Casino gambles on customer retention technology

Computerworld - UNCASVILLE, Conn. -- The Mohegan Sun casino next month plans to begin testing two technologies that officials at the gaming resort hope will help lower costs while improving customer retention rates and profit margins.
In one project, Mohegan Sun will install automated funds-transfer (AFT) technology on 300 to 400 of the high-roller slot machines spread throughout its two casinos here. The technology, which is based on software from Advanced Casino Systems Corp. in Egg Harbor, N.J., will let slots players establish credit with the casino through a deposit and then use PIN-protected Mohegan Sun cards with magnetic stripes to download all or part of those funds into a slot machine.
The second test rollout involves a video surveillance and data-collection system that initially will be installed at 10 of Mohegan Sun's 130 blackjack tables. Blackjack players will swipe their casino cards through readers built into chair armrests, and the system will track the size and frequency of their bets and integrate the information into a player ratings system. That system runs on an IBM AS/400 machine and is used to determine credit ratings for players based on their gambling tendencies.
Mohegan Sun expects several benefits from the AFT system, CIO Daniel Garrow said this week in an interview at the casino. Currently, if a slots player hits a jackpot of more than $1,200, the machine locks up and he is asked to fill out a form for the IRS. But with the AFT technology, "we can allow the player to keep playing, since they're not withdrawing the funds right away," Garrow said.
Garrow also hopes that the system will help Mohegan Sun lower its labor costs by reducing the amount of slot-machine tokens that workers have to handle. Depending on customer feedback, the casino may add the AFT capabilities to all of its 6,200 slot machines, Garrow said. He didn't disclose when that might happen.
The AFT technology costs a few hundred dollars per slot machine, Garrow said, estimating that roughly 40% of the machines, which the casino licenses from Reno, Nev.-based International Game Technology, would need a microchip upgrade to support the new software.
Patricia Wright, a gaming industry analyst at Fitch Ratings Ltd. in New York, said casinos that have installed AFT systems or other so-called ticket-in, ticket-out technologies have realized "good savings, since there's less downtime on slot machines because they don't have to refill them constantly." She added that while a growing number of casinos are beginning to use technologies built around a points-based card system,