Industry Insights From John Rozek
As a founding director of both Game Payment Technology and Polar Moment, John has over 20 years of experience at the forefront of the payments industry. He is a recognised and respected professional across the retail payments industry, including delivering the world’s first integrated EMV solution in 2001. Over the last 2 years, John has led the evolution of the groundbreaking Game Payment solution, helping the amusement industry to meet the challenge of an increasingly cashless world.
In this series of blog posts, John shares his insights into payment solutions for the gaming and amusements industry. If you are a manufacturer, operator or supplier of gaming and amusement machines, here’s John’s advice for you!
How do I choose the right payment solution?
The key piece of advice that I would offer to amusement machine operators is – don’t think payment solution, think player experience.
By putting the focus onto the player’s experience, you will be able to make sure players actually want to use the payment solution. When they do use it, ensure it is a great experience – both the payment and the play.
“How do I do this?” I hear you ask. When you choose your payment solution, choose one that can be used across all of your machines so that the player does not need to step away to a remote terminal or change machine just when they are enjoying playing. This encourages them to stay and play for longer, meaning greater revenue for you!
Furthermore, ensure the solution allows you to build a strong relationship with your customers. By encouraging your customers to sign up for your cashless solution, you gain the ability to profile your customers: who they are, when they visit, their age, gender, where they live and what they play. Of course, we need to make sure that data protection laws are fully respected. However, analysed in the right way, these valuable insights allow you to plan incentives specific to your customers. This will in turn drive increased play and deepen their affinity to the venue.
Another key consideration when choosing your payment solution is thinking ahead and making sure it is future proof. Players are migrating to pay and play solutions that enhance their experience and exploit modern technology. The use of mobile apps is the way forward across all payment solutions, not just in gaming. You will have seen across hospitality that the use of apps has soared following the easing of lockdown. Old payment methods are falling away.
My final piece of advice is something you will likely already be doing. Try to minimise costs as much as possible. Cash handling is expensive and time consuming. Contactless readers and TITO are expensive due to mandated security requirements and the need to be hardened for the arcade environment. Look for the lowest cost option. Not only for you, but also for your customers – who wants to pay fees for simply adding or withdrawing their own money? This will give the player a damaging experience when playing your machines. Remember my key piece of advice – don’t think payment solution, think player experience.