I rarely gamble but recently I did and won some money on a slot machine. I pressed the cash-out button and it printed me a coupon. I took that to the cashier and tried to hand it to her. She told me to put it on the counter. She would not take it from my hand.
It happened a second time too (I am a slow learner) so not just her being weird but apparently a rule in the casino.
No biggie but…why?
In my experience, you basically can never hand anything of monetary value directly to any casino worker (or vice versa). Even at the table games, chips, cash, vouchers, etc. must all be placed down on the table first. I always assumed this helps the folks monitoring the cameras see everything. Hand to hand transfers could hide things.
That’s also my guess. It’s so the cameras record what it is you’re cashing. It protects you from dishonest cashiers, but it also protects the cashiers from dishonest guests who claim that the cashier somehow palmed part of what you’re cashing. (This is, of course, more relevant for chips than for coupons, but once you have such a policy it makes sense to extend it to everything.)
It also helps if the customer and cashier are in cahoots. Pulling some sleight of hand stuff would be a lot easier if they were both in on it. Customer hands in a stack of chips that’s less than claimed, cashier hands back a stack of cash that’s greater than claimed, and the cameras can’t see it.
I collect $1 or €1 chips from casinos, typically by walking up to an empty or very quiet table and buying one from the dealer. Everywhere I’ve been they ask you to put the money on the table, then they select a nice looking chip and put it down on the table for me to pick up.