Take it, Arnie.
When I was a dealer, we never washed or cleaned the "value checks" and this is still the case. Like you, I was curious why a casino would accept the fact that most of the checks are so filthy that they all have a black or brown tinge to them, so I asked a respected casino shift manager and here’s what I was told, verbatim: "Why don’t you just shut up and deal, or at least brush down your table?"
Unsatisfied with his reply, I asked a different shift manager (a lifer and highly educated in the business). His reply was a joke -- not a very funny one, though it’s considered casino humor: "So many people spill their drinks into the float (the dealer’s chip tray) that no germ would stand a chance." (When someone does spill a drink into the float, the checks are dried and put back into commission.)
Today, there’s still no policy of cleaning casino checks. The color cameras that have replaced the old black-and-whites don’t need to be able to distinguish the grime-obscured designs to ID them properly, although the checks still have that "hidden" design that (usually) only surveillance people notice. For example, a black check has four distinctive half-diamonds pointing inward at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock locations. The $5,000 checks (at most casinos) have a pyramid design (triangle) that covers the surface of the entire disk.
The LVA research department called a couple of Strip casinos, just to make sure that nothing had changed since the old Rothstein dealer days. The Wynn couldn't comment and referred us to PR (who, from experience, seldom respond, at least not in any timely fashion), so we tried Bally's instead (which, on the contrary, is typically very helpful). The shift supervisor on duty confirmed that they have no policy for cleaning chips unless some mishap occurs, like a customer spilling Coke all over them, in which case they'll get wiped down.
At that point Blair Rodman, co-author of Kill Phil (just out in its revised and upgraded 2nd edition) happened to wander through the Huntington Press office. In a former life, Blair dealt cards and craps in a number of casinos and related a particularly savory tale from his early days at the now-defunct Silver Slipper, where he was told about a crap dealer who apparently had little concern for (the lack of) cleanliness in his modus operandi for stealing $100 checks. The method of pilfering? Every break/shift change he'd put one in his mouth, then pass it to his girlfriend with a kiss. Eeeuuuwww. Blair added that he'd also worked at the El Cortez, where they never washed anything! (Not that we're pandering to the EC, but we will point out that this was way back in the day, before the recent upgrades.)
Finally, Blair suggested we put in a call to Ron Saccavino, and industry veteran who puts out the The Dealer's News newsletter and runs the up-and-coming Nevada Poker League. Ron confirmed that in his 38 years in the gaming biz, he had never seen or heard of anyone washing, disinfecting, or in any way sanitizing checks, aside from the aforementioned spillage scenario. He did, however, recall, as did Anthony Curtis, that some casinos washed playing cards when they were of the reusable plastic variety.
Back to you, Arn.
Now, as for the non-value chips (employed at the poker and roulette games), these do get cleaned. They’re not stamped or marked with a dollar amount to show their value and, back when we had only black-and-white cameras, dirty chips played havoc with the poor surveillance observer required to do a review due to a complaint, misdeal, theft, etc. These chips are cleaned with soda water. That’s it, nothing else. The floor supervisor summons a cocktail waitress and asks for a cup of seltzer, just water and carbonation, and the dealer, on a dead game, wipes down each and every chip with it. The same cleaning method is used for the pai gow tiles.
By the way, the term "check" refers to the little round clay casino disk that has a dollar value stamped on it, whereas a "chip" has no value until a player buys in and tells the dealer what value he or she wants it to have. Poker also uses non-value chips, but these are color-coded to aid in the ease of interpretation of the value.
Oh, and for the record, Anthony Curtis never censors any content in QoD or on this website, or in LVA, or in any Huntington Press books, based on how the casinos might react. As for me personally, I've worked in this industry for many decades, so I don't have any friends in the casinos and don't care who I offend.
Bluff magazine, on the other hand, evidently takes a more cautious approach and kept the identity of all but one of the casinos in its 2007 poker-chip hygiene survey -- for which they enlisted the help of a team of scientists from UNLV -- anonymous. Click here for the results of their "Dirty Vegas: How Safe Are Your Chips?" survey, which makes for some interesting reading...
