Zona de Azar USA – Global Payments Showcases Innovative Casino Experiences at G2E
USA.- October 4th 2021 www.zonadeazar.com Innovation is nothing new for Global Payments Gaming Solutions. In fact, the company was born out of innovation.
As Global Payments marks its return to the Global Gaming Expo with a full casino operating at its booth at the Venetian Expo, its president, Christopher Justice, is quick to cite the company’s history as it paves the way to the future.
Twenty-year-old Global Payments is the only payment company that has a direct investment in the marketplace where its products and services are delivered factory direct, explained Justice. That allows Global to provide a set of vertically integrated capabilities, built to work together and provide the value that operators are seeking.
“That’s one of the reasons our performance is head and shoulders above others,” Justice said.
For example, in the past, Las Vegas casinos cashed $100 checks for out-of-towners, but it was a laborious and time-consuming process to get that money onto the gaming floor. What’s more, the casinos assumed all the risk associated with any returned checks. “Global Payments created a system where we warranted the transactions to the casinos for all of those guests,” Justice said.
And because of its financial, banking, and retail background, the company cashed checks for much larger amounts than the casinos were comfortable doing on their own. This system, which became known as VIP Preferred, is still a popular offering at casinos and online today. It was a win/win/win proposition for Global Payments, the casinos, and the customers and it continues to serve as the foundation for innovation for the company, Justice said.
“One of the most important parts of VIP Preferred is that the players can sign up once, anywhere nationwide, and have access to those funds across every casino, whether it’s brick-and-mortar or online,” Justice said. “That membership allows them to transfer the highest limits in the industry to the casino, all of which are backed by Global Payments. You can think of it as the Venmo of gaming, but the value of it is substantially higher for the gaming industry. We’ve been doing it effectively for 20 years and we’re funding tens of billions of casino-industry dollars every year.”
Another solution the company rolled out over the last couple of years was Choice 4, which enables consumers to play today, but delay settlement for up to 28 days. That provides a more efficient and convenient way to get players back to the floor and participating in their favorite game.
This year, Global Payments’ G2E booth will mirror the company’s Client Experience Center, located at its Las Vegas headquarters, where the company frequently demonstrates its payment solutions.
“We’ve had customers tell us that we’re one of the only vendors where what you see at the trade show and at our Experience Center is exactly what’s delivered in the casino environment,” Justice said. “We try to showcase everything the way they would experience it in the real world.”
Justice said this year, their booth will simulate the full-resort experience that starts by offering the casino cage in the palm of the player’s hand on the smartphone. Gamblers walk to their favorite table or machine and fund their play quickly and easily; when play is complete, they can send funds back to their bank accounts. On top of that, they can have the same mobile experience throughout the resort, from retail and restaurants to hotel and entertainment.
Global Payments’ systems are in more than 400 casinos and sites across the U.S and are offered by all the major igaming brands and land-based operations, from Wynn Resorts to Station Casinos, MGM Resorts to tribal casinos.
Additionally, Global Payments mobile funding solution, VIP Mobility, is live at two locales: Viejas Casino & Resort in San Diego and Downstream Casino Resorts in Oklahoma, with additional properties across the country preparing to go live by the end of 2021.
“We’re driving innovative solutions into this marketplace that are highly differentiated from all the other companies out there,” Justice said. “We don’t push things out and start talking about them until they’re real and operational. It’s not about creating a fancy PowerPoint, but instead generating real results for our customers. That’s one thing we can definitely see when our solutions are launched in the marketplace. Whether it’s a noticeable increase in player adoption, funding volume, or numbers of transactions, they all translate into higher gross gaming revenue for our property partners.”
Justice said he’s looking forward to G2E, which is one of the most important events of the year for Global Payments. It’s an environment where people can come and see, in a single place, all of the company’s offerings, including the live experiences.
“It gives people the ability to compare and contrast the remarkable differences between a purpose-built vertically integrated solution and one that requires cobbling together multiple vendors in an environment where vendors typically don’t work well with one another,” Justice said. “When you try to stitch a bunch of disparate parts together, you get deployments that have virtually no player adoption. They’re clunky, hard to use, and don’t provide value or benefits for the guest.”
No matter how much or little someone invests in a solution, if the guest won’t use it, the money is wasted.
“Our goal is to drive maximum customer adoption, which hopefully equates with a powerful return on investment for the operator,” Justice said. “What you’ll see this year at G2E, relative to the applications, is a lot more utility for the guests, a lot of new options for getting money into the casino, and new options for where and how they can enjoy their gaming and entertainment. There are improved safety, security, and responsible-gaming measures, as well, for how they interact and how they can come and go from the casino.”
The exhibit will display not only the ability to play in the casino, but also mobile-friendly access to the rest of the resort.
“The most expensive real estate in the world is the space inside of that smartphone,” Justice said. “Our approach is to provide a consistent seamless experience across all operators. The singular, operator-specific, cashless accounts are not effortless and require numerous app installs and enrollments.”
Justice likens them to the department store-specific credits cards of years gone by. All of those cards died out over the years and the same thing is happening in gaming, he said. People don’t want multiple apps with different processes and user experiences.
“They want simplicity and seamless use for all the various places they go,” Justice said. “We’re aligning our product with that principle, so we can embrace consumer expectations and trends relative to the growth of mobile and self-service.”
Once a person signs up for a Global Payments account, it can be used anywhere it’s offered, both online and offline. That’s convenient for consumers, Justice said.
“Think about it in Las Vegas. You go to one casino and sign up and it’s an hour-long process to get started. Then you go across the street and it’s another hour. Others are trying to roll out cashless products, but everywhere you go, it’s an hour long and friction-filled, versus what we have in places like Viejas. You download the app from the app store, type in your phone number, and you’re ready to play. It’s instant, just like Amazon and Uber,” he said.
“We’re also working hand in hand with the operators. We try to roll these out in a way that minimizes expense, aggravation, and difficulties. By and large, our solutions are system- and hardware-agnostic. We don’t expect or require the operator to spend a huge amount of money buying new software modules or changing out their systems and jackhammering casino floors to put in high-speed networks. We leverage the existing system and infrastructure. We also try to make sure we’re aligned with the processes and procedures in place today to minimize any employee training.”
Even their VIP Mobility cashless solution leverages the ticketing system and eliminates change management, Justice said. Operators’ employees don’t have to learn how to do new things and their guests don’t have to change the way they play. Everything operates like it does today, he said.
The recurring theme is Global Payments offers a seamless experience for consumers by reducing friction in getting funds to the resort, using those funds wherever they want, and putting funds back into their accounts. Innovation will continue along those lines.
“Operators will continue to adopt it, because it’s the most cost-effective solution to deploy and one of the few solutions in the market that generates substantial results,” Justice said.
Edited by: @MaiaDigital www.zonadeazar.com