The industry name for the technology is TITO, short for “ticket-in, ticket-out.” When you cash out of a video poker or slot machine, it produces a printed voucher of your winnings, which you can then take to a cashier—or leave atop the machine for the next player, if you feel like passing on some good karma.
TITO has been in widespread use for years, long enough for a generation of gamblers to not know what it’s like to walk around a casino floor with a bucket of quarters. It’s been around for so long, in fact, that some older gamers might not remember that they used to hate it.
“When TITO was introduced 15 to 20 years ago, it was just an absolute failure,” says professional gambler and Las Vegas Advisor publisher Anthony Curtis. “I mean, nobody wanted to touch it. Nobody wanted tickets coming out of slot machines and video poker machines. They shelved the whole thing, and it took a couple more years for it to surface and pick up a little bit of steam. Now, you can hardly find a place that does not use TITO.”
Las Vegas adapted to TITO, as it has adapted to numerous other sea changes in gaming, entertainment and hospitality. Mobile apps have eliminated the need for guests to wait in line for show tickets and hotel check-in. The advent of online sports betting and online poker didn’t clear out Vegas’ casino floors; it strengthened their appeal. And people didn’t stop playing slots when their cash payouts were replaced by an audio sample of cascading coins and a “cashout voucher.”
But Vegas’ most recent upgrade might take a bit of time and effort to roll out. Several Valley properties, including Resorts World on the Strip and Aliante in North Las Vegas, have introduced cashless gaming to their casino floors, both on their machine and table games. To put it simply, cashless gaming replaces nearly all the elements of casino play that call for physical currency; no more ATMs, no more feeding bills into a slot machine, and perhaps surprisingly, no more TITO.
“You’ll be able to […]
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