Flavors of Cashless: Resorts World Las Vegas Case Study

In the previous editions of Sightline’s “Flavors of Cashless” series, we’ve talked through the key pieces – or “flavors” - of how you build out a cashless gaming infrastructure at your property. This includes the gaming industry’s movement towards cashless payment options, the importance of leveraging your casino management system (CMS), building a robust and scalable payments stack, and the best methods for delivering cashless options to your patrons.

The last piece in our series will help tie those all together by analyzing perhaps the most prominent launch of cashless gaming technology – the opening of Resorts World Las Vegas.

Open to the public on June 24, 2021, Resorts World Las Vegas offers the most technologically advanced casino experience in the world. This $4.3 billion property was the first major casino opening on the Las Vegas Strip in over a decade, and it is the only casino in the world where patrons can enjoy all aspects of their experience at the integrated resort without the need to carry cash. From the gaming floor to the hotel to the restaurants to the theater to the pools – all of those include the latest technology surrounding this brand new $4.3 billion mega-resort. On a recent Global Gaming Business podcast, Rick Hutchins, SVP Casino Operations at Resorts World Las Vegas, stated that there are at least eight ongoing field trials of new technology at Resorts World Las Vegas – an unprecedented number for any property.

How did all of this come to be?

I like to call it collaborating to innovate.

Konami’s SYNKROS casino management system provides ultra-high reliability and industry-leading architecture. NRT, a global leader in enterprise payment systems, was tapped for the cash access products and loyalty kiosks. Genesis Gaming, the only comprehensive solutions provider in the table games industry, integrates with cashless gaming technology on the casino floor to allow insight into player behavior. Sightline’s market-leading Play+ cashless wagering solution serves as the crucial digital payments layer that brings the entire cashless ecosystem to life. The Resorts World Las Vegas mobile app is powered by Sightline’s JOINGO mobile marketing and loyalty product, which enables a fully integrated mobile experience linking casino play, restaurant reservations, and mobile ticketing. The integrations of all these core components enable patrons to enjoy a seamless experience across the entire integrated resort – not just on the casino floor – without the need to carry cash.

All these companies brought incredibly valuable experience and technology to the table and needed to work together to deliver it to the customer. When the property opened in June, we were all able to do just that.

To spur increased adoption of this cutting-edge technology, Resorts World Las Vegas engaged two critical audiences:

The Regulators

At Sightline, regulators are our partners in driving innovation. In Nevada, this was certainly the case as the Nevada Gaming Control Board worked closely with us as a vendor and with Resorts World Las Vegas as the operator to help bring this new technology to life. In June 2020, the Nevada Gaming Commission adopted new regulations which allowed for the use of cashless gaming systems in Nevada casinos. Throughout the build-out of the property and even after launch, the Resorts World Las Vegas team consistently engaged with Nevada regulators on how best to implement much of the groundbreaking technology that is providing a first-of-its-kind experience.

The Staff

Another critical element was Resorts World’s engagement and education of front-line staff around the new technology and the cashless wagering system. Prior to launch, the Sightline team conducted in-depth training with casino staff to educate them about our Play+ technology, the JOINGO mobile app, and how these will influence the patron’s gaming experience across the entire integrated resort. Fitting this new type of technology into your property and having your staff be ambassadors for that technology can be challenging. But with a commitment from management to educate and inform, you can create a culture that engages patrons about these new adoptions and how they can interact with them.

Here’s how it all works (with one caveat)

To start the process of cashless gaming at Resorts World, you download the RWLV mobile app. Once you arrive on property, you can visit one of NRT’s loyalty kiosks to create your Genting Rewards account, which includes your GamingPlay cashless wagering account.

Sightline recently submitted a regulatory change to the Nevada Gaming Control Board?to amend the regulations to allow for remote creation and identity verification for wagering accounts used in Nevada casinos. Our goal – based on what we’ve seen with other successful cashless solutions in retail environments – is for the setup process to take up to 3 minutes from beginning to end, including funding the account.

Currently, with the in-person ID verification, you simply scan your driver’s license or passport into the kiosk to verify who you are. Once you set up your Genting Rewards loyalty account, you can then set up your Play+ account to use the cashless wagering functions across the property. To create your Play+ account, you’ll need to input your social security number and go through a knowledge-based authentication process to ensure your identity is properly verified. If the KBA is not effective, the system prompts you to go to the cage to verify with an in-person representative. Once your Play+ account is created, you can link your Genting Rewards and your Play+ account in your Resorts World Las Vegas app and enable transfer of funds between your Play+ account and your GamingPlay account.

Multiple options are available for funding your Play+ account. Once you fund, you then transfer funds from your Play+ account into your Gaming Play account for use at any slot machine or table game on the casino floor.

For a slot machine, you’ll scan a QR code on the machine display screen and follow the prompts to transfer funds onto your slot. When you are done, just hit cash out on the Resorts World Las Vegas mobile app or on the slot machine and funds transfer back to your GamingPlay account. At a table game, you will use your Resorts World Las Vegas mobile app and select Cardless Activities and Table Game Buy-In. Once you go through the prompts with how much you would like to transfer to the game, a QR code will be generated on the mobile app that the dealer will scan, and you are on your way. When you are done, the dealer can push funds back to your GamingPlay account, provide chips or issue you a TITO ticket – your choice.

If you’d like to use your funds in Play+ across the resort, you can do that instantly as well. Once you sign up for your Resorts World Las Vegas Play+ account, you’ll receive an email with the ability to instantly add your Resorts World Las Vegas Play+ card to your mobile wallet. From there, you can use your Resorts World Las Vegas Play+ card at any point-of-sale device across the property as you would any other card in your wallet.

Consumers have come to expect mobile experiences in their everyday lives, whether using a mobile wallet to check out at the grocery store or checking their bank balance with an app on their phone. ?As society becomes more and more digitally based, casino patrons will soon expect a modern gaming experience to include seamlessly linking slots, table games, cage operations, and loyalty. Resorts World Las Vegas highlights the impact that payments innovations can have on the integrated casino resort.

The future of gaming is here.