A twentysomething man who goes by “Tim” is at a cannabis dispensary in North Las Vegas buying some edibles. He reaches for his wallet and realizes he doesn’t have enough cash to cover the $33.75 bill. The budtender says he can use his debit card at the register, but they’ll have to round the transaction up to $40 and give him the balance in cash.
“It’s called a ‘cashless ATM,’” the budtender explains.
Tim, who did not want to give his last name to the reporter standing in line behind him, took the $6.25 in change, and his edibles, and left. Despite the transaction being a bit odd compared to one that would occur at a grocery store, the method—the cashless ATM—is one example of the funky patchwork of solutions pot shops use to accept debit cards while most banks and major credit card networks do not accept cannabis transactions.