The Casa decline is very much a self-inflicted predicament brought about by smart cards that got ‘smarter’

THE CASA article by Luyolo Mkentane refers. The letter is specific to what they call slot machines. In the halcyon years of casinos in this country, we all enjoyed ourselves. We spent and won.

Those were the days before technology came along. Then, machines were mostly stand-alone. Remember pulling the handle? There were no computers. We put our rands in (notes and coins), and played whatever machine we liked. Along came the smart card.

Having been involved in the development of the smart card in South Africa, at first it was a purse. You put your card into the machine, fed your money into the machine, and the money was transferred on to your card.

You then played, and when you were finished, the system transferred the money balance on to the card, and you walked away. You could take the money off the card at another machine.

Then the smart cards became smarter. Instead of just being a purse, the card now held algorithms of your activity in the casino. How much you spent, how much you won, all your history in the casino. People who did not have the loyalty cards used a day card. These cards were also programmed to allow certain winning cards, and certain losers.

The ‘brains’

I have always played the same type of machine. On one visit to the casino, technicians were installing new logical control units (LCUs). I asked them what the boxes were and they explained they were the “brains” behind the system controlling the card. I also checked the LCU out on the web. From that day the slots performed completely differently. The winning days became less and less, and I realised that they were monitoring individual players via the algorithms on the cards. So my visits to the casino dropped dramatically.

I took the question of the smart card and monitoring individuals up with Sun International, The Gambling Board, and the dti, and got nowhere. Now the regulars don’t win as much, so they don’t go as much.

The perks with the card disappear. Free lunches, tickets for shows no longer are on your phone, because you don’t spend so much. You earn less points on your spend using the loyalty card, the incentives have gone. In order to try to get more income they resort to 1 cent machines. 1 cent !!!!! How can you get revenue from 1c, or 2c or 5c machines?

The Casa are victims of technology, too smart, when it comes to slots. People playing black jack or roulette are a different story, these are the real victims of the economic situation. And they will also disappear. Watch the space of the Casa. ED NILSON VIA E-MAIL