Feature Redemption “We are in the fun, entertainment
business and that’s part of it, to me.” Perhaps the adoption of ticketless might depend on the kind of customer that dominates your floor? Holly Hampton has a theory about players – though she ultimately agrees with Justin Burke about the pure enjoyment of tickets. “There are instant gratification players, and there are savers; for instant gratification, they come in and play and have a good time, and they’re going to redeem before they leave. It won’t be worth more than a few dollars but they’re happy with that. “The savers are more of an aggressive player, they’re likely to be a regular, they’ve got their eyes on a prize and they play the game differently – they’re looking for the big payout. In the past, this player might scan the room and look for piles of tickets at their feet and think, that’s the game to play now, but with e-tickets the players don’t have that any more. I believe with e-tickets we miss something; there’s something about tickets that’s part of the experience.” It promises business opportunities
for Electrocoin’s Business Development Director Kevin Weir, but he reassures Global Amusements & Play that there are systems that allow
still there. Where there are families involved, they love that and the experience of putting tickets into the ticket eater, it’s just great fun.” This has echoes of the casino
industry’s conversion to TITO several years ago – there are still players on Las Vegas slot floors complaining that the atmosphere has gone now that you no longer hear coins hitting the payout tray with a win. But TITO compared to actual currency is a no- brainer for an operator, because it simply saves a huge amount of labour and therefore money. No more emptying machines, no more counting coins; you can use a kiosk or single counter for many services. But ultimately, it’s what the players want that should win out. As Matthew Deith says: “Customers
play the machines, at the end of the day; it’s got to be a fun, easy experience and you have to take away whatever barriers to that you can.” Interestingly, with this in mind, Bay
Connect 4
a venue to use contactless pre-paid cards – and to pay out from the machines in tickets, so the labour saving is still largely there, and the ‘theatre’ the customer enjoys is intact. “[Electrocoin] work with ticket handling and associated loyalty programs, so we supply games, ticket eaters, back office management system for handling tickets, and prizes. And that’s where we have seen the biggest growth, in the management system side. We supply the Elmac system, which is widely regarded as the best in the industry. “We are also distributors for Intercard, which is the cashless system. You play with a card – buy the card for cash, and use that against the system; it interrelates with the back office redemption system. We’ve been running with that for about nine months now and we have been steadily doing more installations every month.
Ticket Mine February 2017
“The Intercard system is designed so it can be either entirely non-ticket, or it can be just for cashless payment so it still pays out tickets. The operator can choose how they want to do it for their customers. There’s still the advantage of no cash going into the machines, so cash boxes don’t need emptying, there’s a contactless reader and the machine still pays out in tickets – so the theatre end of the game is
Tek’s Holly Hampton has heard of some venues retracing their steps. She reveals: “I’ve heard of a few game rooms that have reverted, and added tickets back having switched to e- tickets. I don’t think it’s a trend, but I’ve heard that it has happened in a couple of locations this past year.”
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