Sun International saves with smartcard credit system

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26 September 2001 News

Sun International says it has saved more than R20 million and cut cash transit times by 80% after installing its smartcard gaming credit system, based on the multiple port connectivity of Digi's classic Digiboard connectors, throughout its southern African casino operations. Digi, exclusively represented locally by SPS South Africa, is a value-added supplier of networking solutions. Eclipse, one of SPS's resellers, secured the contract with Sun International.

"Previously, gamers at casinos would have plastic cups filled with coins with which they would play slot machines," says Michael Robinson, Technology Manager at Sun International. "With the smartcard system, the use of coins has been dispensed with. Gamers now buy a smartcard from a dispensing machine - either fixed or mobile on the gaming floor - and can load up the cards with additional cash at ATM-like machines or at the casino cash desk.

"It is here that the Digiboards have been pivotal," says Mike Wood, Sales Manager at Eclipse in Cape Town. "They provide the multiport connectivity between all the Ingenico handheld devices and the ATM devices, at a rate and volume which would otherwise not have been possible."

Connecting the cash desk and the other smartcard points - by cable or by wireless - the Digiboard Classic boards provides the interface between the casino PC network and the gamers' transactions, without the need for hundreds of individual ports to be set up. A winning gamer's smartcard will also be loaded with their winnings, which can be redeemed at the casino cash desk.

"The main advantage for the gamer is security," says Robinson. "We found that thieves would steal the plastic cups of coins from distracted gamers, whereas now the smartcard is easy to look after and always in view in the slot machine itself," he says. "The casino saves through not having to maintain and equip expensive coin counting and wrapping machines, and in the reduced cash transit time," he continues.

Banks refuse to accept large quantities of coins unless they are counted, weighed and wrapped in paper - a huge logistical effort for the casino. The R20 million saving represents only the tip of the iceberg, based as it is on purely the cost of paper used to wrap the coins at the casinos. If all the peripheral savings - in terms of time, coin-counting machinery and the like - are added in, the savings increase even further.

For further information contact Dave Shepherdson, SPS, (011) 315 6892, [email protected]

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Sun International saves with smartcard credit system

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