The first step to any form of gambling is getting your money out, so making that process easier can open a lot of doors. Thankfully, Lock Trust is working on just that, and Andrew Spaulding joined CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero to talk about their product.
Lock Trust is leveraging blockchain technology to make gambling payments easier, even at a brick and mortar operation, through their mobile app. Spaulding demonstrated it, saying, “This is a PCI-compliant device, no information is stored on here, it’s tokenized and then sent to a secured server.”
The advantage of transacting through an app over cold hard cash goes beyond mere convenience though. It also protects against problem gambling and potentially violent crime. “Now with this product, we also wanted to protect the property and the player,” Spaulding said. “So we can set limits on how much they can take out, how many times they can use it. But also we can push that money back into an account so when they walk out after they win, they’re not getting rolled in the parking lot for somebody watching them win all that money.”
The convenience of having your bankroll securely in an app isn’t just good for the player though, it’s good for the operator. “We know that this adds an amount of time on game, it adds to the holding power and the staying power of the property, because if they run out of money they can get more chips,” he explained. “They don’t have to go to get cash from the ATM.”
For such an innovative product, regulation can be a huge hurdle to success. Lock Trust is working on that. “We’re talking to AGA, NAGA, the National Problem Gaming Council, so they’re not really sure what to do with cashless gaming,” Spaulding said. But they are definitely interested, he notes. “They’re like, ‘We don’t know what kind of regulations to put on it,’ but they said, ‘We love the data, so maybe we can make an informed decision.’”
Lock Trust brings this amount of full functionality and potential adoption because they have the due diligence to get properly certified as a financial institution before wading in. “We are a global bank, so the last piece we’re working on right now is the UK license, which becomes a passport for us,” he said. “We have UK company, Pay Now UK, and Lock Trust is a U.S. company. We’re basically a global bank, and we’ll be able to do payments anywhere Visa is taken. We’re a direct partner with Visa.”
