Casinos forsake clink of coins for cleaner, quieter paper payouts
Thousands of slot machines at the state’s two casinos are noiselessly spitting out paper tickets instead of coins and tokens these days, silencing the unmistakable heartbeat of a casino — the sound of slot machine winnings tumbling out in a metallic cascade.
“You don’t hear the ‘ding, ding, ding’ of falling coins and you don’t get as excited anymore,” said Lucille Lang of Naugatuck of the coinless revolution.
Lang says her once-a-month casino trips to Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods have generated a few memorable jackpot wins over the years.
While winning is part of the attraction, equally alluring, she said, is the visceral thrill of watching an avalanche of coins tumble out of the machine, hearing them hit the metal slot trays like a summer hailstorm and then noisily scooping up her winnings into plastic buckets.
That magic is increasingly difficult to come by.
Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have joined the parade of casinos across the country that are abandoning coin-operated machines in favor of a new technology, known as ticket-in/ticket-out, where paper vouchers replace coins and tokens.
By summer, slot machines that pay out winnings in coins will be virtually obsolete at the state’s two casinos, which have been gradually implementing ticket machines over the past several years. With the exception of a handful of slots that will still pay out coins at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, the more than 13,600 slot machines at the state’s two casinos will now silently gurgitate paper.
“By July or August, all games will be ticket-out, although we will continue to accept coin-in, ticket-in, token-in and currency-in,” said Frank Naborsky, Mohegan Sun’s vice president of operations for the Uncasville casino’s 6,201 slot machines.
Ditto at Foxwoods, where about 84 percent of its slots have ticket technology. By Memorial Day, 95 percent of the casino’s 7,450 slots will be converted, said Alex Rodriguez, vice president of slot operations. One percent of Foxwoods’ slots will be entirely coin-free, and most of the rest will still accept coins, tokens and tickets but will no longer dispense coins.
For those players who can’t part with their coins, “We will still have a handful of games that we will not convert,” to ticket payout, said Rodriguez.
To the casino hierarchy, coins and tokens are a throwback to the “dinosaur” age of mechanically driven slots. Today’s slots are actually electronically driven computer programs housed in display cases. The use of metal discs to activate a play is merely for effect. All the beeps, boops and boaps sound effects are recorded.
“We took a conscious effort not to rush into it,” said Naborsky. “We get letters and telephone calls and we try to explain it the best we can — we have to more forward with technology.” Mohegan Sun has invested millions on the conversion, said Naborsky, which started about three years ago with the penny and nickel slots.
The coins aren’t really convenient, Naborsky said. Players have to walk to the window to get coins. Dollars are easier to insert and play with credits.
The slot then keeps track of the winnings. When players cash out, they get a bar-coded ticket, which they can take to a cashier, or insert into another slot machine.
