This month Nevada has become the first state to approve a proposal to allow customers to use pre-paid debit cards for gambling. As Capital Public Radio’s Ky Plaskon reports, the effort is underway to expand to California and other states.
For years gamblers have been able to swipe casino-issued cards at slot machines. The cards record how much they play. They have gotten credit for that play to use at retail stores but only inside the casino. Now, gamblers can get pre-paid credit cards to swipe at slot machines and use the cards outside the casino for retail purchases.
A company called Sightline Payments won approval from the Nevada Gaming Control Board after two years of development. Company president Harry Hagerty says along with the Nevada approval, a California tribe is also on board.
“And in fact one of the larger casinos in Southern California has already approved it and we expect to be fully live and functioning sometime in the late first half of this year,” Hagert says.
Hagerty wouldn’t say which tribe has approved the cards, but he says the new regulations in Nevada are more significant because they paves the way for approval in other states.
September 12, 2020He held a campaign event at the airport in Minden and in defiance of the state’s COVID-19 directives limiting public gatherings, after a planned rally at Reno-Tahoe International Airport was canceled at the last minute.
June 17, 2020When Nevada closed businesses to protect people from COVID-19, gyms were among the first to be shuttered. But for Reno-based mental health advocate Russell Lehmann, those changes were more than just an inconvenience.
June 7, 2020A vigil marking the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Sparks resident Miciah Lee at the hands of police focused on voter engagement, local politics and community.
January 8, 2020Reno’s housing affordability crisis is leading to encampments that add waste to the Truckee River. Now the city is turning to private contractors to clean it up, but homeless advocates want other solutions for addressing the root of the problem.
December 20, 2018Scientists are partnering with kids to help catch snowflakes. Their goal? Working with students to study what crystals can tell us about snow, the weather and how climate change impacts our water supply.
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