Running out of money in the middle of a slot machine session is a common source of annoyance for gamers. They have to leave their machine, find a casino ATM, and pay a $10 (or much more) hefty third-party withdrawal fee in order to continue playing.
However, a new solution from a casino IT company based in Las Vegas might make the issue worse.
The Universal Payment Adapter (UPA), a device that connects slot machines to players' bank accounts directly, was introduced by Acres Manufacturing earlier this month at the 2025 Global Gaming Expo (G2E).
No digital wallet, no card reader, no app. Simply authorize and scan a QR code to transfer funds directly from your bank account to a gambling company.
According to Acres, the UPA is already operational at more than two dozen US casinos, as reported by the Nevada Independent. The business plans to use the technology in many Las Vegas resorts by early 2026 after Nevada gaming regulators approved it in August 2025.
Acres has previously experimented with cashless gaming. A previous version, Cashless Casino, required players to fund their games using Bluetooth-enabled card readers and a casino-branded mobile app.
As of mid-2024, Acres said, 11 states were using such system. However, the UPA eliminates both of those obstacles, greatly simplifying the money transfer process.
According to a study Acres commissioned, users who played without cash spent 92% more money per session and were much more likely to reload than those who used dead presidents. Acres claims that one casino that used a comparable technology recorded a $10 million boost in revenue from the previous year, which it explicitly ascribed to the system.
Building a quicker conduit to players' nest eggs poses severe concerns because, even though the UPA might be a lottery for casino operators, we still think that walking away is a better option than utilizing a QR code when the money runs out.
Following the first publication of this story, Noah Acres, Acres' chief marketing officer, sent Casino.org the following email reply:
“We’re highly regulated and player protections are a concern of any game regularly. In markets like Australia, where problem gaming is much larger problem and the government is extremely anti-gambling, their solution to protect is to force casinos to offer cashless. Electronic payments are tracked and controlled to a much higher degree than cash.”
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