By Frank Legato

Playing Without Coins Early results from coin-free slots show that plenty of players are willing to leave the buckets behind

Two years ago, the first slots designed for exclusive coin-free play were unveiled at Arizona Charlie's in Las Vegas. The video slots, produced by VLC, Inc. (now a unit of Anchor Games), had no coin mechanism, no hopper, no buttons, no handles. Operation of the games, which included top video games from VLC's "Winning Touch Power Series" line, was performed solely by using the touch-screen feature. Players fed bills into the acceptor and were paid via a secure ticket (sometimes called a "paper token"), dispensed from an integral printer and activated by the cash-out button. The tickets were redeemable for cash at the cage or at a change booth.

At the time, all of the major slot manufacturers were working on some type of system for providing coin-free slot play. Last August, we asked you what type of coin-free play you would most like to see-or if you didn't want to see any coin-free play at all. Your 10-1 response was "Leave my slot alone!" Most of our readers stated that coins were an integral part of their slot experience, and they wanted to keep the clatter of the coins, the dirty hands and the buckets.

Early results of coin-free slot play at Arizona Charlie's and elsewhere, however, show that there is definitely a good supply of players who feel the opposite-people who are tired of waiting for hopper fills, carrying buckets and standing in coin redemption lines. The coin-free slots-in banks right next to traditional, hopper-equipped, coin-operated games-have been packed.

Coin-free gaming has found a home with Las Vegas locals, and the VLC machines are being joined by new coin-free versions of IGT games, both video slot and video poker. As we went to press, IGT "EZ Pay" coin-free slots were finishing up field trials at Arizona Charlie's and at the Fiesta in North Las Vegas. Williams/WMS Gaming and Bally both are planning to introduce coin-free versions of their own games.

According to Don Joshua, slot director at Arizona Charlie's, the VLC coin-free slots have consistently raked in profit that is 15-20 percent above the house average, in denominations as low as pennies. (The multi-denominational banks include games that give the choice between pennies and 2-cent betting units, 2-cent and 10-cent betting units, and nickel/quarter units.)

The higher profits do not mean a lower overall payback percentage for the players, though. According to Joshua, average payback has been between 97 percent and 98 percent on the VLC slots-on average bets of around 43 cents per spin of the reels. This means they are being played fast and furiously.

"Our customers accepted them immediately," says Joshua. "People started playing them the minute we put them on the floor. They love not having to wait for jackpots, hopper fills and coin redemption, and that in turn speeds up customer service."

Joshua says coin-free slots are already occupying 10 percent of the floor at Arizona Charlie's-the casino has 89 VLC and 40 IGT coin-free slots-and that number will go up after final approval of the IGT games and the release of Williams' coin-free slots (which also use ticket-printers).

The Fiesta reports similar results. General Manager Ed Fasulo says the VLC Coin-Free games were accepted immediately, and constantly out-perform the house average.

The Fiesta is the primary test site for IGT's EZ Pay system. Twenty-four of the slots have been placed in a special section. There were two weeks left in the 60-day trial period at press time. Fasulo predicted that final approval was a near certainty. "Their operation has been virtually flawless," he says.

And just as at Arizona Charlie's, the players at the Fiesta love the coin-free system. "We had a focus group of players a few days ago," Fasulo says, "and every one of the comments was positive. One of the best testimonials is the customer service/customer convenience factor. We placed them near the bingo hall, and one customer commented that when it's time to play bingo, she could just push a button to cash out and go play bingo immediately. There is no wait for a fill or to redeem coins. Also, their hands don't get sooted up, there is no carrying buckets to Coin Redemption-all of that nuisance is eliminated."

The Orleans, a popular Las Vegas locals casino on West Tropicana, reports phenomenal results on the VLC coin-free slots. Orleans' parent company, Coast Resorts, was so impressed that its new Sun Coast property in the Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin will open with its entire slot floor equipped for coin-free play. According to Coast officials, coin-free play will still be optional on the games at the new casino-each slot will be equipped with coin-handling equipment, a hopper, and the EZ Pay ticket-printing system.

EZ Pay is a "ticket out/ticket in" system, a ticket printing and encoding system patented collectively by IGT, Anchor Gaming and Alliance Gaming. The original equipment on the VLC games (now produced under the Anchor Gaming corporate umbrella) will soon be equipped with this type of ticket printer, as will new Bally coin-free slots when they are released.

The original VLC ticket printers were "ticket out" only. The cash-out button prints a secure ticket (containing the remaining number of credits on the machine) that could only be taken to the cage or change booth for redemption. The new ticket printers use bar-coded coupons that can be placed in any other printer-equipped slot on the floor, making it easy for customers to move from slot to slot during a session without stopping to redeem tickets.

The tickets themselves are made of special paper stock with water marks to foil counterfeiters, and each is encrypted with a sequence number. When it is redeemed or placed in another slot, the number is removed from the system, so any copy would not work after the original is redeemed. The Nevada Gaming Control Board has established that the tickets must be valid for a minimum of 30 days after printing, but Fasulo predicts various casinos will offer longer validation periods for their own tickets.

Mick Roemer, senior vice president and general manager of VLC parent company Anchor Games, says the company's coin-free slots have been just as popular with players in Native American casinos and in Mississippi as they have been in Nevada. "Customers have really responded to them," he says. "It all boils down to customer convenience."

So far, though, Roemer says coin-free play has been a phenomenon only for locals-people for whom dropping coins and slot handles are no longer a novelty. "The person who comes to Vegas once or twice a year still sees coin-handling as an important part of the experience."

One comment that surfaced repeatedly in our survey results last year was that the sounds of the coins dropping into the hoppers is, for many, an important part of the slot experience. Fasulo notes that one feature of the IGT coin-free slots is designed to compensate for this-they have side-mounted speakers that play audio of coins falling into a hopper as the payout ticket prints.

(Joshua at Arizona Charlie's says the casino's own survey showed the quiet operation of the ticket printer to be one of the things customers liked about the new system.)

VLC's Roemer says that by and large, locals care little about atmosphere and ambiance; what they care about is playing and winning. The numbers would seem to support this. "Our games have been popular at all the locals locations," Roemer says. "We've seen numbers as high as 50 percent over house average."

Not so at the tourist havens. The only Strip location to install the coin-free slots so far has been Casino Royale, which is really a locals casino that happens to be on the Strip.

"The Strip hasn't really been receptive to the idea of coin-free slot play," says Roemer. "Tourists want to hear the coins drop, and we have had problems getting the tourist casinos to provide a coin-free area, to communicate to the tourist what is going on."

Many industry insiders predict, however, that it is only a matter of time before the tourists latch on to the coin-free bandwagon. Roemer believes that tourist locations will ease customers into coin-free wagering very soon, by offering it as an option like the new Coast property is doing. "You will probably see a lot of hybrids during the next six months or so as coin-free slots move into the tourist locations," he says.

This method of converting traditionalist slot players is not without precedent: The first slots allowing credit play had a "credit/cash" toggle switch. If it was in the "cash" position, every jackpot would clang coins into the hopper. Given the option, though, most players preferred credit play, and now, players must hit the cash-out button for coins to drop.

"Slots went to bill validators and credit play; I think this is a natural evolution," says the Fiesta's Fasulo. "I think this will be as well-accepted as those other innovations. The Vegas player, local and tourist, will eventually accept this as a convenience and an improvement."