Question of the Day - 25 March 2018

Gaming days are one of the touchiest subjects in casino operations. From what we could gather from several sources, an employee is immediately liable to be summarily terminated if he or she discloses the time at which the gaming day ends.

So, as you can imagine, getting information on this subject was difficult. But your faithful QoD correspondents persevered; hey, a question needed answering!

The gaming day is used for much more than just calculating your average daily theoretical. It’s used to keep track of cash buy-ins, for the purposes of reporting amounts over a certain threshold to the IRS. It’s also used as the record keeper for virtually all the casino’s internal tracking information. Given that you’re asking about a company’s most sensitive data and involvement of the IRS, it’s easy to see why the information is so well-guarded.

We do know that, as you suspected, each casino is different. This makes sense. If they were all the same, everyone would know the parameters of the gaming day.

It’s possible to determine the time that the gaming day ends at a specific casino, but it definitely requires some legwork. You need to stake out the pit and watch for the following:

• Two or three pit bosses walking table to table with clipboards counting down the racks.
• Security posted by the pit with a large metal cart. It will be filled with empty drop boxes ready to replace the old ones.
• The count team (usually adorned in jumpsuits or coveralls marked as such) carrying the drop boxes into the pit and switching them out.

We understand that the hour or even half-hour closest to when these activities start, is most likely the time you’re looking for. It’s worth noting that if the drop boxes aren’t being changed out, it’s more likely a shift-change count than a gaming-day count.

Obviously, it makes the most sense to do these counts when it’s the least busy—sometime in the wee hours, though again, it’s different everywhere.

Even if you do the stake out and figure out the gaming day, you have to be careful how you use this information. If you try to circumvent being reported to the IRS for cash transactions by conducting smaller transactions before and after the gaming day, you’re guilty of what’s called “structuring.” Casino personnel are trained to recognize structuring, which triggers the filing of the dreaded Suspicious Activity Report.

So, gathering gaming-day information is time-consuming and using it is risky. But at least you now know what’s involved.