“ Here’ s the thing: Going cashless isn’ t just good for players. It also helps casinos run smoother in this digital age. It’ s a win-win that’ s transforming the gaming floor, one transaction at a time.”
The Future of Cashless
Cashless gaming has long been talked up as the industry’ s future, but in 2025 adoption is still sluggish. Koin and Marker Trax aim to change that as they build a cashless future for casinos.
BY ROBIN HARRISON
Society is increasingly digitalized, and consumers today are more likely to reach for their phone than their wallet to make a payment. But years on from the first cashless gaming solutions hitting the market, talk around these products remains of their potential, rather than their widespread adoption.
This is particularly apparent in tribal gaming. Speaking at G2E in 2022, Tim Cotton, IT audit manager for the National Indian Gaming Commission, made a bold prediction, saying that he expected 60 percent of tribal casinos to offer cashless gaming by 2025.
Fast forward a year to G2E in October 2023, when Kevin Zenishek, director of table games at Northern Quest Resort & Casino, told delegates that around 5 percent of tribal operators had adopted cashless, predicting a slow but steady uptick in the coming years.
What’ s slowing down the uptake?
WHY CASINOS CAN’ T QUIT CASH
The brick-and-mortar gaming industry can’ t quite quit cash. Some suggest banknotes and chips are simply part of the experience. Others suggest the properties need to upgrade their systems to integrate cashless technology.
Some even argue the industry is waiting for the product to be refined, after early cashless rollouts were beset by challenges. Let’ s face it: An operator with a premium customer base does not want to offset that with a substandard product.
Yet cash continues to be phased out in other walks of life. Capital One research claimed in March 2025 that just under half( 47.8 percent) of U. S. consumers make no cash purchases in an average week.
Why, then, are consumers more likely to head to the ATM before visiting a casino? Let’ s consider Covid-19, widely predicted to be the black swan event that initiated permanent changes in consumer behavior.
During the pandemic, cashless was talked up as a way of bringing new, younger demographics into casinos and
help properties recover after lockdown. It was also talked up as a way of providing a safer way to pay for masked-up consumers wary of touching too many surfaces.
The casino consumer has skewed younger post-pandemic, according to the American Gaming Association’ s American Attitudes Toward Gaming 2024 study. Released last August, the annual survey highlighted the average age of a casino consumer skewed younger in 2024, at 41.9 years old, compared to 49.6 years old in 2019. Consumer behaviors and habits have largely snapped back to what they were pre-pandemic, however.
In the meantime, society continues to shy away from cash. People can order taxis or coffees seamlessly on their phones. In seven U. S. states, they can even play slots on their smartphones.
“ Here’ s the thing: Going cashless isn’ t just good for players. It also helps casinos run smoother in this digital age. It’ s a win-win that’ s transforming the gaming floor, one transaction at a time.”
— Patrick Schmit, Vice President of Product Integration and Business Development, Koin
22 Global Gaming Business APRIL 2025