I was at the M a few years back. I asked them about when the "casino day" ended and began. I was looking for information regarding the times that their "clock" ticked for playing promo cash, as I had a few days with $X per day. At the promo desk where you get your player's card, the employees were super suspicious, like I was asking for the combo to their safe. I guess I didn't explain myself well enough. What were they thinking I was asking?
Though most questions about a casino's "day" are as innocent as yours, having to do with when the player's club "day" for point earning and promotions reset, there is a different interpretation that involves the 24-hour period within which a casino keeps its records for business, accounting, and tax purposes. According to FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the definition of a casino day "facilitates the aggregation of transactions for purposes of currency-transaction reporting."
Federal law requires financial institutions, including casinos, to report currency (cash and/or coin) transactions of more than $10,000 in a single 24-hour period -- i.e., the gaming "day." This includes multiple currency transactions that, in the aggregate, add up to $10,001 or more in a single day.
Ergo, anyone who wants to know what a casino's gaming day is could be contemplating a financial crime known as "structuring" or "smurfing," which means divvying up what might otherwise be a financial transaction that would require a cash transaction report (CTR) in order to avoid scrutiny by regulators and/or law enforcement.
Example: At 7 p.m., a slot player cashes $6,000 worth of TITO vouchers at the cage. Then at 1 a.m., she cashes another $2,500. Finally, at 5 p.m. the next evening, she cashes $4,000. In the aggregate, she enacts cash transactions worth $12,500 within a 24-hour period, so the casino, keeping track of the cash, is required to fill out and submit a CTR to FinCEN.
Now, say the casino day is 7:01 p.m. to 7 p.m. and say the slot player cashed the final $4,000 at 7:30 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. Was she structuring? Maybe yes, maybe no. But if the casino suspects that she was, it now files an SAR or Suspicious Activity Report; if FinCEN determines that something fishy was going on, investigators might look more deeply into the financial transactions of the slot player.
Which is why the whole subject of the casino gaming day is shrouded in mystery and intrigue.
The gaming day, as it applies to financial transactions, is a closely guarded secret in the casino industry. Many of the employees aren't even sure about the times. Employees who do know the gaming-day cycle can be fired on the spot if they disclose it to anyone from the public. Casino employees are even trained never to reveal the $10,000 trigger when gathering info.
So that's why, even though your question was an innocent request for the timing of promotional cash, it raised some alarms with the booth personnel.
