A number of casinos already store your slot credits for free-play and bonuses on your card. Or, at least on their computer which recognizes when you insert your card in a machine. I believe that buying credits for slot play is in the near future. For high-limit players particularly, it makes a lot a sense since we in the USA have nothing bigger than a hundred dollar bill to feed the machines with. Quite of few places also allow a player to purchase tickets in advance to feed the machines to eliminate the need for feeding multiple bills into the unreliable bill acceptors. I know that Caesars Palace and several of the Harrahs casinos accommodate this on request. Venetian says they will be doing so, and I believe Red Rock Resort also will sell tickets for play.

For table game play, my take is that for the forseeable future, there will be chips to play with. They are too ingrained into the games to do otherwise. It is possible that players will buy in by loading a card with credits before sitting down, with the dealer selling them chips off the card. This would also allow the casino to require you to cash your chips in return for credit on your card before you leave the table. It would also give much better info to the house regarding your win/loss at each game; helps them to reward losing players, and give fewer future invites to those who are consistent winners. If this happens, my guess it will take 5+ years to phase in, as it will eliminate money-plays bets. No one will keep chips when they leave the table except chip-collectors [g].

Harrahs Reno for a period of time a couple of years ago had players-card readers on their BJ tables to track your play. People didn't like them and the last time I looked, they were gone. Card players like to jump around and try different tables, and often would leave cards behind (accidently or intentionally to accumulate more play-time). Pit supervisor swiping of your tracking card into a terminal at the table is now quite common and I believe is here to stay.