Question of the Day - 04 October 2016

From time to time, we receive questions about what to do when finding money, either cash, chips, or tickets, in a casino. This one was particularly interesting to us, since it has the added dimension of happening at a Native American casino.

To answer the questions, we're confident in saying that this isn't "normal procedure" for random low-rolling slot players, whether at a Native American or commercial casino. Tens of millions of slot players frequent casinos every year and rarely experience the kind of treatment your wife did. If it were at all normal, casinos wouldn't stay in business for long.

But yes, it does happen in Las Vegas and other non-tribal casino jurisdictions.

And as for being legal, well, like so many issues connected with casinos, the answer here is, "It depends."

The first issue here concerns credits left on the machine. We have to assume that there was an "old man" involved and he did leave the machine with credits on it. If not, the casino would've been trying to out-and-out steal the money from your wife and we'd be very surprised if that were the case (the amount of money in question doesn't justify the heavy-handed approach and if it was a practice done often for small amounts, the word would certainly get out).

It's a standard policy throughout the country that found money in a casino belongs to the casino, without proof of ownership to the contrary. In Pennsylvania, for one, it’s state law. (One man found out the hard way: When he picked up an envelope holding $240, carried it into the men's room, and stuffed the money in his pocket he was apprehended, charged with theft and receiving stolen property, and jailed in lieu of $15,000 bail. "If someone loses money on the street, there is no real way of proving they really lost it and no way of proving who found it," said a state policeman manning the casino office. "But we have more than 2,000 cameras viewing every corner of this casino. We can and will investigate.")

On the other side of this issue is an incident involving Anthony Curtis. He lost a $175 machine ticket at the Gold Coast, which someone found and handed in to the cage. He was identified by his players club number on the ticket and paged over the PA system, whereupon the ticket was returned to him.

The moral/ethical gray area involved in finders-keepers is pretty wide, but in almost all casinos, the policy is clear: "Abandoned" cash, chips, or tickets are the property of the casino. You can get in some trouble if you find money in a casino, don't turn it over to the cage, and get caught.

All that said, the problem is that the casinos have been known to go overboard when it comes to enforcing this policy, especially when it’s not law. We understand the need for it; casinos need to discourage people who come in actively looking for machines with credits on them (a commonly used term for them is "silver miners"). But it’s a situation that’s fraught with tension and hard feelings, especially when, as in the incident reported in today’s question, a slot player honestly didn’t notice existing credits on the machine. Or even worse, when the slot player insists, honestly, that there weren’t any credits on the machine when the money went in. Still, casino security guards often don’t seem to know how to handle these situations and default to aggressive tactics when they're probably not called for.

To keep yourself out of harm's way, the proper way to handle found money is to alert a casino employee to the discovery. Note that we don't recommend cashing out credits or even picking up a wallet on the floor, but rather pointing it out to an attendant (or simply ignoring it all together). In cases where you feel that you've won legitimately, but are accused of claiming found money, document as much information as you can with photos or by reciting details into the recorder of a phone and contact the Enforcement Division of Gaming Control. At that point, it will be up to the process to resolve the matter.

What complicates matters in this case is that it happened in an Indian casino, which means you can't count on state gaming regulators. On reservations, non-tribal members have no constitutional rights to due process or other protections. That’s because Native American tribes are sovereign nations with their own laws, their own courts, and their own operations outside the jurisdiction of non-tribal communities within the United States. The author of our recent book The Law for Gamblers, Bob Nersesian, the pre-eminent practitioner of gambling law in the country, states, "As a general proposition, Indian tribes are immune from suit in state or federal court."

Nersesian continues, "The gambler is generally limited to seeking redress in the tribal court affiliated with the given casino. If the stolen or redress money will come from the casino, the tribe, or a tribal member, it doesn’t take a genius to predict the decision of such a court. After all, this is a situation in which the court is empowered by a limited number of people who have a direct interest in any outcome that affects them."

Our takeaway from this incident at Soaring Rock: Always check to see that your slot or video poker machine doesn't have any credits left on it before you insert your money and start to play. If it does, activate the "candle" (the light on top of the machine), then play another machine. As for what to do with found money, we leave that to your conscience.

A similar thing happened to me at River City in St. Louis earlier this year. My wife found a $75 voucher one night. She gave it to me to cash the next morning. The original owner had claimed it so the voucher was voided. The casino manager and security practically accused me of an attempted felony. Good customer service would have them tell me that the voucher was voided and reissued to the original owner, without accusing me of trying to steal it. The ironic part of it is that the first line of the fine print on the reverse says that "This ticket is a bearer instrument. The casino is not responsible for lost or stolen tickets". [Editor's Note: Yes, it's ironic that the casinos enforce a strict policy that seems to indicate tickets aren't bearer instruments (meaning they belong to whoever's in possession of them), at the same time that they absolve themselves of responsibility for anything that might happen to the tickets.] **** I've been at casinos and found tickets with minimal amounts (less than 50¢) on them prominently placed on top of the machine as if being advertised for someone to pick it up. I've also left such small amounts on the machines for someone to use themselves. Should one really have to go to the trouble/inconvenience of calling and waiting for an attendant to report such situation before we could use the machine? Are we really at a great risk of being in great trouble? [Editor's Note: We doubt that even the heavy hand of casino security would bother with such minor amounts of money left on the machine or in a ticket, which as you say happens all the time. So the risk probably isn't much to worry about. That said, there's no guarantee that the casino won't take action. There was an infamous case in Detroit of a woman who found a quarter on the floor, played it, was thrown out, and actually prosecuted for a bit until the publicity got too bad and charges were dropped. So you never know.] ***** I once found money on the floor at Fiesta Rancho. It was the exact amount I had in my hand and at first I thought I had dropped my money so I picked it up. Once I figured out it was someone else's money I took it to security. It was only $40 but it wasn't mine. They took the money but told me if no one claimed it after 30 days it would be mine. I went back 30 days later and they gave me back the money. So that's' my positive story about good casino/customer relations. **** Maybe I read your answer too fast but I think you missed the point that the woman didn't know if there was money left on the machine when she put in her $20. If she paid no attention and then after a while saw that she was up to $110, why would she question that she had not won that amount. She didn't 'find' anything. **** Re the lady who was wrongly accused of stealing $98 that an old man accidentally left in a machine: There's a concern nobody mentioned that plays a big part in my outlook. It's the reality that employees of casinos, police departments, etc. sometimes pocket the money themselves, resulting in the original owner not getting his/her money after all. Knowing this, unless I feel I might be prosecuted on some basis, I will keep found money while reporting it to Security, saying that if someone comes to them and reports lost money, and they can provide adequate details to validate their claim, I will gladly turn it over, but if they can't, then I won't. I once found $32 on an outdoors table outside an inside eatery at the Plaza. I reported to Security that I found some money, and where, and said that if someone came by and said they lost money at that table, all they needed to do was say how much they lost and I would hand it over when I talked with Security again. Because nobody came by with such a claim over the whole afternoon, I felt OK about assuming the person either forgot about it or didn't need it, and wouldn't be trying to get it. What I did NOT do was give Security the money (because the guard could've pocketed the money himself) or tell them how much the amount was. Also of note: I was an original owner who lost money on a machine several years ago at the Fremont. I knew which machine I was playing on and how much I absentmindedly left on it: $48. I returned within 5 minutes, right after I remembered. The credits were gone. I called Security, and we went into the Security office to view a tape. Problem was, their cameras were not comprehensive; there wasn't a camera that had a clear shot of my machine, and so there was no chance of identifying the guy who cleaned out my credits. And even with a better camera view, the picture quality of casino videos usually isn't that great. And finally, no matter how good the quality of a video is, if the thief is wearing dark glasses and a hat, it's almost impossible to ID him. But I have to make one final comment: "silver miners" would leave a machine right after cashing out its credits, instead of staying and playing on the machine. The lady at the center of this incident should've pointed this out emphatically to the casino personnel. ****