Contrast that situation with the ATM. The functionality offered by the average ATM is not significantly greater than that offered two to three years ago. They are not faster or easier to use and they have always been fairly reliable. Meanwhile, the cost to the consumer has been increasing rather than decreasing (although, in fairness, this is probably not the fault of the actual machine manufacturers). Some ATMs used to offer stamps for purchase but that effort now appears dead. The ATM industry needs innovation.
Therefore, I propose the combination ATM/Slot Machine or the SLOTATM. In states where slots are legal, this machine will offer the ultimate in gaming entertainment and cash withdrawal services. It will have a number of new and innovative features including:
- Consumers will be able to choose whether to withdraw the exact specified amount of money and pay a $2 ATM fee or they can instead elect to withdraw a randomly chosen amount between $95 and $125 and no ATM fee will be charged. Most consumers will get back ~$96-98 while a few winners will get more. Net net, the revenue generated by the machine will be greater than in a strict fee scenario but consumer satisfaction will increase because they will have paid for a gaming experience rather than ATM usage. [Note that traditional bells and whistles will go off as the random payout amount is being determined.]
- Bank of America has over 16,000 ATMs and all of them are already linked. Any large bank could offer huge payouts by spreading the jackpot nationally across their network, Powerball-style.
- Bank loyalty will increase and customer defections will decrease as consumers will not want to lose their frequent player points.
- Consumers will receive more money withdrawal options. For instance, they will be able to specify "big bills" or "little bills" rather than having to accept whatever bills the machine happens to spit out. Is there anything worse than withdrawing $200 and receiving all $10 bills?
- Long lines at convenience stores will be reduced as scratch ticket gambling addicts will instead line up to repeatedly withdraw money from ATM's.
- Possible feature would be to have extreme outlier type events, say 1 out of 10,000 withdrawals gets twice as much money and 1 out of 10,000 gets zero. The zero payout outcome would be well known as "The Whammy" and all ATM's would hear the echoing cries of "No Whammy, No Whammy, No Whammy, No Whammy!"