I know there’s a strong argument okaying finding money at casinos and then pocketing it. After all these places are responsible for destroying tens of thousands of lives every year. Bankrupting people left and right. Not unless you’re like this whale gambler who’s spent millions at DraftKings, and pretty much conquers its points table.
But still.
Stealing is stealing.
I know what the next argument would be. What would the judge do to a man who beat up another man for inappropriately touching his 11 year old daughter? The ethical part of our brains would side with the father, but the judge still has to follow the law. He would still have to jail the father for breaking it.
Same rule applies here. I would, at least on a personal capacity never condone this behavior, but I also do “understand” why gamblers would steal from casinos, whenever they get the chance, and can get away with it.
So this guy on Reddit went to a casino with his mom, and as usual, they lost a bunch of money on the slot machines. On the way back, his mom found a $100 bill hanging by an ATM machine. She immediately grabbed it and shoved it in the pocket of her son. Then they nervously, but slowly walked out of the casino.
This person then had to guts to share this story on Reddit to see if others had similar experiences.
Not to my surprise. Many did.
LOL.
Anyways this is what he said:
A little misleading but today I went to the casino with my senior mother to play some slots. When we were leaving, we stopped to cash out our tickets. Mine was 39 and change and hers was around the same. Anyway I cashed mine out and she went next. Was taking a few min so I walked away to look at a slot machine. Came back to where she was by the cashout machine and the machine next to the one she was using had a $100 bill hanging out of it. I grabbed it and put it in my pocket and we walked out. The whole time I was nervous some security guard was going to stop me. Nothing happened but you know someone saw it. Should I be nervous about returning ?
This thread got a fair bit of replies, ranging from reprimanding the OP, to outright supporting his actions.
Thing is; pulling such stunts can come with consequences. If the security guard were to catch someone in this act, a permanent ban from the casino, in addition to a possible arrest, provided the charges are filed are always on the cards.
But, from what my experience tells me, most casinos don’t really bother – that is if they manage to catch someone in the first place – with smaller amounts. They let it go, and simply ban the person. It’s not worth their time.
Here are a few more interesting responses:
I found $500 in an atm at the casino and left with the money. Next trip to the casino, Security pulled me to the side and banned me for life. Once someone reports money missing, it’s easy to track the money down and identify who took it. I’ve been on the flip side where I’ve left $600 in a machine only to realize it a few minutes later and when going back to the machine to retrieve it someone had already stole it. Reported it immediately to security and they were able to track down the individual in 10 minutes.
I found 700 in cash on the floor at a casino in Philly a few months ago by a slot. I sat for about 10 minutes pretending to play and waited to see if anyone came back or security came by and nobody ever did so I pocketed it! Haha
One time I found a slot with 972$ in it. I took the ticket out went straight to the atm and dipped. They have signs on every slot machine where I’m at stating “we are not responsible for lost or stolen money. “ because if you’re dumb enough to leave money behind you have to expect that someone is gonna take it.
You see these stories are by people who successfully got away with their mini heists. I don’t think the folks who got caught, banned or arrested would put themselves on a pedestal on Reddit or other social media sites. So, you can never know, how common casino thievery actually is.
Not unless, you work at one.
The Gaming Floor is a Candy Store
Now let’s see this from the other side of the fence.
These casino floors are really like huge money exchanges, with humans mixing up with machines and alcohol. They come in with $100 and wish to go back to their homes with $1 million wins. There’s cash every where you look.
Tons of money comes in, spreads around on the tables and the slot machines, with the establishment pocketing the majority of it, of course. But, this free flow candy store can also attract tons of fraud and theft. Sometimes the staff colludes with the patrons. Other times the gamblers try to play their own tricks. It’s a constant tug of war.
The single biggest reason for cash theft on the casino floor is the lack of supervisory staff. Willy Allison from GGB Magazine, wrote a thought-provoking piece on why this happens:
For reasons ranging from management’s desire to reduce labor costs to simply not being able to find enough people to fill supervisory positions, the effects of removing an important layer of security presence on the floor has increased the opportunities for dealers to steal or conspire with players to cheat the games. This is more prominent in large casinos.
A major contributing factor that enabled these monster scams was the inadequate supervisor-to-table ratios coupled with the lack of game protection experience with the supervisors they did have. There simply was not enough seasoned game protection expertise looking over the shoulders of dealers of high-volume, high-limit games.
The funny part is that casino-floor crimes aren’t a big thing in places like Europe and South America. Why? because you can generally find a supervisor overlooking the operations at nearly every table.
At large Vegas casinos, with each floor having 100+ tables, you’ll probably find one every 10 or so tables. So one individual is responsible for the dealers + 7 patrons per table + onlookers multiplied by 10. That’s like being in charge of overseeing the activities of around 100 or so people. It’s humanly not possible to make sure everything goes smooth with such staffing levels.
You can see the same scenario mimic itself at these mega casinos with floors having like 800 to 1000 tables, with possibly as many slot machines, 50+ ATMs, in Asia too, because they were built with a Vegas-mindset i.e., copying their business plans.
And it’s because of this reason, these massive Asian casinos have suffered one of the biggest losses ever recorded in the recent history. The main factor being the dirty sneaky partnerships between the dealers and the players.
No one knows what really goes on such floors. Players and dealers at these places do make bank at the casino’s expense.
The supervisor-to-table ratio needs to be adequate for a healthy operation. The pit needs more eyes for it work in the favor of the casino.
Casino-operations related fraud can only be reduced if the supervisory roles are filled with people who are experienced and they’re also handsomely accommodated when it comes to financial incentives.
The loyalty of the mid-management and the working staff is what separates loss-making floors from the ones that generate fat balance sheets every day.