What do casinos do with all those nickel-like metal tokens when they’re not needed anymore? That’s becoming a more common question, as many casinos switch to credit systems, paper tickets and electronic tracking.
As the U.P.’s
Kewadin Casinos made the switch, the question was answered when trucks from Secure Metal Destruction of Las Vegas pulled up. The company specializes in casino token destruction and recycling. Obviously, the tokens have to be destroyed securely, so that they can’t be re-used at casinos; to do that, the company actually shreds the metal, and converts it to metal shards that are easily recycled.
Kewadin Casinos had more than 16,000 pounds, or more than eight tons, and about 1.5 million tokens, shredded and recycled this summer.
"With all slot machines in the industry going to ticket-in-ticket-out, we don’t have the need for as many tokens," says Kent Artley, cage director for all five casinos.
Kewadin has casinos in Sault Ste. Marie, St. Ignace, Manistique, Christmas and Hessel. One by one, they are moving toward the ticket system; in the Sault casino, 83 percent of the machines now use tickets instead of metal tokens.
The casinos also are converting some token programs to a new system called Kewadin Credit, so, we can expect to see those trucks back again in the future.
"We have done this three times in the past six years and anticipate having to do it again as more of our Kewadin machines convert to ticket-in-ticket-out, and as more of our promotions convert to using Kewadin Credits instead of tokens," Artley says.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Kent Artley, Kewadin Casinos
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.