Draft

Carriers of value in a casino

Value takes many forms in a casino. A player may arrive with cash, buy chips, move to the slots, cash out to a ticket, and leave with money in a wallet, all in one evening. Yet the games themselves accept only two of these forms: chips at the tables and credits on the machines. Everything else is a carrier, a way of bringing value onto the floor, moving it around, and taking it away.

This is a reference to each of them: what it is, whether it can be played, whether it is a bearer instrument, and who owes whom while it is in circulation.

Bearer or not

A bearer instrument belongs to whoever holds it. It is not registered to anyone, and it changes hands without a record. Cash is the obvious example, and chips, plaques, tickets and CPVs work the same way. That is what makes them convenient for players, and a concern for AML: value can move from one person to another without the casino knowing.

Not every carrier is a bearer instrument. A cashless wallet is an account in a player’s name, and a marker is a debt that the player has signed for. Credits on a machine sit somewhere in between.

Form	Plays a game	Bearer	Who owes
Chips	Yes	Yes	Casino
Plaques	Yes	Yes	Casino
Credits	Yes	In effect	Casino
Cash	No	Yes	None
Tickets	No	Yes	Casino
CPVs	No	Yes	Casino
Cashless wallet	No	No	Casino
Markers	No	No	Player

What plays a game

Chips

The casino’s currency at the tables. Their colour and markings show their value, and each casino’s chips are its own, redeemable only there. Chips in players’ hands are money the casino owes, so they are counted as a liability until they come back. Chips do not usually expire, but when a casino replaces a set of chips, or closes, it sets a deadline for redeeming the old ones.

Plays a game: Yes, at tables
Bearer: Yes
Liability: The casino owes the holder

Plaques

High-value chips, usually rectangular and individually numbered, used where the stakes are high. They can be bet like chips at the tables that accept them, though many players change them for smaller chips first. Because each one is numbered, a plaque can be traced in a way an ordinary chip cannot.

Plays a game: Yes, at tables
Bearer: Yes
Liability: The casino owes the holder

Credits on a machine

The balance on a slot machine’s credit meter. Credits arrive from banknotes, tickets or a cashless wallet, and leave as a ticket, a transfer back to the wallet, or a hand pay by staff when the amount is too large for the machine to pay.

Plays a game: Yes, on that machine
Bearer: In effect: whoever is at the machine can play or cash out
Liability: The casino owes the holder

What carries value

Cash

Banknotes, and sometimes coins. Cash enters through bill acceptors in machines and kiosks, the drop box at each table, and the cage, and it can be turned into every other carrier. Some tables accept a cash bet directly, but it is settled in chips. Cash is the least traceable carrier, and the one AML rules watch most closely.

Plays a game: No, except as a money play at some tables
Bearer: Yes
Liability: None: it is money

Tickets

Barcoded tickets printed by slot machines and kiosks (TITO, ‘ticket in, ticket out’). A ticket can be inserted into another machine as credits, or redeemed for cash at a kiosk or the cage. Each one is recorded by the slot system, and is a liability until it is redeemed or expires. Expiry matters: without it, every ticket left in a coat pocket would stay on the books for ever. In some jurisdictions, the value of expired tickets must be passed to the state rather than kept by the casino.

Plays a game: No
Bearer: Yes
Liability: The casino owes the holder

Chip purchase vouchers (CPVs)

Vouchers bought at the cage and exchanged for chips at a table. They keep cash off the tables, and they tie a chip purchase to a cage transaction, which helps with tracking and AML.

Plays a game: No
Bearer: Yes
Liability: The casino owes the holder

Cashless wallet

Funds held in a player’s account and reached with their membership card and a PIN. Money moves between the wallet and machines, the cage or a bank account. Because the wallet belongs to a named player, it carries their identity with every transaction.

Plays a game: No
Bearer: No: it is a named account
Liability: The casino owes the player

Markers

Credit. A marker is a signed IOU, much like a cheque, that gives a player chips on credit, to be repaid later or presented to their bank. Credit is restricted or prohibited in many jurisdictions, including Great Britain.

Plays a game: No
Bearer: No: it is signed by and owed by the player
Liability: The player owes the casino

Why it matters

Every change from one form to another is a transaction for the casino’s systems to record, and every form other than cash is a liability or an asset to account for. Expiry dates and redemption deadlines are what stop those liabilities growing indefinitely, and each one needs a rule in the system and, often, a report to the regulator.

The bearer forms are the hardest to attribute to a player, which is why so much of a casino’s AML effort goes into watching where cash, chips and tickets enter and leave.