If you spend enough time in casinos, eventually you’ll drop or lose something. If it’s a chip, you’re probably out of luck, but I’ve seen found chips returned by pit people. A bigger problem is dropping your wallet in a casino where you have heat.
For me personally, this is a hypothetical topic, because the only wallet I would carry is a decoy wallet containing a small amount of cash, a few worthless business cards, an empty Starbucks gift card, and an expired third-party ID that has no picture or someone else’s picture. Such a wallet is handy to give to a mugger, and if lost under heat, need not be retrieved at all.When I’m going into a casino where there’s a heat risk, which is pretty much all of ’em, I don’t even carry a decoy wallet. I go in empty. I don’t carry identifying items or valuable items. However, I know that stuff happens.
So you’ve lost your wallet in the hot casino. First, verify that you did indeed lose it. Maybe it’s in your room, or maybe it’s in your car. If you went through a toll booth or fast-food drive thru, you may have taken your wallet out of your pocket. Don’t be an idiot and identify yourself to casino security, only to later discover that you never lost your wallet!
If it is lost, especially if you think you lost it in the pit, your goal is to retrieve it without exposing yourself. You don’t want the pit personnel to be able to match a name and a face, and you don’t want to have to sign anything or give up more information to pit people.
What happens at most casinos is that items lost in the pit are sent to central Lost-and-Found at the security desk. However, because the loser of the item might return in a few minutes, the boss may keep the item in the pit for a while, perhaps until the end of the shift.
First, wait until the scary boss goes on break, and then have a clean teammate or civilian go over to the pit. Tell a floorperson, “Did anyone turn in a wallet? I think I might have lost mine here.” Now, you’re NOT trying to have your teammate lay claim to your wallet, because that could trigger heat if they see that his name doesn’t match what’s in the wallet. What you’re trying to do is ascertain whether the pit has a wallet or not. The floorperson will check the drawer, or ask other personnel, and someone might say, “Yes, we have a wallet. What’s your name?” Then you say, “My name is Julio Iglesias, aw, shucks, that wallet isn’t mine. My wallet is black, not brown. Thanks for checking.” If the pit doesn’t have a wallet, have your teammate go to Lost-and-Found and do the same thing.
If the pit has the wallet, have your teammate play in the pit to watch what happens to the wallet until the end of the shift. See if it gets sent to Lost-and-Found, or if it stays in the pit. You’re going to try to retrieve the item on the next shift. When that time comes, you don’t show up in person—you call.
There’s a trade-off here. You don’t want to have to deal with things in view of the pit; however, getting the item back from the pit is often easiest. You might be able to talk your way through that with no paperwork or anything, but once the item goes to Lost-and-Found, it gets logged in, further exposed to employee theft, and you’ll probably have to present ID and/or sign for the item to retrieve it. If your circumstance makes the Lost-and-Found safer, then call the pit (on the safer shift), and ask them to send the item to Lost-and-Found. If they say just come to the pit, you might say that you can’t come by until 5 a.m., when the pit will be closed.
Wherever you intend to retrieve the item, ask if you can have your wife pick it up, since she’s still near the hotel, but you’re far away with the kids—or something. Then give them a specific time for the pickup. Have your teammate in a hat show up at that time to see if there are any signs of trouble. If not, go ahead and try to get the item. If they have the item, there is no completely safe way to make the handoff. This is something like a ransom/hostage exchange.
They may want you to show ID to get the wallet. See how far you can get by saying that your ID was in the wallet, but that you can describe all the contents of that wallet. Channel your best Mitnick. This is a hard one.
The best you can do is to use the teammate to first ascertain whether the wallet is there and whether they’ve looked in it, then wait until the shift changes so the most dangerous personnel are gone, then use the phone to minimize physical exposure, and then use a spouse to execute the transaction if possible, with a teammate watching from nearby. Good luck!
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