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.
For a similar reason, before leaving the table, a blackjack dealer will clap their hands and turn them up to show the eye in the sky that they are not palming a chip.
As a casino employee…valet driver…I am often tipped a poker chip or slot machine cashout voucher.
And every once in a while, that tip is completely uncashable at the casino, because said chip or voucher is at another casino, I’d have to travel across the city just to get to.
( Not to mention having to negotiate with that casino’s doormen so I can “just run in for five minutes” to cash in the chip or voucher.)
Also, vouchers have a time limit of one year: a $16.32 voucher from July 2024 is worth nothing today.
And a $25 chip from Foxwoods is worth nothing in Atlantic City.
From what I’ve read, casinos with the same parents in Vegas will honor chips from sibling casinos, but I’m sure there are limits. Casinos used to allow customers to turn in low amounts of chips from other casinos, but that practice has pretty much ended.