A while back, I wrote about my experience with the phone charging elements of slot machines, and how disappointing it often is about how poorly they worked, if at all. Since that time, I got a new phone, and my battery has been sufficiently robust that I haven’t really had to use it.
I also have been watching as many airlines put more restrictions on when and where you can bring portable battery packs, because of the fire risk they pose on an airplane. So I’ve also opted not to leverage those in any meaningful way for my phone either.
But recently someone made a note that caught my attention about the phone chargers that made me rethink my original piece on this: That casinos are opting to disable the phone chargers to keep people who aren’t playing from monopolizing a machine so they can charge their phones.
This, to me, is a mistake. There’s also probably ways to resolve this that don’t require casinos to disable them altogether.
When something that could benefit many are disabled because of concerns about a few, that seems like bad customer engagement. If casinos don’t want to make a space non-smoking because of the occasional casino player who choose to light up in a space and doesn’t want to handle the customer service aspect of it, they’re making a space smoking for all because they can’t politely manage a few. For those who prefer a smoke free space, there’s a revenue impact related to those who opt not to patronize that establishment.
The same goes with phone chargers, and there’s also a revenue impact. The times I find my phone getting too low, like I did around the time of my original article, I’m apt to stop playing and go to my hotel room, whether on that property or elsewhere, so I can get some juice back in my phone. That means lost revenue if I could’ve been charging my phone while playing instead.
There’s probably an opportunity here for manufacturers to evolve the technology, however. Just like a previous suggestion I made to be able to alert a player if a phone is charging at the time they cash out, it could be the charger is set up to enable when certain scenarios kick in.
For instance, the charger could be activated when money is inserted into the machine and active wagering is occurring. (This could realistically be handled similarly to the red light/green light systems bars use for video poker.)
It could also have an on/off element tied to the players card system, where it could be enabled/disabled under various scenarios. This is not unlike how modern card systems can put a short term lock on a slot for players of certain tiers when they need a restroom break.
Some of this may require regulatory updates, and those might hold this back some of these ideas at least for a time, but if slot makers are going to the trouble of adding technology on slots that casinos pay for when they buy or lease a slot, only for those same casinos to disable the tech or not keep it in working order, finding ways that make all parties have a better experience for players is worth a look.
