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MONTE-CARLO EUROMAT Summit 2018
tricky, because as far as banks are concerned it’s ‘a new business use,’ which requires many different banking protocols to be navigated.
Te alternate method, the G-Squared’s Playgo App, which is a prepaid vWallet, downloaded from the App Store and linked to a credit or debit card is an ideal solution, because it doesn’t require any hardware investment in the site, it doesn’t require a ticket reader and dispenser, or a contactless card reader, and it doesn’t take up any space in the location as it’s all delivered via the customer’s smartphone. Tere’s just the worry that the Gambling Commission might not differentiate this from directly using a debit/credit card at the gaming machine itself, which is why the industry is currently taking legal advice on this point.
Adding to the list of hurdles is the fact that each of these solutions is, technically, a placeholder, because the industry wouldn’t be considering any of these convoluted systems if gaming machines could directly accept debit cards. If you’re looking at the way most retail outlets in the UK are heading, driven by consumer spending habits, people are carrying less and less cash. In a nutshell, legislation is prohibiting the gaming sector from keeping up with changes in global spending habits, with the Gambling Commission reluctant to address this concern because the political fallout would be extreme. If the mainstream UK media learned that the Gambling Commission allowed people to play on gambling machines directly from their bank account the fallout would be toxic. Perversely, using untraceable cash, with which operators can’t track the spending of their customers, nor allow customers to set their own spending limits, block cards for a period of time etc., which would all be practical with a vWallet solution, isn’t allowed for reasons of player protection.
And there’s another problem. Let’s say Reflex and G-Squared are successful in launching their systems and both start to gain traction as they’re early to market. Te pub retail sector would be a major beneficiary as we’re increasingly seeing the removal of ATMs from pubs and bars in the UK. If there were two different systems running in parallel, without cross-over, you could see a scenario in which a Reflex machine running PlayPass is located on the same site as a machine using the G-Squared App. Te player would be required to use two different sources of payment in the same environment, with the potential that competing manufacturers such as Novomatic and Gauselmann, would either license the systems from Reflex and G-Squared, or launch their own solutions.
Irrespective of whether Reflex and G-Squared machines work with each other’s solution, the player potentially needs an App to play on the G-Squared machine, a PlayPass for a Reflex machine and further Apps for Gauselmann and Novomatic machines. It’s just fraught with issues and problems for operators and players.
P48 NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE /MARKET DATA
If you’re looking at the way most retail outlets in the UK are heading, people are carrying less and less cash. In a nutshell, legislation is prohibiting the gaming sector from keeping up with changes in global spending habits, with the Gambling Commission reluctant to address this concern because the political fallout would be extreme. If the mainstream media learned that the Gambling Commission allowed people to play on gambling machines directly from their bank account the fallout would be toxic.
On top of this issue is another potentially larger one - who owns all the data? If you look at the bookmaker model, payments and KYC and social responsibility measures aside, an operator such as William Hill absolutely believes that gaming machine payment data gathered in their locations belongs to William Hill PLC. However, technically it’s the machine supplier, whether that be Inspired or Scientific Games, for example, that is actually collecting the data. If you walk into a Wetherspoons pub in the UK and there’s a Bell Fruit product operated by Gamestec, it’s logical to think that Gamestec would want to gather, store and use that data,
though it’s actually being sourced in a JD Wetherspoons site.
Since the Novomatic Group owns both Bell Fruit and Gamestec, there shouldn’t be a conflict between Gamestec and Bell Fruit as regards to the collection of the data. However, if Gamestec were to install a Reflex, G-Squared or Blueprint product, who should then have access to the data? In many ways the solution needs to be provided by a non-partisan entity, such as CPI or JCM, companies that already have a huge presence in the retail sector and, as such, would be best placed to provide the equipment the
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