Currency acceptance and processing may not be the sexiest of the gaming industry’s sub-sectors, but G2E nevertheless served as an opportunity for Crane Payment Innovation’s president of gaming Eric D. Fisher to hammer home the value of reliable payment systems.
“There’s an old BASF commercial which goes – ‘we don’t make the colours, we make the colours brighter,’ and that applies to us,” he told Casino Review. “We don’t make the machines, we make them more efficient, and more profitable. In the terminology of American football, we see ourselves as the offensive linemen – people don’t really know we’re there, and that’s a good thing.”
Indeed, for Fisher, a successful balance of dependable bill-acceptance with first-rate security can truly make the difference between loss and profitability on the casino floor.
With our product, you can simply upgrade the head of the acceptor: boosting the memory, acceptance rate and security features of the unit without ever needing to replace the main chassis.
“Let’s say you have five 20 dollar bills in your pocket, and the machine takes the first four,” he posited. “Say the last is compromised in some way – if it isn’t accepted right away, there’s a good chance it’s going to stay in your pocket. And so that’s where our value-add is. We don’t think you should sacrifice acceptance rates for security. You can have it both ways.”
As for the products themselves, both CPI’s SC Advance acceptor and its recycler variant the SCR are several years into their operational careers – and have been met with such a positive reception from operators that CPI has been reluctant to tinker with the base product.
“Instead, we’ve decided to take a modular approach to upgrading,” Fisher explained. “With our product, you can simply upgrade the head of the acceptor: boosting the memory, acceptance rate and security features of the unit without ever needing to replace the main chassis.”
