Kirk Sanford News

By Gary Gosselin, Business Editor
DETROIT — January 5, 2000 - With the recent opening of the Motor City and MGM Grand casinos, area gamblers now have a wide choice of nearby places to lose their money.
But, starting today, gamblers throughout the country have yet another choice — to exempt their credit cards from accessing money through Global Cash Access machines, the most-used machines in the gaming industry.
MotorCity Casino, which opened in Detroit last month, has been using the exclusion system as part of a pre-launch test.
This is a second phase of a two-phase program to promote “responsible” gambling and to educate and counsel the public.
GCA has machines in about 1,200 casinos, which accounts for about 95 percent of all casinos.
All GCA machines have Point-of-decision messages on stickers and printed on receipts, and six out of 10 of the machines have a telephone handset linked to a 24-hour service center.
If a customer uses the code word “think,” the service representative will automatically connect them to the National Council on Problem Gaming hotline. The handsets average 150,000 calls a month.
The company is generally not the exclusive vendor of machines to casinos, so the exclusion won’t work in other cash and debit machines.
“We believe that self-exclusion may help problem gamblers because it enables them to remove what, to them, is a temptation to behave irresponsibly.” said Kirk Sanford, GCA chief executive officer.
Keith Whyte, NCPG executive director said his organization has been working with California-based GCA and said this really “sets the bar” for other vendors and casino operators to take problem gamblers into account.
“This is one of the more significant efforts taken by a vendor in the gaming industry,” Whyte said. “Those aren’t the customers they want. Clearly if someone excludes themselves, there is a problem.”
Whyte said this sets a good example for other vendors, not only cash machines but also slot machine makers and others, to perhaps think of the problem customer when producing or placing machines.
For more information or for an exclusion form, visit www.globalcashaccess.com or call the NCPG at 1-800-522-4700 for a form or for gambling counseling.