You might think that the answer to this question would be unambiguous, but in fact it’s something of a gray area, since it isn’t actually covered by law.
According to NRS 120A.135, a 1989 addition to the law governing Abandoned Property, this statute specifically does not apply to unredeemed gaming chips or tokens. Likewise, although all chips and tokens are officially the property of the casino that issued them and thus in theory should be returned if found, in practice it seems that if someone has exchanged their cash for a token and then lost that token, the application of that rule becomes somewhat hazy.
The only applicable provision of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board’s Regulation 12 governing Chips & Tokens states, "A licensee shall not redeem its chips or tokens if presented by a person who the licensee knows or reasonably should know is not a patron of its gaming establishment" (12.060). This appears to put the onus on the casino to figure out whether you’d gambled there when you found the bounty and if so, it seemingly does not apply whether or not you won that specific chip.
Having verified which laws don't apply, we called the Gaming Control Board in an attempt to get some kind of official line on this, only to be told it's the law of "finders keepers" that pretty much applies in such instances. Of course, the casino would prefer you to hand in the token, so that it can be returned to their chip stack, but how often is security going to know for sure whether you're picking up a chip that you dropped yourself or one that you just happened to spot on the floor? And how is the person at the cage going to know whether you found it or won it?
The only time that Regulation 12.060 might come into effect would be if the chip was of a relatively high denomination in terms of the establishment norm (i.e., $500 might catch the attention of a downtown cage, but it might take a $5000 chip to arouse any suspicion at the big Strip joints). If the casino suspected that a large chip was not yours, then they would be within their rights to question where and when you won it and would be able to verify this from the records at the table where you claim to have gotten it. But if it's a chip worth $100 or less, it’s much harder for them to trace, since so many of them are in play at any time and it probably wouldn’t be considered worth the time or effort to verify ownership.
To get the last word on this, we finally spoke with the security departments at various casinos to see what their in-house policy was in practice. Each place we spoke with had a rule in place with regard to the finding of money or chips by their staff: In this instance, it’s mandatory that you hand over what your find to security, but if the money remains unclaimed after a certain period of time (Bally’s: 15 days; Terrible's and the Rio: 30 days; Sam’s Town: 60 days, for example), then it’s yours to keep. The Rio said that they consider it common courtesy for members of the public to hand in any lost property, as did Sam’s Town. Terrible’s said it’s up to the individual, while Bally’s official policy was unambiguous: "Finders keepers, losers weepers!"
To conclude, we’d like to make it clear that, although the casinos we spoke with did not appear to have stringent negative policies in place with regard to the keeping of money or chips that you might find on the floor, other properties may take a dimmer view of this. The practice of "silver mining" or "slot walking" (deliberately scouting the machines for money or TITO tickets inadvertently left behind) is generally looked upon as lowlife behavior and in some casinos is specifically outlawed.
This was dramatically demonstrated in 2002 when a septuagenarian woman from Troy, Michigan attempted to play a nickel she found in a slot tray at the MotorCity Casino in Detroit. Before she’d even had a chance to play the coin, Estella Romanski found herself surrounded by security guards, who proceeded to forcibly eject her from the casino and slapped a 6-month ban on her returning. In this instance, Romanski had the last laugh, however: When the two sides’ attorneys failed to reach an agreement, the case went to court. Her lawyers requested $100,000 in compensation, but a federal jury saw fit to award her a whopping $875,000 in damages.
NRS 120A.135 Inapplicability of chapter to unredeemed gaming chips or tokens. 1. The provisions of this chapter do not apply to gaming chips or tokens which are not redeemed at an establishment. 2. As used in this section: (a) "Establishment" has the meaning ascribed to it in NRS 463.0148. (b) "Gaming chip or token" means any object which may be redeemed at an establishment for cash or any other representative of value.
