Gary Ellis ’ vision of a cashless casino ecosystem with Marker Trax and Koin
Funding the Future
Gary Ellis ’ vision of a cashless casino ecosystem with Marker Trax and Koin
By Jess Marquez
Over the years , it has been seen in business that great ideas often come with great costs . Synthesizing one ’ s vision into a tangible reality takes a financial , emotional and mental toll that may at some points feel impossible to overcome , especially when said idea breaks the conventional mold of the particular industry at hand .
For Gary Ellis , the idea of revolutionizing casino credit and payment systems by making them digital and cashless through his companies Marker Trax and Koin has been a decades-long journey that first began more than 20 years ago .
Throughout that time , the path has been circuitous , and has had many different costs , perhaps most tangibly in the form of countless checks to intellectual property attorneys during the throes of the Great Recession , years before both businesses would even be fully fleshed out .
Determination , Foresight and Connections
Ellis started in the hospitality industry at an early age as a dishwasher at his family ’ s Village Pub Restaurant in Las Vegas . He eventually purchased the business in his mid-20s and ultimately the neighboring hotel to form what is now the Ellis Island Hotel , Casino & Brewery on Koval Lane . He and his family have also since expanded the Village Pub brand into a series of gaming taverns throughout the city .
Since the beginning of his ventures into gaming , his “ primary focus has always been on how we can improve the experience , both for our guests and for ourselves .” The biggest examples he found , and the one that would eventually lead him into an entirely new focus , were the credit and payment systems .
The reliance on credit has for decades been a necessary evil for the casino industry , as it facilitates play for the most loyal and profitable players while also inviting a fair amount of risk . At its core , it ’ s an imperfect science — casinos are not banks or other financial institutions , and the underwriting process is critical .
Casinos across the country have fought legal battles for decades in their attempts to retrieve unpaid markers , sometimes for hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars . These battles are , for various reasons , usually unsuccessful and they can reflect poorly on operators both to the public and to regulators .
These costly misjudgements are what made Ellis believe that the process could be reimagined to give players the same access to funds while also preventing the money from walking out the door . Thus , the idea that would eventually become Marker Trax was born .
“ Marker Trax was created because after years of walking the casino floor , I noticed how inefficient the marker process was , both for the players and for the casino itself ,” he says . “ And something just clicked : there had to be a better way to issue credit , and we were in the perfect position to develop it .”
Of course , no good idea has legs without the proper help , and the first person Ellis called to help build out his vision was industry veteran Charlie Skinner . When the idea was first broached , Skinner was an executive for route operator United Coin , which did a lot of business with Ellis ’ Village Pubs .
Skinner says that an early version of the technology went before the Nevada Gaming Control Board in the mid-2000s , “ but they wanted us to upgrade our system , which was a big lift at the time . So we told Gary , ‘ We apologize , but
“ Our aim has always been to lead the cashless revolution , but that ’ s driven by customer demand rather than mere technological advancement . As we move forward , we ’ ll continue to refine our technologies to align with consumer preferences and operational efficiencies . Our goal is not just innovation for innovation ’ s sake , but to truly improve the customer experience .”
— Gary Ellis , Founder & CEO , Marker Trax and Koin
we ’ re going to need to shelve this .’”
As the recession came and went , Ellis never gave up on the premise and continued to invest in its future despite not knowing if it would ever pay off . A full 10 years later , Skinner was working as the vice president of operations for Station Casinos when suddenly he got a call .
“( Ellis ) calls me and I ' m at my office at Stations , and he says , ‘ I got the patent approved .’ And so I left shortly thereafter , and we got together and figured out how we should start to build this .”
Marker Trax was officially formed in 2018 and quickly began the ardu-
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