I won a fairly substantial amount of money at the MGM (on the Falcons!) and have 120 days to claim my winnings. I bet on a future weekend so can not cash out in person.
I signed the back of my ticket and sent it through first class mail.
Casino employees are not allowed to play against the house so they couldn’t mess with it. And having your name on the ticket goes a long way in preventing someone else from using it.
I think your bigger threat would be having the ticket get lost instead of stolen.
But like mentioned above, registered mail gets it into a casino employees hands and they would have too much at stake with their employer to mess with it.
I don’t know about other states but in Nevada this is not true. Most, but not all, casinos don’t allow employees to play house games like blackjack or craps but employees are free to bet on sports, play slots, etc. It is common for poker dealers to get up from dealing and take a seat at the table.