Is Cashless Better? 

With all of the new machines going to a cashless system, many have wondered why all the change – so to speak. You walk through the casinos in Atlantic City, and all of their slot machines take cards or dollar bills now, and then payout in tickets which can then be redeemed for money. Gone are the days of the coins pouring out of the machine, the excitement of hearing the clink clink as your money increased in the bin below. 

Experts say that this is the logical progression for the slot machines, that it saves time and money for the casinos.  They don’t have to keep on as many employees, and their machines are now using less electricity as they don’t need to have the extra motor inside to pay out the coins. The up keep of the new machines is much less, and it is way more convenient for them. They can also look to see exactly how much money is in play at any time by looking into their computers and seeing how the slot machines are running.  

They say that they surveyed slot machine players and they complained about the old machines. That they took too long to collect a large jackpot, or that they didn’t want to carry around buckets of coins, nor did they want to touch the coins that other people had touched first. Well, they didn’t ask me – and when I was playing the new machines it felt like something was missing. The casinos think people will play more because they aren’t actually putting in money most of the time. They are using cards with preset amounts on them, and people aren’t watching the money being fed into the slot machine. I personally gave up after a few machines. I like the money going in, and I love the sound of it coming out. For me, newer is not always better.

Back to September Archive or Slot Machines