Tip and pin - new tech enables contactless tipping on shoots

The decline in the use of cash over the last few years has been well documented. According to the Bank of England only 23% of all transactions in 2019 were made in cash, down from around 60% just ten years earlier. The COVID-19 pandemic alongside the rise of digital ‘tap and go’ technology and online shopping saw that fall to 15% in 2021, and experts expect that by the end of the decade the proportion of cash transactions will be as low as 6%. 

For many of us, the only time we use cash is for tipping gamekeepers or illicit transactions with street pharmacists. However, a new product from ITap Group, the parent company of GunsOnPegs, ShootHub and Scribehound, looks set to take the age-old tradition of tipping ‘keepers into the 21st century. The company has a track record of disrupting traditional models and ways of doing things in the typically conservative fieldsports sector. 

A spokesman for ITap Group, Lolly Flush, said: “In today’s day and age, it seems a bit anachronistic to be handing over sweaty wads of notes at the end of the day. At ITap we pride ourselves on creating tech-based solutions for the fieldsports community, and our new product is a natural progression for the shooting world. We foresee that it can be used for tipping ghillies, stalkers, even cooks and other estate staff.”

Contactless tipping

The product in question, ITip, brings the same near field technology that enables contactless payments in shops to the shooting field, and will be available in three tiers.

The first tier is a simple hand-held payments device, connected to a gamekeeper’s phone via the companion UnderTheMattress app. Using the app, gamekeepers can pre-set the device to charge guns’ bank cards for the amount that they feel they deserve as a tip, and the sum will be deducted from the gun’s bank account with a simple tap. The UnderTheMattress app has an optional ‘CashSync’ functionality, which automatically syncs your app with HMRC to accurately track users’ tips income in real time, ensuring keepers pay the correct amount of tax on their gratuities.

The next level up, for those who don’t feel comfortable with the idea of proffering a handheld device, is a wearable bracelet that houses the necessary chip needed to take the payment. 

Finally, for those who wish to keep the traditional cloak-and-dagger handshake method of tipping, but still want to embrace contactless payments, users can opt to have a small chip surgically implanted in the palm of their hand. Guns can then tuck their bank card into the palm of their hand, just as they would have done with their folded up fiver, and deliver the traditional awkward handshake.

Crypto goes country

Lolly added: “Alongside this new physical technology, we are excited to announce the launch of our new digital currency ‘GrouseCoin’. The new payment hardwear is designed to take payments using this exciting new cryptocurrency that uses the same blockchain technology as BitCoin.”

Flush explained that GrouseCoins can be used to pay for shooting via the GunsOnPegs platform with participating shoots, buy cartridges, pay for poults and eggs, sloe gin, pork pies, as well as at participating Caribbean and Indian Ocean holiday resorts, adding "Using GrouseCoin also means that the usual £100 limit on contactless payments will not apply.”

Gamekeeper Phillip Bank told us: “I don’t mind using a contactless payment machine to collect tips - it makes life so much easier for guns as it means they don’t have to stop off at a cash point on the way to a shoot day.” He added: “I love the sound of GrouseCoin as it means I don’t have to go to the bank to deposit my tip money, and can keep my taking separate from my other income to spend it on things that really matter.”

Another keeper, Sandeep Pockets, just one of dozens of keepers we have spoken to who also intend to adopt contactless payments, told us: “To be honest, I’ve never been much of a fan of all that funny handshake business. It is all a little furtive and it makes me feel like a drug dealer or a stripper. I feel like I should be wearing a hoodie or a g-string, not tweeds and a flat cap. That being said, I like the idea of the chip implant in the palm - perhaps we can even do tipping by high-fiving each other.”

Phil Bank added: “I’m fed up with stingy tippers, and now that I can set the level of tip, based on how well I think the day has gone, that will be a thing of the past. It seems a far more equitable way of doing things.”

Their brother-in-boots Stirling Boodle is also a fan of the idea, citing the problem of handing over large numbers of notes in a handshake. “No-one likes it when something goes wrong and 50s start blowing around in the wind,” he opined. “It is hard to maintain an air of gruff dignity when you’re chasing notes around the place. Far better to do away with the folding money and go plastic.”

However, it appears that some guns are not so keen on the idea. Penny Pinching, a keen grouse shot, asked: “How am I supposed to low-ball a tip now?”

Another gun, Mike Cash, highlighted a potential problem with the proposal. “If, like me, you only shoot on high bird days in remote locations, getting a connection to make the payment could be a problem. On the other hand, I don’t think keepers should be tipped anyway, so it will probably work out for me.”

However some guns seem more sanguine, or even to welcome the development. One such gun, Jeremy Moneybags, told us: “I’m sure we’ve all at some point shot with that person who always seems to have left their wallet at home or failed to stop off at the cash point, only to touch you for fifty quid that you’ll never see again. Let’s see them try that trick now!"