Table Games no big chips at the craps table

My Local WA casino just had their grand re-opening a few days ago I and I went to check it out, no Plexi-glass on any tables. mask and gloves required to play. craps limits to 4 people per side. $25-$500 limits and 5x max odds.

I noticed that they didn't have any chips larger than black ($100) at the craps table, (other tables had purple/$500 chips)

I saw people playing with stacks of black (near table limit) and when they cashed out they couldn't color up, they would just give them a chip tray (like they use in the poker rooms) to take their stacks of chips to the cashier. I saw this happen several times. I have never seen that before. has anyone else ever seen that?

I cashed out about 2k and it felt weird walking away with a fistfull of black chips, I was worried I would trip and my chips would go everywhere.

has anyone ever seen that before?

 

Sometimes in Tunica. Horseshoe doesn't always keep the 5k chips at the BJ or bac tables and more than once I have left the table with twenty to thirty 1k chips stuffed in my pocket

 

Imagine leaving the table with couple hundred + black chips in the pockets. That's what people were doing. It was madness

 

If I'm not mistaken, casinos must have cash on-hand that matches up with the dollar value of all chips in the chip trays during operating hours at all times. Not having big denominations could mean they didn't have that kind of cash during re-opening. Just my guess.

 

At least in Vegas, that's something that Ocean's 11 made up. They have to be able to pay out all wagers, but they can do it by transfer or by holding a bond. They don't necessarily need physical cash in the cage at all times. OP was asking about having the appropriate chips, which is different.

Basically, if someone wins $1mm playing bacc, they might not be able to pay it off in $100 bills, but someone at that level is probably using a line/wire anyway.

 

You are correct about not needing physical cash in the cage at all time. Per the link below, line # 12, it makes reference to their corporate treasury funds as part of their "on hand" calculation.
https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=12361

However, it still stands that the casino mentioned by the OP may not have the funds like it used to pre-covid so it didn't want large denominations out on the tables to be played if they don't have the money to cover it. Whether it was "on-hand" or not.

 

Respectfully, I think that explanation is a stretch. If a casino is not sufficiently capitalized to handle large wagers, their solution isn't going to be smaller denomination chips. Their solution is to reduce the max bet they will accept

 

Exactly. From a cash requirement perspective, a hundred thousand $5 chips is no different than a thousand $500 chips. Also, a casino would get smacked down hard if they couldn't actually pay out their wagers, even if they didn't have the paper cash on hand.

 

Please explain

What is "walking away from craps table with chips?" I dont understand.

 

I would guess it's more of a cleanliness move on their part. If they don't color up chips when won, it's a few less chips to be passed around. Rather than cycle back in 50 $100 chips for 1 5k causing dealers to retouch and recount chips and (depending on protocol possibly clean at the table) they can give you a few racks they know are sanitized and then those chips can go to the back to be cleaned. Then when they call for a fill the new chips coming from the back are already clean. It's an efficient way to keep smaller denomination and therefore more common chips circulating and clean.

 

This is a great thought. I hadn't considered this at all.

Within the vein of cleaning... part of me also thinks that it's a form of loss prevention in the cleaning process since it's such a new thing and likely can't be scrutinized as closely as regular chip handling. That is, it wouldn't exactly be a huge deal for one or two $100 chips to went missing as a result of being cleaned and couldn't be accounted for. But it would be a much bigger deal with higher-denomination chips.

 

I would think the buy-in or wire transfer would ensure having cash on hand to pay out.