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Atlantic City’s oldest casino is fighting for patrons that miss the days of the noisy, coin-spewing slot machines.  Resorts Casino just opened eight coin based slot machines this past weekend.  If the backward trend picks up they will of course unveil more.

The trend is backward indeed.  There are roughly 900,000 slot machines operating in North America and 90 percent of them neither accept nor payout in coins.  Most slot machines now use paper vouchers or some form of credit system.

Most casinos did away with the slot machines that would spew out hundreds of coins, forcing patrons to carry their winnings in heavy, over sized plastic cups.  The “upgrade” was for the convenience of the gambler, but some gamblers protested that the big cups of money and the vomiting machines were a major part of the fun.

The coin-less trend really got kick started back in 2003 when the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa debuted in Atlantic City as the first coin less casino operation.  The new machines were superior to the old slot machines in several ways.  The new machines needed far less maintenance, they did not jam nearly as frequently, and the casinos did not have to pay employees to stock the new slot machines with coins. 

“It's very time-consuming and costly to run coins,” said Christopher Downey, director of slot operations at Resorts Casino.

“As soon as this technology became available, the industry grabbed onto it.”

However, patrons do not care about casino overheads and many of the missed the thrill of the old style machines.

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