Digital payment options can offer responsible gambling advantages for patrons, operators and regulators according to Sightline Payments.

Appearing on the CDC Gaming Show, Dallas Holmes, Director of Training and Customer Care at Sightline Payments, explained how cashless gaming can help maintain a safe and controlled environment.

He said: “It’s really the fact that there’s a lot of data that’s ingested. When you’re a player at a casino and you’re [using cash] there’s a lot of anonymity. When you are using digital payments we’re able to collect data that says what behaviour is going on.

“What we’re doing is providing transaction data that operators can look at and then take that information and strategise what they need. Operators have limits and things that they can put into place, but they don’t know what they’re missing unless they have data to tell them that maybe they should look at incorporating additional resources. 

Sightline Payments has collaborated with Resorts World to become one of the first venues to offer cashless payments on the Las Vegas Strip. As part of this arrangement, players at the venue can access Sightline’s Cardholder Portal to view their transactions.

On the benefits of this, Holmes said: “It’s really one of the first times that a patron can go to a brick and mortar casino, play cashless and immediately go to our client portal and look at the transactional history of what they’ve just spent. 

“That really helps people stay within a budget. If you go in with cash you may lose track of how much you’re spending but with [the portal] you can look at what you spent in the last hour. That may allow you to say I’m within my budget or it may make you pause and say I think I’ve spent enough for the day.”

He added that cashless payment methods allow Sightline to implement bank-approved know-your-customer (KYC) requirements.

“We’re able to know that you are of a legal gambling age,” he explained. “We know who you are and where you’re spending your money. A lot of it is just for the purpose of the patron to give them safeguards but it also allows [operators] to understand that we are validating who these patrons are, so it’s a win-win for both the operator and patron.”

To end the interview, Holmes is asked how educated operators are on the subject of KYC and responsible gambling in the igaming industry.

He said: “If you asked me ten years ago I’d say there wasn’t a lot known about what KYC meant and the regulatory frameworks.

“Fast forward ten years and we’ve got the smartest people in these regulatory bodies making great decisions to safeguard patrons. The operators are educated to know what they need [and] there’s enough proliferation in the market now that even the customers understand what they need. When we talk to operators they understand how we build the products and the safeguards in place.”