The State of Payments in 2026: A FinTech Roundtable on Convergence, Confidence, and What Casino Operators Should Expect Next

The payments landscape in casino and hospitality is shifting faster than at any point in the last decade. Guest expectations are being shaped by experiences in retail, travel, digital banking, and entertainment. Casino operators are preparing for a world where payments must seamlessly move with the guest across every touchpoint with zero friction. 

To understand where the industry is headed, the FinTech product leadership team at Everi, an IGT brand, participated in a roundtable conversation exploring customer experience, technology, regulation, and the impact of the IGT-Everi merger on innovation velocity. What emerged is a clear picture of 2026 as a turning point for the payments sector. 

The new guest expectation: what I want, when I want it, where I want it, how I want it 

The patron experience within the casino space now extends far beyond the cage or at any singular point on the gaming floor. According to Victor Newsom, SVP Product Management, Payment Solutions at Everi, the customer journey is at the forefront of innovation. 

“We need to understand the underlying needs of the customer that we're trying to meet and how we actually intend to exceed those expectations,” Newsom said. “It’s a big reframing from an industry perspective as we as we as we talk about convergence of retail, online, entertainment, travel, and sports within the resort experience itself.” 

As these areas align to enhance the overall patron experience within the resort footprint, Newsom stressed IGT’s ability to work with regulators to unlock the benefits of new technology.  

“The reality is we can’t be prescriptive; we must work closely with operators and regulators to present a clear vision of the guest experience we’re trying to enable,” he said. “This ensures that the regulations are being changed in the right direction and that we ultimately deliver differentiated experiences to various consumer types — a casino guest, a resort guest, an international traveler, etc. — in a context that maps to who they are, where they’re at, and what they’re trying to do.”  

This is driving operators to rethink long-standing processes, channel boundaries, and the role of digital technology in the guest journey. It is also creating pressure for regulatory alignment as modernization accelerates across states and tribal jurisdictions. 

Convergence: the new competitive edge 

Will Anderson, Everi Sr. Director, Product Management, sees 2026 as the year operators fully embrace convergence across channels.  

“From a consumer standpoint, bringing the transaction to the player is now front and center. Contactless pay, which was an afterthought prior to 2020, is now a priority with the consumer expecting to have access to Apple Pay, or any other method of tap transactions, such as Google Pay,” Anderson said. “Operators want convergence across product channels — self-service and attended —  as well as across payments and systems.” 

That convergence mentality is reshaping how operators evaluate their technology ecosystem. In Anderson’s view, the IGT-Everi merger gives the FinTech division a major advantage.  

“With the power of IGT’s back-end systems, we can solve pain points that we couldn’t before,” he said. “Operators have been asking for things such as automatic fee waiving or deeper connections into patron accounts. Now, we have the direct pathway to deliver that.”  

This alignment means operators get more unified solutions, shorter deployment timelines, and the ability to treat payment, loyalty, and access as connected parts of a single resort experience. 

Digital adoption is broader than initial expectations 

For Landon Stanfield, Sr. Director of Product Management, Digital Payments at Everi, the industry is benefiting from a decade of digital conditioning created by mainstream banks and mobile-first financial services.  

“Large banks have had to lean into technology to offset the branch model, which means we’re in a unique position where we can drive towards the consumer expectation that are derived from well-renowned banks who have had to invest in technology to allow for seamless interaction when it comes to payments,”   Stanfield said. “We're looking at this more as a holistic ecosystem and not necessarily just as isolated transaction events. Players have now been conditioned to adopt digital money movements —  it’s not just Gen Z and millennials, older generations have adopted it too.”  

With a unified vision across payments and systems, aligning with the larger trends of digital adoption at the consumer level, IGT is well-positioned to deliver constancy across channels. 

Open banking and dynamic limits will reshape player classification 

Among the most transformative changes coming in 2026 is the advancement of open banking and the emergence of dynamic limits. Open banking, which enables patrons to quickly and securely link their bank accounts to access cash and simultaneously provides valuable banking history, allowing IGT to assess patron risk and assign appropriate check cashing limits. 

Jason Nauheimer, Everi Sr. Director of Product Management,  described this and dynamic limits as a breakthrough that no competitor is delivering today in the casino or resort space.  

“With open banking, we get a full financial snapshot. If a wealthy patron has never cashed a check before, we’re not giving them two hundred bucks, they’ll get a dynamic limit suitable for their needs from the start,” Nauheimer said. “It’s an effort to open up the VIP segments where, traditionally, for customers who had limits over $100,000, we used to have to break their transactions up into increments of $25,000 —  this is a big pain for VIPs and cage staff. With open banking and dynamic limits, if that VIP limit is $250,000 up to $1,000,000 and that VIP wants to cash it all at once, that is simply one, quick and easy transaction.” 

For operators, this means higher throughput, reduced labor strain, and a more modern experience for high-value players. Open banking, combined with Central Credit’s extensive marker database, opens the opportunities for IGT to recommend marker amounts for patrons and offer marker underwriting for IGT’s casino customers. 

Additional new capabilities in 2026 

The FinTech roundtable highlighted several advancements that operators should expect to see this year: 

• Credit-to-QuikTicket via self-service: Anderson called this “a game-changing” service that enhances the payment experience for patrons while dramatically reducing cage congestion for operators by shifting credit card cash advance volume to kiosks. 

• Delayed settlement for tribal operators: Nauheimer sees this as essential to competing in key markets, giving tribal properties the ability to expedite small-dollar credit decisions without heavy manual intervention. 

• BeOn Pay2Game and CashClub Wallet orchestration: Stanfield expects this to accelerate cashless adoption by enabling funding directly at the game, while still supporting the deeper relationship-building of a wallet model. 

• Expanded Canadian EFT and cross-border processing and payments: New technology integrations will simplify check warranty and funds movement for Canadian properties and border towns, opening new revenue opportunities. 

Why the merger matters more than the market realizes 

The IGT-Everi merger, completed in July, created a combined entity operating under the IGT name, while retaining the Everi brand in select markets and product lines. It created a customer-first enterprise supported by a people-first culture that values talent, collaboration and innovation.  

The merger will continue to unlock value for operators as integration work proceeds behind the scenes. 

“We are building the infrastructure; for example, we deployed our own bank switch to drive our terminals the way our industry needs, which is representative of the way we will continue to add capabilities across all our product sets to push beyond the limits of today,” Newsom said. “You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg, we’re building not just a solution for a single problem, but a capability suite across the industry and adjacent sectors.” 

Where it all leads 

The State of Payments in 2026 is defined by convergence, intelligence, and accessibility. Operators who embrace these capabilities now will define the next generation of the guest experience. 

For more information on payments, reach out to an Everi sales professional today!