How Customers Behave on the Gaming Floor: Revelations from Employees

Abstract

This article explores the dimensions of customer use of cashless cards on the gaming floor from the perspective of employees of two Australian gaming venues to provide explanations for variations in usage behavior. Some tentative theories regarding patterns in the data vis a vis these behaviors are proposed, grouped according to whether customers are putting money into or taking money out of the machines. The results indicate that segmenting customers as either light or heavy users rather than along socio‐demographic lines would be useful to the design of adoption campaign messages. Further, for customers who have adopted the card, non use of the responsible gambling attributes and the associated lack of staff awareness of these features could be reversed through a simple communication and training program.

Keywords:

• Gambling
• cashless cards
• gaming machines
• payment technology

Notes

This project was approved by Southern Cross University's Ethics Committee (ECN‐05‐119).