Bally’s to debut ticket pay system on the LV Strip

David Strow

Thursday, Dec. 14, 2000 | 10:55 a.m.

At first, it will start with just 100 slot machines, a mere drop in the bucket on the Las Vegas Strip.

But if it's a hit, coins may soon start quickly disappearing from slot machines across the gaming industry's biggest market.

So-called "coinless" slot machines will finally premiere on the Las Vegas Strip in January, when Bally's Las Vegas converts 100 of its 1,840 slot machines to ticket-printer systems for a 90-day trial. Soon after, a second Strip test will follow at the Casino Royale.

If the test succeeds, a majority of the slots at Bally's and neighboring Paris Las Vegas will be converted to ticket-printer systems by the end of 2001, said Ken Geiger, vice president of slots at Bally's and Paris.

Up until now, coinless has been tested only in "locals" casinos, such as the Suncoast, Texas Station, the Fiesta and the Reserve. Next was Terrible's Casino on Paradise Road, which opened with 90 percent of its 750 slots using ticket printers.

But Strip casinos, by comparison, have been somewhat hesitant to introduce such a technology. But Bally's owner Park Place Entertainment Corp. will be watching the test closely to see if it would work at other properties -- and Park Place's competitors might not be willing to cede a potential advantage to one company.

"If the test goes well, I'm looking for it to grow," Geiger said. "What (Park Place) is looking at is to see how well it goes on the Strip. If it's successful here, they'll be looking into expanding to other properties.

"I don't think anyone on the Strip will want to be the last one to do it."

Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter, puts it more bluntly.

"If nothing else, this (Las Vegas) is a copycat society," Curtis said. "If they work, they'll be everywhere. You'll see a lot of suits walking around (Bally's) soon after they're in.

"No one wants to be innovative, but they sure don't mind following the leader."

The system being used is called "EZ Pay," a package of various coinless technologies owned by a number of companies, marketed by International Game Technology of Reno. Though often referred to by the "coinless" moniker, EZ Pay doesn't completely eliminate coins, as some other ticket-printer systems do.

EZ Pay-adapted machines allow customers to put coins into a machine, and allow small amounts of credits to be paid in coins. Larger amounts of credits, however, are paid with a printed ticket. The ticket can be inserted into the bill acceptor of another slot machine or redeemed for cash at a cashier's cage.

Bally's will introduce a second factor to help win customers over -- "EZ Scan," a remote scanning gun that will allow change attendants to pay customers from carts, saving them a trip to the cashier's cage.

The advantages for the casinos are obvious -- by printing tickets, rather than dispensing coins, such machines don't have to be constantly refilled by change persons. The costs associated with handling coins would be reduced dramatically -- and slot machines wouldn't sit unused while players waited for hand pays. This has become a far larger problem with the rise of nickel slot machines, since cashing out as little as $20 in nickels can cause a machine to run dry.

But hand pays inconvenience players as well, since players have to wait by a slot for payment. Coins also increase the possibility of theft, and can make a player's hands dirty after a long session.

"Everyone wants to increase service on the floor to give guests a better time in the casino," Geiger said. "One of the biggest downfalls for a casino is to have a hopper fill ... it's difficult to get to that customer in a timely fashion.

Still, casinos must still overcome the biggest problem -- the insistence of many slot players that the coin is a critical piece of the slot machine experience. Remove the touch of the coins and the clatter of coins falling into a hopper, and you destroy the slot machine experience, some argue.

That was a big reason that coinless slots flopped when used at the opening of the MGM Grand in 1993. The machines were quickly removed, and the concept hasn't returned to the Strip since.

Will 2001 be any different?

"That's about as tough as trying to pick Trinidad vs. Vargas," Curtis said. "I know for a more sophisticated locals crowd, it's been a real big hit, and that really surprised me. I didn't think it would go over.

"I think they'll probably find a market on the Strip, but they won't take over the whole casino."

Others believe the spread of gaming across the nation has produced a far more gaming-savvy Strip visitor -- and that will smooth the way for coinless slots. Still, no one believes the coin will be completely gone any time soon.

"I don't know if players are dying to see the technology, but as they become exposed to it, they realize there's a lot of positive attributes to it," said David Anders, gaming analyst with Merrill Lynch. "A lot of education needs to occur, but once it happens, players appear to be accepting these games whole-heartedly.

"I'm not saying it's going to happen overnight. The feel and sound of coin will always be important to certain players."

But player attitudes do change. When bill acceptors were first introduced a decade ago, Geiger estimates about 30 percent of the cash that went into machines came in bills instead of coins. Today, he estimates that number is well over 90 percent -- and it's difficult to find a slot machine today that doesn't have a bill validator.

"It grew on the customer," Geiger said. "They realized it was a lot more convenient than to wait for a change attendant. It's an evolutionary process that's going to happen."

But IGT says it's working on a solution that could accommodate die-hard coin players. Ed Rogich, vice president of marketing for IGT, said the company is now working on a system that would allow an EZ Pay customer to select whether he wants to be paid with a ticket, or entirely in coins. IGT still needs to finalize patents on the system and receive approvals from Nevada gaming regulators.

But that technology could be out in matter of months, not years.

"I don't know how quick it will get to market, but it's absolutely in the works," Rogich said. "I don't think it will take that long. It's not something that's way out there."

The potential of the market is something that makes some market observers drool. Coinless systems can only be installed on the newest slot machines -- and Dave Ehlers, chairman of Las Vegas Investment Advisors, estimates as many as 350,000 slot machines across the country would have to be upgraded.

At an average of $10,000 per machine, the potential replacement market is $3.5 billion, Ehlers estimates. That's turned Ehlers bullish on IGT, and his funds have invested heavily in the stock.

"IGT has backlogs going further and further, and they can get (all of the orders for new machines) on the Strip for two years," Ehlers said. "If they (Strip casinos) start to demand these slots, IGT is going to charge an arm and a leg. They'll kill them.

"IGT is the leading contender (in coinless slots), because they've really got something now. This can only be considered hot stuff."