
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."