Question of the Day - 21 January 2026

"Shills," also known as "game starters," "plant customers," and "gambling decoys," were casino performers used to simulate and stimulate activity at the tables and slots, subtly encouraging others to gamble by creating the appearance of crowded tables or busy machines. In the casino lingo of the time, they made games "hot," especially at the high-limit tables, spurring the high rollers to bet and bet big. 

As defined by the Nevada regulators, a shill is “an employee engaged and financed by the licensee as a player for the purpose of starting and/or maintaining a sufficient number of players in a card game” (Regulation 23, passed in 1979).

As noted, shills were employees of the casino. They worked regular shifts, earned hourly wages, and played with the casino's money. They had to follow strict rules, imposed by management, understandably worried about theft. 

Female shills were prohibited from carrying purses and wearing clothing with pockets. When reaching for a cigarette or handkerchief on their person, they had to rub their open palms together first to show they were empty. Table-game shills had to stack chips (known as a "shill stack") and play in a certain way -- at craps, for example, only the pass line. 

Slot shills played machines picked by the bosses, who emptied out all the coins or tokens. Then, they gave the decoy a rack of, say, dollars to play and told her to make a lot of noise and act excited if she hit anything. At the end of the shift, the machine was emptied and the money was counted; it had to match the original amount in the rack. At the table games, their play was tracked and they had to turn over all winnings, while passing losses onto the casino. 

Shills were common at virtually all casinos up until the late '70s and early '80s, from the downtown grind joints to the Strip high-limit tables. We found reports of shills working at Sassy Sally's and the Pioneer, Bally's and the Desert Inn (in the baccarat room). Even the little Boardwalk and Nob Hill on the Strip had shills at the tables.

As for how much they earned, an ex-shill of our acquaintance told us, "Minimum wage plus tips." Minimum was around $1.60 an hour in the early '70s, rising to $3.35 by 1981.

And why were shills tipped? "We not only played with the customers with a bank from the house, we also dealt cards from the shoe to the players. If we got on a streak and the customers were winning, they tipped us. We were also tipped when they tipped the dealers; the customers tipped both of us."

As common as they were in the '70s and '80s, shills were pretty much a thing of the past when the 1990s rolled around.

Another game starter or decoy was the proposition player, who received fixed fees to participate in card games with their own money,  keeping winnings and absorbing losses. Our own Anthony Curtis was a prop player in the poker room at Bingo Palace (now Palace Station); he tells us he earned $60 a day playing with his own bankroll. You can read about prop players in our QoD on the subject, posted on New Year's Day 2009.