Does anyone here keep their bankroll in chips?
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Yes but not always
I have kept chips, but avoiding CTR's is not a primary concern.
Playing big enough there are times you just can avoid the CTR if you have a big win or loss. It does not necessarily prompt an IRS audit but making sure you have a log becomes important.
Most often keeping part of a bankroll in chips has been the result of hiding parts of wins or increasing the percieved amounts of losses through ratholing with no plan to cash them in at the current time.
I generally will have chips from 3-6 casinos on hand.
ihate17
I have kept chips, but avoiding CTR's is not a primary concern.
Playing big enough there are times you just can avoid the CTR if you have a big win or loss. It does not necessarily prompt an IRS audit but making sure you have a log becomes important.
Most often keeping part of a bankroll in chips has been the result of hiding parts of wins or increasing the percieved amounts of losses through ratholing with no plan to cash them in at the current time.
I generally will have chips from 3-6 casinos on hand.
ihate17
I'm not just thinking about the money being reported to the IRS but not letting the casino know how much your winnings really are. Also, I never cashed in $10,000 in chips, but this week I did cash out a sizable amount of over $7,500 but then the casino had to see my ID and make some verifications. I didn't feel too comfortable with that, Although, it was already tracked by the pit boss when I left the table. I guess not having all your chips on the table and leaving with several in your pocket unknown to the pit boss with a small cashout transaction afterwards is better way to keep a lower profile.
I would think that concealing your winnings from the pit boss, the dealer, the eye in the sky.. etc.. could lengthen an AP's career dramatically.
I think I'll go and buy a few magic books or maybe invent a teleportation device to transfer the chips from the table to my pocket. :grin:
I would think that concealing your winnings from the pit boss, the dealer, the eye in the sky.. etc.. could lengthen an AP's career dramatically.
I think I'll go and buy a few magic books or maybe invent a teleportation device to transfer the chips from the table to my pocket. :grin:
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Rathole but be careful
At most casinos the pit will track black and higher chips. If you are playing black chips on a table with other black chip players you can rathole some black but otherwise I suggest that green chip players pocket green and red chippers pocket red.
Do pocket these chips obviously. Your wish is to reduce the win or increase the loss that the pit records for your time at the table. If they know you are pocketing chips you may be given credit for more chips than you ratholed. It also could aggrevate them because they may be calling for a fill sooner than usual.
So to avoid deterction you rathole twice your hourly EV slowly. If your win rate is $50 per hour, you pocket 4 green chips per hour and your now losing $50 per hour according to the casino. A new player comes in with chips, throw one in your pocket, a player colors up, throw one in your pocket. You go on a bathroom break, take your chips and return shy a chip or two. Easy to do and near impossible for the pit and eye to have known you went to the restroom with 15 green and returned with 14.
Pocketing big chips will get noticed but will not bring heat but does not serve your purpose here. Ploppys will put purple chips in their pockets all the time. Call it the hopeful or mythical vault. They are hoping that once tha tpurple reaches their pocket they will not need to bring it back till they hit the cashier.
You will never be able to hide a big win from the casino. The benefits of ratholing are only there in a casino that you frequent and need to reduce your lifetime win at. If you are hit and run at a place and win $8,000 in a couple of hours the difference between your actual win and showing them a total of a couple of hundred less is so insignificant that ratholing is really just a waste in that situation.
ihate17
At most casinos the pit will track black and higher chips. If you are playing black chips on a table with other black chip players you can rathole some black but otherwise I suggest that green chip players pocket green and red chippers pocket red.
Do pocket these chips obviously. Your wish is to reduce the win or increase the loss that the pit records for your time at the table. If they know you are pocketing chips you may be given credit for more chips than you ratholed. It also could aggrevate them because they may be calling for a fill sooner than usual.
So to avoid deterction you rathole twice your hourly EV slowly. If your win rate is $50 per hour, you pocket 4 green chips per hour and your now losing $50 per hour according to the casino. A new player comes in with chips, throw one in your pocket, a player colors up, throw one in your pocket. You go on a bathroom break, take your chips and return shy a chip or two. Easy to do and near impossible for the pit and eye to have known you went to the restroom with 15 green and returned with 14.
Pocketing big chips will get noticed but will not bring heat but does not serve your purpose here. Ploppys will put purple chips in their pockets all the time. Call it the hopeful or mythical vault. They are hoping that once tha tpurple reaches their pocket they will not need to bring it back till they hit the cashier.
You will never be able to hide a big win from the casino. The benefits of ratholing are only there in a casino that you frequent and need to reduce your lifetime win at. If you are hit and run at a place and win $8,000 in a couple of hours the difference between your actual win and showing them a total of a couple of hundred less is so insignificant that ratholing is really just a waste in that situation.
ihate17
Sorry if this is hijacking, but I have two questions raised by the posts in this thread so far:
Flash commented that it can be convenient to keep chips instead of always having large stacks of currency. Does this mean that you keep high denomination chips (e.g. $500 or more), or do you just wind up with large stacks of low denomination chips? If you keep high denomination chips, do you ever get hassled when you then try to change them back in on a later visit (since there isn't a good record of where you got it from).
Second, when ratholing chips as ihate17 suggests, do you take your ratholed chips home to cash in on a later visit or do you just cash them in with the rest of your chips at the cage (or do you go through the hassle of having a friend cash them in)?
Flash commented that it can be convenient to keep chips instead of always having large stacks of currency. Does this mean that you keep high denomination chips (e.g. $500 or more), or do you just wind up with large stacks of low denomination chips? If you keep high denomination chips, do you ever get hassled when you then try to change them back in on a later visit (since there isn't a good record of where you got it from).
Second, when ratholing chips as ihate17 suggests, do you take your ratholed chips home to cash in on a later visit or do you just cash them in with the rest of your chips at the cage (or do you go through the hassle of having a friend cash them in)?
I keep a few $500 chips and the rest are $1,000 chips.
I normally buy in at a table for ONE purple chip at a time and play for light to chunky green.
I hold a minority opinion concerning ratholing.
I believe that it is counter-productive (unintended pun) on several grounds.
I am tired of addressing that issue.
I normally buy in at a table for ONE purple chip at a time and play for light to chunky green.
I hold a minority opinion concerning ratholing.
I believe that it is counter-productive (unintended pun) on several grounds.
I am tired of addressing that issue.
Chips Ahoy!
Here's the thing with high denomination chips. The casino keeps CLOSE track of them! They like to know where every one of them went. Some casinos have standard practices (that I'm sure vary from place to place), for example of only doling out orange (1000) chips to rated players and will give only purple (500) to people not using a player's card. I don't know why but this is something they will do among who knows what other various practices on keeping track of chips.
Here's the problem with stoking up a fat stack of orange (1000) chips if you are not a recognized player that is using a player's card or at least a problem the way I see it. I used to keep purple and orange chips and not neccessarily cash them out and then I heard about some incident in which someone did a "smash and grab" or "snatch and grab" or whatever you wish to call it in one of the AC casinos. They scooped up a big stack of orange and hauled ass out the door and apparently even GOT AWAY! (Now I have to shift to my nasaly voice that Sherriff what's his name (Bunnell?)uses on that cop chase show and say,"THIS criminal thought he could haul ass with the casino's chips and get away with it... but he was WRONNNGGGG!") Within hours the casino shifted ALL their orange chips to another slightly different orange chip. After a few days a woman was strolling in and cashing out some orange chips that were NOT these new orange chips! They grabbed her and just as sure as the neighbor's dog pooped in my front yard yesterday, she lead them straight to her boyfriend and that was that! He got caught DAYS after the fact.
After hearing about that, I stopped hanging on to as many chips and orange chips in particular. Can you imagine strolling up to the window to cash out chips and out of nowhere 15 people tackle you to the ground and interrogate you for hours? Not because you actually DID anything... just a matter of "Wrong place at the wrong time". I prefer $1000 in US currency as opposed to a decoratively arranged orange-colored piece of clay after hearing about that particular incident.
Here's the thing with high denomination chips. The casino keeps CLOSE track of them! They like to know where every one of them went. Some casinos have standard practices (that I'm sure vary from place to place), for example of only doling out orange (1000) chips to rated players and will give only purple (500) to people not using a player's card. I don't know why but this is something they will do among who knows what other various practices on keeping track of chips.
Here's the problem with stoking up a fat stack of orange (1000) chips if you are not a recognized player that is using a player's card or at least a problem the way I see it. I used to keep purple and orange chips and not neccessarily cash them out and then I heard about some incident in which someone did a "smash and grab" or "snatch and grab" or whatever you wish to call it in one of the AC casinos. They scooped up a big stack of orange and hauled ass out the door and apparently even GOT AWAY! (Now I have to shift to my nasaly voice that Sherriff what's his name (Bunnell?)uses on that cop chase show and say,"THIS criminal thought he could haul ass with the casino's chips and get away with it... but he was WRONNNGGGG!") Within hours the casino shifted ALL their orange chips to another slightly different orange chip. After a few days a woman was strolling in and cashing out some orange chips that were NOT these new orange chips! They grabbed her and just as sure as the neighbor's dog pooped in my front yard yesterday, she lead them straight to her boyfriend and that was that! He got caught DAYS after the fact.
After hearing about that, I stopped hanging on to as many chips and orange chips in particular. Can you imagine strolling up to the window to cash out chips and out of nowhere 15 people tackle you to the ground and interrogate you for hours? Not because you actually DID anything... just a matter of "Wrong place at the wrong time". I prefer $1000 in US currency as opposed to a decoratively arranged orange-colored piece of clay after hearing about that particular incident.
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Since I never cash out after playing, I always have chips.
BTW-you don't have to keep orange chips, just keep purple if that casino keeps close track of the orange. You read about the woman who led them to the guy who stole the chips but you didn't read about the dozens of other people who just said, I was playing here last week that were able to cash their chips. I agree this can be a hassle, but not the end of the world. When a casino changes chips there is usually at least a 6 month period where the old ones are accepted.
BTW-you don't have to keep orange chips, just keep purple if that casino keeps close track of the orange. You read about the woman who led them to the guy who stole the chips but you didn't read about the dozens of other people who just said, I was playing here last week that were able to cash their chips. I agree this can be a hassle, but not the end of the world. When a casino changes chips there is usually at least a 6 month period where the old ones are accepted.
Big chips, big problems
Tarzan
I cash $1,000 chips right away and will refuse $5,000 chips at the table.
Besides your story there are the many instances that have been reported of casinos refusing to cash big chips of unrated players, especially when the pit does not verify that you just played there.
If I have multiple orange I might cash a couple now and a couple on a different shift in a big house. When given a chocalate at a big strip casino rcently I just took one step back from the table and told the dealer that they are terrible luck for me and that the last few times I had one I lost it and much more as soon as I played again, even the time I cashed it right in.
No pit or dealer will try to stick you with it after that story and if they wanted too, there is no rule or law that says you must color up.
ihate17
Tarzan
I cash $1,000 chips right away and will refuse $5,000 chips at the table.
Besides your story there are the many instances that have been reported of casinos refusing to cash big chips of unrated players, especially when the pit does not verify that you just played there.
If I have multiple orange I might cash a couple now and a couple on a different shift in a big house. When given a chocalate at a big strip casino rcently I just took one step back from the table and told the dealer that they are terrible luck for me and that the last few times I had one I lost it and much more as soon as I played again, even the time I cashed it right in.
No pit or dealer will try to stick you with it after that story and if they wanted too, there is no rule or law that says you must color up.
ihate17
Allow me to point out a very common misconception that people have: CTR's are reported to the Treasury as a way of screening for money laundering, not to the IRS for tax purposes.
The IRS doesn't care - they really, really, really don't care - where you get your money from, even illegal sources, so long as you pay taxes. Just ask Al Capone. The IRS makes no special effort to make sure people are reporting their taxes correctly outside of the W-2G's that are filed when you make a big win.
Now, the Treasury doesn't care if you pay taxes on your money, so long as they know where it came from. You might have cashed in with $10,000 and left with $12,000 or in with $12,000 and out with $10,000, they want to watch those bricks regardless.
People get this idea from TV shows (or Zen Zone
) that the government is this super-networked, information-sharing, well-greased information processing machine. It's not. Different organizations don't share information with one another, they have little turf wars, and they all use different forms and different lingo in order to ensure minimal productivity. There is no central CTU-like agency which can pull up your tax records and cross-reference them with your CTR's, get your cell phone number from your driver's license records and then triangulate your location and zoom in with a spy satellite camera -- for better or for worse.
Even if they wanted to use your CTR's to check your tax returns, I doubt they could. And if they could, I bet you'd have to be a high-value target like Al Capone before they bothered.
There are good reasons to keep chips, not filing a CTR is not one of those reasons.
And pay your damn taxes, regardless of whether you're getting CTR's or not.
The IRS doesn't care - they really, really, really don't care - where you get your money from, even illegal sources, so long as you pay taxes. Just ask Al Capone. The IRS makes no special effort to make sure people are reporting their taxes correctly outside of the W-2G's that are filed when you make a big win.
Now, the Treasury doesn't care if you pay taxes on your money, so long as they know where it came from. You might have cashed in with $10,000 and left with $12,000 or in with $12,000 and out with $10,000, they want to watch those bricks regardless.
People get this idea from TV shows (or Zen Zone
) that the government is this super-networked, information-sharing, well-greased information processing machine. It's not. Different organizations don't share information with one another, they have little turf wars, and they all use different forms and different lingo in order to ensure minimal productivity. There is no central CTU-like agency which can pull up your tax records and cross-reference them with your CTR's, get your cell phone number from your driver's license records and then triangulate your location and zoom in with a spy satellite camera -- for better or for worse. Even if they wanted to use your CTR's to check your tax returns, I doubt they could. And if they could, I bet you'd have to be a high-value target like Al Capone before they bothered.
There are good reasons to keep chips, not filing a CTR is not one of those reasons.
And pay your damn taxes, regardless of whether you're getting CTR's or not.
several years ago i found a really big disadvantage of keeping chips from casinos. After a small winning day (around $4k from craps) i ended up cashing out what i thought was all my chips upon leaving the hotel and heading back home. Low and behold about 2 days after caesars tahoe closed, i was cleaning out an old duffel bag and out dropped 2 nice Purple chips. worth a total of about $8 on ebay. nice $992 loss due to keeping chips, even though it wasnt known at the time i had them, if i knew they were there i would have took the day off work and sped down there to cash them in before closing. they are very easy to misplace and thats the main reason i dont really keep much more than a small amount of green chips for the local places here (they keep really really good track of black chips and dont even put the purple on the table unless somone is playing $500/hand or hits a large bonus payout they will do a fast purple fill to get the amount onto the table.
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