Do casinos periodically hold “yard sales,” where blackjack tables, roulette wheels, etc. are sold to the general public? What of no-longer-popular slot machines?
They give a lot of it away. I have several decks of cards, many dice, and a scattering of poker chips from several Vegas casinos; all of these items were given away “used” before they could acquire signs of wear; everything must look brand new, and they often go through many decks of cards every day.
Can’t say they ever offered me a roulette wheel as a souvenir, though.
Whatever method gets rid of it the fastest. For small things they typicaly give them away. For larger items like tables and such they are generaly just thrown out because it’s easier then trying to make arangments to have someone take it away.
A few trips to Vegas ago, there was a store in the mall under IIRC the Alladin which sold slot machines. State law varies, but many states allow you to own antiques, some as young as 25 years.
They had some really nice Double Diamonds for around $1,000.
No longer popular slot machine cabinets in many cases can be rekitted with new marquees and game software/hardware. I used to do this with arcade video games all the time. The guts of a video poker/slot machine are not all that different.
Blackjack tables and such could also be easily refinished, new padding tacked around the edges, new felt playfeilds. Such things are easily made and or stored in bulk, having a standard size blackjack table and spare playfeilds would almost be the norm I would think. A maintenance guy and an hour or two of work or go buy a whole new table including hauling it in and out?
Given the potential for cheating that putting casino-quality equipment in the hands of the general public presents, I’m very surprised to hear that a casino would give away cards or dice in like-new condition. Are you sure these aren’t souvenir pieces, dissimilar to those used on the gambling floor?
Don’t have a cite but I have been repeatedly told that they are retired from actual play. IIRC its not horribly uncommon for a craps attendant to replace a set of dice every so often to make sure that a tampered set does not stay in play long if they should slip in.
I know dice are normaly numbered sets. The table man periodicaly checks the dice to make sure no dice that don’t match make it in.
I’m not sure how they do cards lately. My father played cards on occasion. The used sets they gave away had a hole punched through the entire deck to prevent them from making it back in.
The cards might have been; there was no hole punched through them, but the cards seemed to be the same kind in play in the casino in the hotel I was in.
The dice are transparent red cubes, with printed-on dots instead of recessed pips, and the dice had sharp corners and edges. If they’d been tricked out, a blind man could have figured it out in seconds.
They’d changed the chip design; the ones they gave me were no longer in use in the casino.
They would be dissimilar, though they would have been used in play once.
The casino I worked in would “practically” give away used cards and dice. (I say “practically” because while the objects were technically free, the casino would strongly encourage the person who wanted such a souvenir to make a small donation to a local charity. Even just giving a dollar to the charity would get you a used deck of cards or pair of dice.) The cards themselves were rather nice: regular casino cards with big numbers and letters, thick and plastic-coated, with the casino name on the back. I have a few of those decks myself.
But the cards all had a hole drilled through them, and so did the dice (through the one-spot, IIRC). The holes were big enough to be seen by anybody in close proximity. While the holes would not affect a game of solitaire or bridge (with the cards) nor Monopoly (with the dice) in your home, such cards and dice would be immediately spotted if a player tried to introduce these souvenirs into play at a casino table.
I don’t recall hearing about anybody trying to cheat by using our casino’s souvenirs. The holes were that obvious. But the cards and dice had been used in actual play at our casino.
The packs of casino cards I have for souvenirs have two corners cropped. The sets of used casino dice I see on Ebay have been drilled (I think they call them cancelled) so they can’t be used. My ex-boss gave me a matched set of undrilled dice from The Sands, I guess he swiped them, I don’t know.
I prefer cropped cards to holed cards myself. Easier to deal with and less likely to stick together or for there to have been obvious damage to some of the other cards. (One casino deck I’ve got has a hole drilled through the deck and one of the aces is obvious because it’s not a clean hole.)
All the card decks I’ve gotten have been free, and either drilled or cropped. I wouldn’t really consider them “Equipment” in the same sense as roulete wheels and slot machines though.
Personally I consider them souvenirs or toys for my nieces and nephews. When I play a home game, I’ll stick with my KEMs.
KEMs are nice. If I had a home game, I’d buy a couple decks. As it is, they’re a little overkill to play solitare with.
If anybody knows where to get those built-in-table deck shufflers they use in poker rooms… those things are so quiet and quick.
Over on Industrial Drive is the Gambler’s Supply Shop. They sell lots of neato stuff like chips from long-gone casinos. I hope my link is correct, as the site itself is blocked by the local censors.
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If you like KEM cards, may I suggest Copag cards? They’re just as nice and quite a bit cheaper.
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My grandparents have what seems like fifty thousand decks from Harrah’s with those holes in them. They also have whole cases of little mini-bar liquor bottles, as well as a truly astonishing amount of other random stuff packaged in bulk. They’re weird.