Casino Payment Systems – How They Differ From Traditional Payment Systems

Unlike the traditional business transaction processing environment, the delivery of cash access services and the products for which they are delivered must meet extremely high standards of reliability and efficiency to handle the high volume of transactions in the casino gaming industry.
Games industry:
The general gaming industry in the US operates in more than 40 states and generates estimated revenue of $ 90 billion (Data: American Gaming Association). Cash access services are present in a number of locations, including traditional Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos, Native American casinos, Riverboat casinos, Pari-mutuel racetracks and gaming rooms.
Cash access products play a mission-critical role for game operators, with an estimated 70% of gaming revenue derived from these services. Most game operators rely on third-party companies like Sightline Payments LLC to provide these services to their customers. We estimate that the gaming access market in North America (annually) is $ 25 billion distributed to customers and over 100 million transaction approvals, generating an estimated $ 950 million in revenue for the industry.
The largest provider of these cash access services includes Sightline Payments (PRIVATE: Sightline) link cmd368, Global Cash Access, Inc. (NYSE: GCA), Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN) with an approximate 90% market share. The remaining 10% is divided among other suppliers, including Money Centers of America (MCAM.PK), DiTronics Financial Services and ASAI.
Here is a description of the common types of cash access services found in a casino:
• Credit card cash advances (Smart Station Advances): Credit card cash advances allow a game user to access funds up to a limit specified by the card-issuing bank. Consumer fees represent on average about 6% of the requested amount.
• Debit card cash advances: POS debit card transactions are processed like a normal business transaction, in which a user can access funds up to the cardholder’s purchase debit limit, which is generally greater than the limit ATM diary. Consumer fees represent on average about 3.5% of the amount requested.
• ATM and ATM3X: a customer can withdraw funds directly from their checking or savings account, subject to an average daily limit of US $ 300. Consumer fees average an average of US $ 4.00 per requested transaction. A recent phenomenon across the industry is the migration of ATM services to Glory, NRT, Western Money Ticket Redemption and Bill Breaking Devices.
• Check payments (Certegy and Global Payments): check verification, processing and guarantee services, allow the payment of customer checks at the casino cashier. Generally, there are no fees for the consumer, but in certain geographic regions, fees can be more than 6% of the amount requested.
• Bookmarks and gambling credit: casino establishments subscribe to credit bureau services to obtain detailed credit information for the purpose of extending bookmarks or credit to customers. These services are generally reserved for “top” casino players and there are no consumer fees.