused by coin jams is eliminated.


Ecash also highlights the flexibility of cashless payments. The


company, which specialises in cash, ticket and card handling technologies and payment systems for the global gaming sector, currently has its Cash Redemption Terminal (CRT) in use in casinos in Europe, the Americas, Australia and Macao.


The Ecash CRT allows


customers to transfer, redeem and manage their money in a number of formats: ticket to cash, cash to cash, cash to card, or card to cash. Casino customers can also manage their loyalty programme and point allocation, and the CRT can be used in ticket redemption mode, chip cash mode or jackpot payment system mode (JPS).


“Our aim is to have the


Ecash CRT as the ‘shop front’ for all casino customers that wish to manage their cash within the casino. Our CRT is very flexible and designed intuitively in a way a human would think, and we are moving further towards this intuition as we develop more applications that can be accessed through the CRT,” says the firm’s Group General Manager Richard Soussa.


40 JULY/AUGUST 2010


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