Question of the Day - 15 December 2024

Well, yes. By the letter of the "law," they both did. But as always with gambling questions, there are gray areas.

We know for sure that in Nevada at least, the prohibition on using casino chips as legal tender is governed by Nevada Gaming Commission Regulation 12, specifically 12.060. It explicitly states that casino chips are not legal tender and must be used only for wagering within the issuing casino.

Here’s an overview of two key points.

Regulation 12.060 (1): Casino chips may be used only for the purpose of making wagers on the games for which the chips are issued.
Regulation 12.060 (4): Casinos are required to design their chips in a way that prevents their use as currency outside the premises. A licensee shall not accept chips or tokens as payment for any goods or services offered at the licensee's gaming establishment, with the exception of the specific use for which the chips or tokens were issued, and shall not give the chips or tokens as change in any other transaction."

That's clear enough. You can’t use the chips as instruments of currency. You can't use them to buy a Coke at the mini-mart or tip the cocktail waitress or pay for a restaurant meal, even at the same casino from which the chips are issued. And you certainly can't use them to pay for groceries or the electric bill or deposit them in the collection plate at church.

The same regulation states, "Chips and tokens are solely representatives of value which evidence a debt owed to their custodian by the licensee that issued them and are not the property of anyone other than that licensee."

That is, chips are only a symbolic representation of the actual money with which you buy in and cash out; they're the physical property of the casino, don't belong to you, and therefore aren't yours to give away as a toke to the cab driver, the stripper at the club he drives you to, the bellman who delivers your luggage, or even the cocktail waitress. They're not to be used in the casino restaurants, gift shop, spa, or anywhere else, for any other reason, at any time, other than for their specific gambling purpose. 

All that said, cheques still move in many directions. We've all toked dealers and cocktail waitresses on the casino floor with them. And after living here for a long time, we can tell you that casino chips of $100 or less are just as good as cash and are used as such on occasion outside the casino. Also, casino chips have been collectibles for decades; a major chip-collectors club meets every year in Las Vegas to buy, sell, and trade them. 

And then there are informal exceptions. Businesses directly associated with or located inside casinos (such as restaurants, bars, and gift shops) sometimes do accept chips from the same casino for payment. Again, by the letter of NGC Regulation 12.060, this isn't kosher, but especially in the instance you observed at the next table, even a strict policy against accepting cheques could be and was, ultimately, overlooked. 

The whole episode seems like a tempest in a teapot to us. Why couldn't the patron walk over to the cage and cash in the chips to pay for his meal? Why wouldn't the restaurant figure to do the same, even if some extra paperwork might be involved? It could've been handled in various ways, but the bottom-line question is, who would enforce the law anyway? The patron isn't going to turn himself in. The restaurant probably wouldn't press charges. To make an issue out of it, the manager could have called the patron's bluff by having security escort him to the cage, then return with the cash. But again, why bother? 

Also, compared to the other violations in the casino environment the powers that be must concern themselves with -- cheating, theft, armed robbery, underage gambling/drinking, money laundering, prostitution, drug dealing, counterfeit-currency passing, etc. -- this particular infraction doesn't seem to register too high on the enforcement radar and we've yet to hear of a single instance of someone being prosecuted for tipping with, or accepting as a tip, a casino chip.