Slashing wait times on table game buy-ins with a new validator from JCM that counts eight notes per second
It’s a busy Saturday night in the baccarat pit—and in this part of the world that means very busy—a player walks up to the table with a stack of cash roughly the size of a small brick. The dealer fans the bills out across the table for management and the “eye” in the ceiling to see, possibly there is a UV light inspection as well, and then he or she counts each note, then folds them into bundles and tucks each bundle into the drop box at the end of the table.
What are the other eight players doing while all this is going on? Nothing. They sit idle.
No more. With the revolutionary iV8 from JCM Global, buy-ins are simply inserted directly into an adjoining tray where every note is validated and counted and the total value displayed for everyone to see—player, dealer, pit management and overhead surveillance, at an amazing speed of eight notes per second. Hence the name, short for Intelligent Validation at Eight Seconds.
If on a busy night 10 minutes per hour is spent counting, verifying and depositing buy-ins, the iV8 can easily cut that down by more than half. A reduction to four minutes, if you factor it against average daily revenue per table in Macau, works out to about US$60 in restored revenue per hour for a theoretical “savings” of about $1,400 per table day. That’s about $500,000 per year.
“This is a generational leap to anything that’s out there, in terms of features and banking grade validation along with a very high speed and very high capacity storage, up to 4,600 notes in the cash box,” says Kunal Mishra, general manager of New Market Development and Operations for JCM.
With an entry tray capacity of 200 bills the iV8 can handle the largest buyins. The savings in reduced errors and accurate validation are compelling on their own, not to mention the benefits in terms of immediate access to important revenue-performance metrics. The iV8 even moves rejected or suspected notes into a separate tray during tabulation. This “reject” tray is capable of handling up to 50 notes per buy-in.
Think also of the convenience for the players, certainly not the least consideration as far as JCM was concerned. What can be a tedious process becomes simple and seamless, and that means more playing time for everyone.
It was the motivation from the start, says Mr Mishra.
“I’ve spent a lot of time personally in the casinos in Southeast Asia, putting myself in the position of the players, understanding what made me excited about gambling, and gambling more, and what I thought could be improved.
“That experience resulted in a machine that gets all the little things right. The display total is placed on top, easily visible from any vantage at or around the table. The escrow and reject trays are always visible as well. The overall design is sleek, compact, built to be attractive, unobtrusive and efficient, with options that include the ability to put every note into the escrow tray, and from there into the cash box, no matter how large the buy-in; or to save time on very small buy-ins, notes can be deposited directly into the box; and no hardware changes are required.
“The dealer’s primary purpose at the table is security and entertainment,” Mr Mishra explains, “and we cannot have them distracted by another device in there. So the buy-in [tray] is at a place where the dealer doesn’t have to look away from the table. They don’t have to worry about aligning the notes perfectly; we’ve got an aligning mechanism in there. And the escrow [tray] is at a position where the dealer can remove the notes easily.”
The value of the iV8 in a high-limit, table-centric market such as Macau speaks for itself, and it was a standout among the many innovations displayed at G2E Asia at The Venetian Macao in May, drawing large crowds eager to see it in action.
Mr Mishra says it will be ready for rollout in the fall, with Macau an obvious initial target, he says, along with Singapore and Malaysia.
Tokyo-based JCM has been a leader for more than half a century in the development of innovative currency solutions for the industry. And with manufacturing facilities in Hong Kong, the company is particularly well-positioned to deliver top-notch service across the region.
At G2E Asia, visitors were also treated to an up-close look at the company’s popular iVIZION bill validator, winner of Inside Asian Gaming’s 2012 Supplier Award for “Best Electronic Gaming Peripheral”. The iVIZION was selected in every request for proposal for which it competed last year, an impressive feat and not surprising in the least, given the package of advanced features it brings to the slot floor: including two high-speed processors, 64-megabit FLASH memory, self-calibrating Contact Image Sensor Technology for better than 99% acceptance rates, plus horizontal and vertical barcode reading, comprehensive counterfeit protection and a user-friendly modular design with removable stacker mechanism.
Award winner—the iVIZION
The heart of the system is its patented RFID Intelligent Cash Box (ICB). It’s a faster and more efficient drop process that eliminates several points of human error and reduces waste while recording encrypted, Web-enabled data to generate useful reports for more informed analysis and decision-making.
Highlights of the exhibit also included the iPRO and iPRO-RC validators, the perfect next step for casinos looking to trade up from the award-winning Universal Bill Acceptor, which has proven especially popular in Europe. The iPRO, which is ICB-enabled, combines advanced wave-length optical and magnetic sensors and powerful “anti-fishing” technology with a sealed bill path for dust, water and light protection, dual exit sensors with anti-pullback drum device, and a replaceable bezel holder.
The company also showed its PayCheck 4 printer, a smart, fast, durable accessory that delivers exceptional print speeds and head life and standard memory capable of competing with much larger printers.
