Kirk Sanford News

There is some promising news for the real estate prices in Las Vegas, but they still seem to have a ways to go. In April, Las Vegas home prices edged up slightly as measured by the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. However, Vegas still trails behind other big cities in the recovery or residential real estate prices.

S&P did indicate that Las Vegas prices increased .2% from March to April, a positive sign that is certainly encouraging for businesses like Sightline Acquisition with Kirk Sanford and others.

However, looking at a year-over-year basis, Las Vegas prices were down 8.5% in April, in comparison to a 3.8% average increase for 20 other markets that were included in the report.

Kirk Sanford has joined Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), the world’s leading network of experts, as a council member.  Sanford serves as one of the Financial & Business Services council experts. These include current and former executives from many Fortune 1000 companies. View this information on our press page “In the Public Eye.”

Casino Journal has, for 7 years, awarded its Top 20 Most Innovative New Gaming Products Awards to each year’s most innovative gaming products. In 2003, Global Cash Access (GCA) was included among the winners of the Top 20 Most Innovative New Gaming Products Awards of 2003 for two of GCA’s products. These two awards join the previous three awards that GCA has received for its products in the past. In awarding GCA these awards, Casino Journal recognizes the innovation and great potential of  two new products, QuickJack Plus and Plus QuikCash Plus (QCP) Web. In 2003 when the awards were made, QCP Web, had been installed at 124 casinos on 1,200 terminals. QCP Web is a full-service transaction processing system, and QuickJack Plus is a user-friendly interface for many of the various gaming patron activities while at the casinos. Kirk Sanford, CEO of GCA, said that the awards marked GCA’s efforts to “deliver forward-thinking products that improve operations, increase revenues and enhance the gaming experience.”

Kirk Sanford was thrilled once again by the recognition his company, Global Cash Access (GCA) received from the gaming community. In 2003, GCA was awarded two prizes for two of its individual products that were recognized as being among the Top 20 Most Innovative Gaming Products of 2003. Casino Journal has made these awards since 1996, acknowledging GCA’s two products QCP Web and QuickJack Plus. Visit our “In The Public Eye” page for this and other news.

You might think the phrase “responsible gambling” is an oxymoron, but at casinos in Detroit they are about to enter into the second phase of a two phase program to promote just that: Responsible Gambling.

Kirk Sanford of Global Cash Access in partnership with the National Council on Problem Gambling is making a huge effort to educate and counsel the public so that an enjoyable hobby or pastime does not turn into an addictive problem.

Accounting for approximately 95% of all cash access machines at casinos, all GCA machines will have Point-of-Decision messages printed on sticker and receipts, and 60% of the machines will also have telephone handsets which connect to a 24-hour “help-line” service center. Using the code word ‘think’ will signal to the service representative to automatically connect the customer to the National Council on Problem Gambling Hotline.

In addition, the program to promote responsible gambling also allows customers to exempt their credit cards so that if a request is made by the customer to withdraw more than a set amount of money, the withdrawal will be denied.

To learn more about this service you can see our page “Casino Cash Machines Offer Exclusion.”

Can gambling guarantee you millions of dollars? Kirk Sanford, CEO of Global Cash Access, has proven that it does! Sanford’s company upgraded cash access systems at over one thousand casinos in 1999 in a $5 million project. In an article that appeared in Business Solutions in May 1999, Jim Roddy covered the various aspects of Global Cash Access’ technological advances and the business models it had successfully implemented. The article included  an interview with Sanford. Read about it here.

First Data Corp., Bank America Corp.’s BA Merchant Services Inc. and USA Processing individually provide credit card, debit card, automated teller machine (ATM), check cashing, and Western Union (WU) money transfer services across a total of 1,200 gambling properties in the U.S. Now, they are seeking regulatory approval for a new joint venture in these spheres that are traditionally their fields of competition. Under the joint venture, these various financial services  would join the 1,200 casinos across the U.S. under the one joint company. Read more on this venture here.