How will gaming machines be affected by the planned move to a 12-sided £1 coin?
When the plans were announced as part of the Budget speech in March, the cost of upgrading all types of coin-operated machines made the headlines.
But it’s worth remembering the reasons behind the move – the current £1 coin has been in use for 30 years, and is prone to counterfeiting.
The new design includes two different metals, making it harder to forge the visual appearance of the coin, but also there will be plenty of other security features, many of which are not being openly discussed.
Many gaming establishments have chosen not to upgrade their validators as each of the 22 variants of the original pound coin have been released, and then grumbled at their coin validators’ poor acceptance . The release of an entirely new pound coin will force all gaming centres to upgrade all their validators. Though the upgrade will certainly be costly, doing so will certainly improve overall acceptance an should soon be self financing.
So, a win-win will be achieved, improved acceptance and a serious inconvenience to the counterfeiters.
The British Parking Association, for instance, estimates it will cost £50 million to upgrade all coin-operated parking meters, against an existing £40 million cost each year due to fake £1 coins used to pay for parking.
And the Automatic Vending Association says: “We very much support the development of a new £1 coin which will be more secure than its predecessor.”
But if your machines are being supplied by Manco Automatics, your coin validators will be upgraded at our expense; so it’s a win-win-win, increased acceptance, greater security and no cost.