A couple of months ago I won $18K on a cruise. I asked to be paid by check . I was told that they would see how much I had gambled over the whole cruise, subtract my losses from the $18K and if that number came to less than $10K , they could give me a check. I spent less than $1000 gambling before my win ( I was playing penny slots) so since my jackpot minus what I spent came to $17K plus , they insisted on paying me in cash. And I can’t figure out why. Some people I asked suggested it might have to do with money laundering, but that doesn’t really make any sense to me. The casino gave me a W2G so I would be able to account for how I got the check - although I’m not sure I ever would have needed to , as I didn’t get any further questions from the bank after " I won it at a casino on a cruise" . It wasn’t because they were hoping I would gamble it away because I got paid after they announced the casino was closing on the last night.
Just so I understand. Had your net winnings been less than $10K they’d have written you a check. But since they were more than $10K they gave you a big stack of real US currency with presidents on it? Is that correct?
Now that’s only 170 Benjamins, so not the sort of thing you need a wheeled cart to move. Even paid in Jacksons it’s only 850 bills which is a single stack only about 6-7" tall. But still that seems odd. As you say.
If returning from overseas carrying over $10K in cash or checks that’s supposed to be declared to US Customs. No difference there, so that’s not their reason.
Your depositing bank will have done a cash transaction report, which is routine and no cause for concern. Which they would not have done for a check, but that’s neither here nor there to the cruise line.
The only thing I can imagine is the policy is intended to encourage you to keep gambling. The fact you won at the last minute before the casino closed for the cruise was just luck. And their policy doesn’t have an exception for your particular accident of timing.
OTOH, if I suddenly have an extra $10 or $20K in cash in my cabin, I’m going to want to find a safer place to keep it. The cruise line sorta invites burglary or robbery by handing a big wad to somebody. Being a hotel (sort of), you’d expect the ship has a safe for customer valuables. But even so, by accepting those valuables they’re exposing themselves to risk when your valuable cash turns up missing from their safe later.
In all it seems a policy with more opportunity to go bad than good. And the $10K cutoff makes no sense at all.
Yep, that’s correct.
No, I didn’t win it then. I won it the day before. They wouldn’t pay me most of it until then - $3K right after I won and the rest just before the casino closed on the last night. I’m sure that was because they wanted me to lose some back.
Thanks. OK - color me baffled then. WTF is the idea behind that?
It’s probably just easier for the bookkeeper if it goes out in cash but that doesn’t explain the under $10k thing. I’m guessing there’s no real reason other than it was just easier for them to give you cash.
Maybe they don’t want to keep a lot of cash on hand. If due to luck or the mix of people paying/receiving cash they have a larger-than-usual amount of cash in the vault, they may want to get rid of it by pushing it onto big winners who wouldn’t otherwise want it.
Sorry if this has been said or implied, but if they pay you out more than $10K, do they have to report the winnings to the IRS? Maybe this is a favor to cruisers. (or something they don’t want to do)
IRS requires the casino give the customer a W-2G and report the same to the IRS for winnings in excess of $600. Regardless of the method of payout to the customer.
If I was being cynical, I would assume they are planning on having an unfortunate pirate raid shortly after they hand over the 17k in cash, and wouldn’t you know it? Those dastardly corsairs took your 17k, you really shouldn’t be carrying that kind of money on the high seas, you know its a lawless place 
Actually for slots it’s $1200 and for table games it’s some multiple of the wager and over $600
Probably to prevent money laundering.
Other people have suggested that to me but I don’t get how giving me a check facilitates money laundering or giving me cash prevents it. Do you know how that would work?
Sure. Okay, Money Laundering has three stages- * Placement.
- Layering.
- Integration/extraction.
Now, a drug dealer or other crook goes to a casino, and buys a bunch of chips with dirty cash. Plays a little, then asks for a check to cash out.
Now that dirty cash is a clean check. You want to turn cash into checks, or similar negotiable instruments. Exactly what you did. Yes, your amount of cash in was small, according to your OP, but still. CYA.
And see, you weren’t playing and losing a lot.
I think what’s confusing to me about that is that I wasn’t cashing in what was left on the machine including money I had put in. The cash or check was strictly for what I won on that one spin so it wouldn’t have been turning my cash into a check. The money I had put into the machine got cashed out separately, the same as it would have been if I hadn’t hit the jackpot.
And one more thing
Do not, repeat NOT play any funny games with depositing the money into your bank account. Like $9000 one week and $9000 the next, trying to avoid a CTR.
Do not worry about CTRs. They file 15Million of those each year, They are not reviewed by an actual person.
Sure, hold back a thou or two for a cash reserve if you like, but make one big deposit. You have a 1099 to show where the money came from, so there will not be any issues. Yes, your bank will file a CTR. Dont worry about it.
But if you do split the deposits, trying to avoid a CTR, then you have committed a Federal crime. Dont do it.
Yeah, thats fine, but all they care about is not getting into trouble with the IRS.
Oh, and congrats on the win!
How does that make any sense? A drug dealer could turn “dirty” cash into “clean” cash in that the cash from the casino now is associated with a W-2G. Any questions from further transactions can be traced back to the W-2G.
I did a search to see if anyone else had asked the same question but without success. I did find this:
Tax Withholding Rates
Some gambling cruise casinos will give you the opportunity to have taxes deducted from your winnings on the spot, while others give you the option of taking your full winnings and paying your own taxes later. According to the IRS, income tax on gambling winnings is 24 percent if you provide the payer with your Social Security number, or 31.58 percent if you do not provide Social Security information and later claim the winnings on your own.
Deducting Gambling Losses
You may be able to offset taxes owed on gambling wins on cruise ships by deducting gambling losses. Gambling losses must be documented and itemized to be considered valid, and the amount of losses claimed cannot exceed the dollar amount of reported gambling wins. Gambling losses can be deducted using IRS Form 1040, Schedule A, as a miscellaneous itemized deduction.
So if I rip off a major drug dealer for a million bucks in cash and deposit it in my passbook savings account nobody is going to blink? Then what is the purpose of the CRT in the first place?
Could it be for internal administration/accounting control reasons? E.g. checks over $10K require multiple signatures, or there’s a $10K limit to the size of a check anyone on the ship has authority to write, to eliminate some theft avenues?
Agreed! I can understand a strategy designed to keep you gambling but, as you said, the cutoff makes no sense because most people, when they win, win relatively small amounts . The first time I went to a Riverboat Casino, I won $70 dollars. WooHoo!! LOL