A disclosed a gaming machine includes an input mechanism with a
non-physical contact data interface. The non-physical contact data
interface may be capable of reading loyalty program data from a loyalty
program instrument without contact between the loyalty program instrument
and the non-physical contact data interface. The input mechanism with the
non-physical contact data interface may be one of a bill validator, a
bar-code reader and a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag reader.
The loyalty program instrument may be a substrate including at least one
of a 1-D bar-code printed on the substrate, a 2-D bar-code printed on the
substrate, a symbol printed on the substrate, alpha-numeric character
printed on the substrate, a RFID tag embedded in the substrate, a RFID
tag printed on the substrate and combinations thereof. The loyalty
program instrument may be used to store an index to a record in a
database or a portable data file.