AGA Pushes for Adoption of Digital Payments in Casino Floors

The American Gaming Association (AGA), the national trade group of the gambling industry in the USA is calling for digital payments on brick-and-mortar casino floors. The recommendation is backed by a recently revealed Payments Modernization Policy Principles report compiled by the AGA after an 18-month gaming industry study. In this report, the AGA has emphasized that through digitized payments system, patrons of casinos and the staff members who serve them will be safer from the novel COVID-19 because they can effectively avoid handling money.  

After all, another recent research study by the Association indicates that 57% of players who have visited casinos in the past year said that cashless payments in the lobby are an important attribute to them due to the Coronavirus. In the same study, 59% of the same demographic (casino goers within the past year) are less likely to use paper money in their day to day lives in fear of getting infected. This essentially means that should contactless payments be an option in casino lobbies, there a good chance that casino patrons will prefer using them.

Regulatory Burdens Holding Back the Casino Industry

The biggest drawback facing the use of cashless payments in the USA casino industry is that not many states have wholeheartedly accepted interactive casino gaming. As an extension, because online gaming is prohibited, the use of digital payments in land-based facilities, therefore, sits on blurred lines. Currently, only states where digital skins are allowed by the law can integrate the contactless payment channels. The likes of New Jersey and Pennsylvania for instance, have already started allowing players to load and cash out using digital options such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

Thus, in the wake of the novel epidemic, the AGA is encouraging gaming oversight bodies in the USA’s gambling legal states to update regulations so that they can accommodate contactless payments. According to the casino trade group, regulators should for instance introduce acts or statutes in the licensing agreements to make it easier for the adoption of digital payments.

But then, besides the regulatory problem, operators have also been arguing that going cashless on land-based facilities is new technology and hence the idea isn’t too popular yet with consumers. Consequently, the fact that not many players would switch to digital payments means that the maintenance costs that operators would then incur for implementation of cashless systems would be unjustified.

On the other hand, the need for avoiding contact as much as possible to reduce the risk of new COVID-19 infections makes it a prime time to embrace the idea wholeheartedly.

Fostering Better Gambling Habits

Other than reducing the risks of spreading the infectious virus, the AGA also stated that using digital payment channels will give players more control over their gambling practices. Through cashless payments, players would easily be able to use digital tools that set time and expenditure limits so that they don’t end up suffering hefty losses in case things don’t go how they had anticipated.

Likewise, security officials in the gaming industry will have an easier time analyzing the digital trail, to pay more attention to high-risk consumers. Furthermore, going digital will also provide a more streamlined avenue for casino operators, gaming watchdogs, and law enforcement agencies to boost transparency in AML (anti-money laundering) measures as monitoring the financial transactions also becomes easier.