Bonnie and I were at Harrah’s in Cherokee, NC for a Caesars Seven Stars trip. Cherokee is in the Smoky Mountains and a world away from Las Vegas. Plus, they have $5 NSU Deuces Wild.
For a Seven Stars trip, you get up to $1,200 airfare, $500 in resort credit, and transportation to and from the airport. The airport means either Asheville (about 50 miles away, but not a direct flight) or Atlanta, which is 160 miles away (which is much easier to get to). We usually fly into Atlanta.
Because I don’t want to carry a lot of money through airports, I have a line of credit set up at Cherokee. My usual pattern is to take out a $20,000 marker when I get there, denominated in $2,500 TITO (ticket in ticket out) tickets. At the beginning of each session, I like to have three of those TITOs on me ($5 NSU definitely can turn sour periodically) and keep the rest locked up. If my first $20,000 gets lost in the machines, I take another marker and get more.
If (or rather when — although it doesn’t happen every trip) I hit a $20,000 royal flush, I collect another eight $2,500 TITOs. For $5,000 four deuce hands, I collect two such tickets. I do play other games as well and sometimes hit W-2Gs in other amounts, but these are infrequent and I usually just take cash.
The machines only take up to $2,999.99 before they spit out tickets. Especially when I start with $2,500, I can easily go over that limit hitting multiple wild royals ($625), five of a kinds ($400), straight flushes ($250), or even $100 four of a kinds and full houses. It’s not uncommon having several of these tickets. When I run out of money in the machine, I’ll always use the smaller tickets first, keeping the ones in $2,500 increments. This makes counting money easier.
On this particular trip, we were scheduled to leave the hotel for the airport at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning. At 6:00 the previous evening, I went to the cage to cash out. This trip happened to be profitable (trust me they aren’t all that way), so I had a number of $2,500 tickets. My goal was to pay off the $20,000 marker and receive a check for the remainder. The casino has done this previously and it isn’t a problem.
This time, however, one of the $2,500 TITOs registered as “void” in the system. I was paid by check for the remaining TITOs and told that this voided ticket was still pending and I would not receive payment until this issue was resolved in my favor. If it was.
I demanded to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor arrived and told me that some other supervisor, not her, marked this particular TITO as void and she didn’t know why. The office that audits these things was closed at the moment. When it opened up in the morning, I would either be paid or be told why I wasn’t going to be paid. If I already had left the property when it was resolved in my favor, if it was, I would be mailed a check. There was nothing she could do about it now. She was polite enough, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t going to budge from her position, so arguing with her would just create a scene without getting any quicker resolution. So I shut up and left.
While this casino is managed by Harrah’s, it is owned by a band of Cherokee Indians. If there becomes a dispute about the $2,500, it gets resolved in tribal court. United States courts have little or no jurisdiction on this kind of matter. I could hire a lawyer, but he’d have to sue in the tribal court and the elders of the tribe itself would decide what the resolution would be. Plus, a dispute of $2,500 is too small to interest an attorney. There is no small claims tribal court.
Although my host had gone home for the day, he’s been employed there for almost 20 years. If anybody knew how to get things done, he was the guy. I hoped. I sent him an email explaining what had happened. I explained that the only way I ever got one of these $2,500 TITOs was from the original marker or because of a jackpot. When I signed for them, I signed that I received the correct number of tickets and they all were for $2,500. Whether or not one of them had been voided prior to me receiving it, I had no way of knowing that.
At this point, I’m thinking (hoping, really) there’s an innocent explanation. This was my sixth trip to the resort and I had not run into any significant problem previously. Yes, every tribal casino has some policies that are different from those of non-tribal casinos, but working within those policies hadn’t been that difficult for me. At least not yet.
The “most likely” explanation, to my mind, was that one of the times when I was scheduled to receive eight TITOs, nine were accidentally printed. Before the TITOs ever got to me, one of them was voided — both physically (however they do that there) and in the computer system. Somehow, the one they physically voided was not the one they voided in the computer system.
I explained to my host that I was not taking any TITOs with me when I left. Every one I received was either inserted into a slot or video poker machine, or turned back into the cage to be redeemed. If I was given a voided one, there must be another ticket for $2,500 that was created but not cashed so far. If so, that money belonged to me.
Losing $2,500 in this way wouldn’t have been a disaster for me, but it was annoying. Having this money “stolen” from me would definitely affect whether we returned there. If I told you I didn’t lose any sleep over this that night I’d be lying.
At 8:30 the next morning, while Bonnie and I were eating breakfast, my host called me up and told me it had been resolved and I could go to the cage and pick up my money. My host had called up the cage manager and together they decided to honor the ticket. It was a legitimate Harrah’s Cherokee TITO and I had indeed signed for receiving that particular ticket. So, it should be honored by the casino. And it was.
I was relieved, and picked up my money. I was optimistic that this would be resolved in this manner, but nothing was certain until I had the cash. And now I did. Thank you very much.
The fact that this happened at a tribal casino is essentially irrelevant. The same kind of situation could have happened at any casino. They are financial institutions, of a sort, and have procedures that must be followed. When something “unusual” happens, they have to figure out how to make it right. The only reason that being a tribal casino changed things would be if we couldn’t reach agreement on how to make things right. But that didn’t happen here, and for that I’m relieved.
Harrah’s Cherokee handled this well, in my opinion. Although I would have preferred to be paid immediately when I first presented the TITO, I understand that all the i’s have to be dotted and the t’s crossed. This took some time, but not an inordinate amount of time.
Bonnie and I are looking forward to our next trip to that casino.
I’ve noticed this also. Either a cage employee is trying to take a shot at you or there’s something wrong with their money laundering procedures. It could just be that in general the cage tries to make it difficult to cash out, especially if you don’t tip. Bottom line, tickets are not cash equivalents, especially in Indian casinos.
Might the “other supervisor” who had voided your TITO be $2500 richer, or had hoped to be? LOL.
Glad you were on top of things, and glad you had that good Host to help move it along.
I have witnessed and experienced this type of scenario in casinos for years. They have no problem taking your money but, if you win , they want all types of verification such as what game you were playing, etc. before they will pay you. They look for any flimsy excuse to delay and/or not pay you – and you have no recourse but to play their game. I feel they do this because if you should be a constant winner, they hope this behavior on their part will discourage you from playing there in the future because of this type of treatment.
It happened to me as well, but I have never had the slightest doubt that eventually I would be paid. It was never a 2500 Dollar ticket, but it was ticked that first looked “void” and then still was accepted. Sometimes people experience a similar situation as described when trying to cash out a ticked on a dispenser machine and that ticket is constantly being rejected. Then when you go to the next dispenser, suddenly the ticket is being accepted.
It may also happen that the printer of a slotmachine is not working properly. Or if a ticked is not being completely printed and halfway out of the slot the customer pulls it out and interrupts the printing process. I would never make a big drama out of it as tickets are being paid off.
To the people that don’t quite understand the concept if those tickets, sometimes a patron cashes out a ticket and it drops into a glass full of beer or it gets torn by accident. The casino staff can always re-print a ticket and cash out. Or you can take that ticket home and lose it at home somehow or it gets stolen. IF you notify your host and they are willing to help they can find out through the surveillance people from what machine you cashed out a particular ticked, void that initial ticked and reprint you a new ticked. The finder of that initial ticked may try to cash out that one as often as he wants and it will be unsuccessful. That would be a “void ticked” and would never ever be able to cash out. Professional casino operators even grant you a ticked that is void if you’re a well known customer regardless. I would not at any moment that the casino would not want to pay you and therefore would not even think of the likelihood of my going to court and sue a casino for not paying me my money. A casino has no interest to deal with such issues as it’s bad for the business. All that a casino does is to make sure that a ticked can only be paid once. If a ticked is being printed and for some reason is “void” and that amount is never bing cashed out then there is a balance problem at the cage in the financial system and that’s something that casinos want to avoid. small tickets that are not being cashed out may add to a substantial amount over the year but that’s something to talk about on a different topic maybe.
From Switzerland
Boris
Sorry, but I have heard too many “stories” of folks getting short changed in one way or another at the “Native American” casinos (or other businesses on tribal lands) and for that reason alone I’m not spending a dime at any one of them UNLESS they sell gas and I’m out of it in the middle of nowhere.
I still don’t understand why ANY casino would allow you to play if, as claimed, you always have some sort of mathematical advantage. And even fly you there for free. I assume they have good records of how much you’ve won or lost. Makes no sense.
Why would any casino take Mattress Mack’s action, he won 70 million? But you don’t see how much he’s lost. That’s why they call it gambling. It’s also called being a Social Media Influencer. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand.
I live a couple hours from Cherokee but haven’t visited in a couple of years.
I’ve driven cross-country on several occasions and, being an old journalism major, I’ve picked up and read various tribal newspapers. The tribal councils run the places like Al Capone ran Chicago. What they say is law, and if you want to dispute the law, they have the power to prevent you from even publicly stating that you are disputing the law. You are under their thumb, journalistically, coming and going. And you have no recourse. First amendment does not necessarily apply to tribal members. They are their own country. You’ve always got to keep that in mind.
I have decided to no longer play at any tribal casino. I understand that this limits my gambling options in several areas of the US but I just no longer trust their programing of video poker machines and general casino operations. They are typically regulated by their own gaming commissions which are a joke vis-a-vis the player. I have seen certain tribal casinos refuse to compensate patrons for muggings, slip and falls and other negligent security incidents even when they have significant and generous insurance policies in force on their properties. As a sovereign nation, they can do ANYTHING they want and I no longer wish to support them economically. I”ll give my action to non-tribal concerns. And please understand that I realize that these concerns are no angels either.
So. Perry Mason, what casinos—tribal or not, Vegas or anywhere—are known to have “compensated” patrons for muggings, slip and falls, security lapses? Just curious; interested in any stories and what that compensation entailed. Thanks.
Read “Beat the Players” by Bob Nersesian. Or, listen to back episodes of Gambling with an Edge with Bob Nersesian. In case you don’t know who Bob Nersesian is, he’s in the “Blackjack Hall of Fame”.
My suggestion is when you receive your marker of $20000 which is eight separate $2500 dollar TITO’S take a picture of them. Of course it’s certainly possible that the problem TITO wasn’t part of the original marker issuance but at least you have some proof of what you were issued.
When will you be coming back to Cherokee? Would love it if you taught seminars there!