Some commercial and tribal casinos in Nevada are now eyeing digital payment options to ensure that they adhere to the social distancing norms while preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

AGA calls for cashless payment options

The American Gaming Association, which is a national trade group for the gambling industry, called on regulators on Tuesday to updates their respective laws. It wants them to integrate cashless payment options for gamblers. The AGA wants to make it easier for customers to pay at the casino floor while ensuring that they don’t handle money at times when the coronavirus outbreak is still threatening the country.

The push for cashless payments comes after an 18-month study into its feasibility by both tribal and commercial casinos as well as equipment suppliers who are looking to promote cashless transactions on a wider scale. Only a small number of casinos are using such payments at present. This includes debit and credit cards, PayPal, and mobile payment services like Google Pay and Apple Pay. However, there is a lack of wider acceptance of these options at the properties.

A top priority for AGA

Bill Miller, the president and CEO of AGA said that promoting opportunities for digital payments has been one of his top priorities since he came to AGA. He added, “It aligns with gaming’s role as a modern, 21st-century industry and bolsters our already rigorous regulatory and responsible gaming measures. The COVID-19 pandemic made it all the more important to advance our efforts to provide customers with the payment choice they are more comfortable with and have increasingly come to expect in their daily lives.”

One of the reasons behind the lack of digital payment options at casinos is regulatory restriction. State legislators and gambling regulators have imposed many limitations on digital payments because of which this method fails to gain widespread acceptance. On June 25, the Nevada Gaming Commission will schedule a hearing where it could accept the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s recommendations. The NGCB seeks to make amendments to state regulations that would help streamline the approval and testing process for all modern payment methods.

NGCB chairperson Sandra Douglass Morgan said that the gambling regulators are open to looking at new ways of using technology which also includes cashless betting.