I merged this thread into an existing discussion of the staff report in question. And we’ve got a fix coming for the “federal offense” line.
Yeah, fix should be made shortly. It’s basically written by a Brit who didn’t catch the complexities of overlapping law systems, and not caught by the American proof-reader. The term “federal offense” was used in the generic sense and we’ll amend it.
While casinos would probably like you to leave with your chips, it is a very bad idea. I’m unsure if I’ve seen signs in Detroit casinos or something like that, but casinos in Detroit (and probably most places) are required to have a second set of differently colored chips in case of a large theft of chips. If you legally walked chips off the premises and then tried to redeem them after they had to switch chips, you’d potentially be a a bit of trouble. Of course, it’s highly unlikely for a theft to actually occur, but the point remains.
Additionally, a few years back a Detroit casino ran extremely low on 25 cent chips because (so it was said) people wouldn’t bother cashing them in when they were down to just a few paltry chips, not give them to the dealers as tips (like at least I would and have done in the past), and not return with them. Since 25 cent chips are used in so few games and players only would have up to 3 at a time, there weren’t many in the casino in total; those games they were used in (Baccarat and Pai-Gow Poker from memory) had to often cut down the commission they took out of winnings so as to not overcharge people compared to when they had the 25 cent chips available.
edit: what I said in the OP applies only to Detroit casinos as well.
Illegal gambling debts, like any other illegal contract, are not legally enforceable. Gambling is legal in Las Vegas so those debts most certainly are enforceable.
I cannot swear to the present-day state of affairs in Nevada, but it is an old principle of Common Law that gambling debts cannot be recovered at law. But counterfeiting chips and cashing them in is plain ol’ fraud – gambling isn’t involved.
The Mob: I read a history of gambling in Nevada some years ago and the author asserted that the smartest thing the Nevada Gaming Commission had ever done was allow corporations to get gaming licenses. Licensees have to have a background check and up until 1978 (?) for a corporation, every single shareholder had to be vetted before the license would be granted. This was not practical for a large corporation so as a consequence most of your casino owners were eccentric individuals like Bill Harrah or Howard Hughes, of shady individuals like Bugsy Siegal or Meyer Lansky. after that date the Commission decided that publically traded corporations were examined pretty closely by other regulatory agencies, so only those stockholders holding 5% or more would need to be vetted. That, plus action on the Federal level pretty pushed organized crime out the Nevada gambling scene.
Slot machine tokens: Each club has its own alloy (Mostly copper and nickel) and in theory the machines can be adjusted to accept that only that club’s tokens and reject others. In practice it’s far too easy to set the machine too tight and get a lot of false rejections. Both the clubs I worked at had loosened things up so pretty much anybody’s tokens were accepted. We would get them by the bucket-load from the club across the road, far fewer from Reno and an occasional one from Las Vegas and points south. Every few months when enough of the Reno tokens had accumulated, smebody would travel up there to cash them in. I never heard of a counterfeit token showing up, but we did get one from the Stardust casino in Las Vegas – six years after it had closed. We didn’t have any $5 ot $10 tokens; I imagine things would be tighter on those.
Taking checks from the club: If I was expecting to come back soon, I’d walk out of a club with a pocketful of checks all the time if there was a line at the cage and I didn’t want to wait. I’d also keep the occasional souvenir $1 check if it looked interesting. I don’t know how much the checks cost the club, but it it’s less than a buck the club would be happy: free money. If it’s say, two or three dollars a check, the club might get fussy if you walk out with dozens of the things.
Ditto. IIRC, it was three $25 slot tokens, so it was $75 he walked away from.
Pursuant to the crime, I also recall that the NJ authorities found out who he was, tailed him to his Rhode Island residence and went to a Rhode Island judge to get a search warrant for the equipment, set up an arrest - - only to be told that (at the time) it wasn’t a crime in Rhode Island to make counterfeit casino tokens. 
So the authorities had to catch the perpetrator in the act. Or at least in their own state holding some evidence 
I would likea cite on this. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I have a book by a man who lives in Vegas making his money by gambling and he says otherwise. In fact, he says it happens all the time, just not enough to hurt profits. The book might be out of date ior plain wrong, but I’d like a cite on it.
My first trip to Vegas I kept a chip (I can’t remember of it was a $1 or $5) as a good luck charm, and as sort of a “now I have to go back to Vegas to spend this” thing. For a number of years I had a tradition of always making my first bet with the chip I’d brought home from the last trip, and keeping a chip from my last bet for my next trip. Later I stopped doing this because I wasn’t always staying at the same casino any more.
Quote: Originally Posted by hajario
Illegal gambling debts, like any other illegal contract, are not legally enforceable. Gambling is legal in Las Vegas so those debts most certainly are enforceable.
I’m not a casino so let’s see if I can not make a fool of myself (and hope somebody more knowledgeable than I will explain it better).
A casino doesn’t accept a wager based on a promise to pay, the patron must offer cash or a cash equivalent before the game begins: cash, tokens, checks/chips. A casino might advance a patron checks/chips in the form of a marker but it is written up as a postdated check/loan/IOU and the patron’s creditworthiness is investigated before the casino presents the marker.
If the patron is a winner at the end of their gambling session, they pay off/settle the marker (doesn’t include interest as I understand it); if the patron is loser at the end of their gaming session, they are obligated to pay off/settle the marker under the terms they agreed to when they obtained the marker.
It makes sense that a casino will advance a creditworthy patron funds to gamble because it keeps the patron in that casino and the odds favor the casino in the long run; so the more times a patron puts money in play, the greater the odds are that the casino will come out ahead.
Because it is not a gambling debt, the marker/loan/IOU from the casino is as enforceable as one from a bank
Well, that’s where my source differs - he claimed that (at least as late at mid-90’s), offering markers was very common for even everyday guests, and that this practice was not legally enforceable. In fact, he says it’s not enforceable on the casino, either. But, the Nevada Gaming Commission (he wasn’t as familiar with Atlantic City or non-NV casinos, so it wasn’t sure for there) would pull the license of a casino which refused the pay. But they never would have to pay if they didn’t want to.
A couple of data points: As of the late 90s, California courts were somewhat split as to whether a Nevada casino could sue a gambler in California over gambling debts, but the trend was against enforcement. It was definitely the case, though, that the casino could sue the debtor in Nevada, get a judgment, and have that judgment enforced in any state.
In 2003, a bankruptcy appellate panel for the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appeals court that covers most western states, ruled that a Nevada casino could bring claims for gambling debts in a California debtor’s bankruptcy, even though California law disfavored enforcement of gambling debts, because Nevada law governed that transaction.
This past summer, the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appeals court that covers Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, similarly ruled that a Nevada casino could bring claims for gambling debts in a Wisconsin debtor’s bankruptcy, even though Wisconsin law forbids gambling, because Nevada law governed that transaction.
A quick search for counterfeit casino tokens will find you several news stories about people being arrested. One story mentions up to $35000 and methods of converting chips to higher denominations using glue and glitter (!!??).
I recall hearing the story too, about the guys from Connecticut who made tokens for Atlantic City casinos not long after they opened. They were so good one casino didn’t catch on until they realized there were too many chips in the system. They tracked it down with video surveillance, but apparently there was no law against counterfeiting NJ casino tokens in Conneticut at the time.
The guys eevntually got greedy and tried to make one last payday. They were caught in the casino parking garage in NJ with a trunk full of fake tokens. It is against the law in NJ.
As a side note - there was also the case of the guys in Buffalo making fake transit tokens for the Toronto Transit Commission. Again, pretty good; it took a while for them to catch on. At $2+ a ride, you can see it’s quick money and a lot easier to unload tokens to 4 million people than to one casino. Again, the authorities figured out who it was - I forget if they got charged in NY, but the Canadians arrested anyone they could get their hands on. Plus - it cost big bucks to switch the fares to a different more secure system.
Casinos do not win them all. They lost a case in Windsor, Ontario against a card counter. They wanted damages and penalties. But the judge ,when he found out counters lose as well as win, threw it out. He said they were trying to get rid of people who play well. But they can still get rid of them by refusing them service. No punishment, but they can ban them from playing.
Are you sure the guy is writing about Vegas? Gambling debts in the UK have a special status - gambling is legal but the debt is was traditionally not legally enforceable. Ladbrokes makes you pay up front; you have to rely on their good business sense that they will not refuse to pay out. And they don’t, generally.
I believe this might have changed in 2007.
See the following
As it says in your own quote, the rule that gambling debts were not enforceable long applied to most common-law jurisdictions, which includes the US at the Federal level and all the states except Louisiana. But that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have changed, especially, God knows, in Nevada. (And I have no idea what the rule is in Louisiana, either.)
This legal rule is the reason that “debt of honor” was a long-standing euphemism for “gambling debt”.
This article sounded like it was written by a casino PR rep.
Indeed. For some reason I was under the impression the law had already been changed away from the common law in the US. Hence the ability to place bets on credit over here. I hadn’t considered the possibility that a marker at a casino would not be considered a gambling debt, rather than just a regular loan.
I thought that there was no federal common law? If so, the rule wouldn’t apply at the federal level unless it was actually set out in a federal statute?
Which wouldn’t prevent a federal court from applying the case in a diversity case, where the federal courts apply the relevant state law.
There’s not federal common law in diversity cases, but there is federal common law: Home - Northwestern University Law Review
It’s . . . . complicated. 
True. In a diversity case, the court applies the choice of law rule of the forum state. http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/55/55.F3d.1365.94-2474.html which will require the application of some state’s law.