Sub $1 Vouchers

[RealsquirrelsParticipant]

Obviously this isn’t something that moves the needle on one’s bottom line enough to fret about, but out of curiosity what does everyone do with their spare change vouchers these days now that maybe 1 in 20 casinos actually has a change dispenser?

I suppose the only options are to hold it for next time, give a game a spin or take it to the cage. I refuse to leave it there and let the casino have even a cent more than I have to, I don’t want to deal with the cage for chump change and thought it best to avoid putting them in machines at -EV. So, I’ve been holding them for subsequent trips but half the time they expire and it’s a pain rifling through them each time I make a run.

Anyway, I’m now thinking jamming them in the nearest machine may be optimal when considering the amount of time I’ve wasted wrangling a bunch of .37 cent slips.

 

 

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

It’s so annoying, and they are banking on people to do just that: think it’s too much of a hassle to turn them in. Then they’ll have slot attendants go through the casino and collect these discarded tickets, whether they’re left in a machine or left elsewhere.

You can donate your ticket as you cash out at a kiosk, and the cynical side of me figures that’s a nice yearly tax write-off for the casino. But if there’s a charity that speaks to you (sometimes you’ll have options), by all means.

These small tickets can be useful if you want to check for plays on games such as Phoenix Link or Buffalo Link (which you can read about on those linked pages).

If I’m not saving a small ticket for that, it’s going to come down to a few factors. If it’s greater than 50¢, I’m too much of a grinder to just discard that. I’m going to the cage. I don’t care if I’m wasting time and could make more money by checking machines in the time it takes.

If I’m in Las Vegas for a week, let’s say, and I have a 35¢ ticket from Aria and I go there multiple times per day, I am going to stick the ticket in the back of my wallet and use it later. It’s a pain to be sure, as sometimes I’ll have 10-plus tickets piling up in there, but it’s the principle.

If we’re talking about 12¢ or something, yeah, I’ll probably just chuck it. I’ve seen some folks give them to people actively on machines. That’s not a bad idea, either. I’d feel a little weird giving someone 12¢, but hey, it’s better than the alternative.

You can probably tell that I’ve given this a lot of thought over the years haha. It grinds my gears that they rarely just dispense coins from the kiosk.

[Short Coin CharlieParticipant]

• If you use a 37c ticket to check Phoenix Link and Buffalo Link meters, then it will only cost 37c (instead of $1) the times when you accidentally hit the “Press Buffalo” button. Plus when you check these games using an odd amount, sometimes (when you circle back a few hours later) you can tell that nobody’s played or checked a bank of machines since your four cashouts of 37c. You couldn’t be sure of this if you were using a $1 ticket to check. This would be helpful if trying to gauge traffic on the casino floor where you play 
• I always keep at least one small change slip in my wallet as a divider between 100s and 20s, doing this makes mistakes less likely when I’m pulling out money
• Of course every now and then I’m about to cash out a ticket for something like $199.63 and lo and behold, a 37c ticket is the one between the bills in my wallet…

[King of HeartsParticipant]

Personally, I either keep them for checker tickets or take them to the cage. Cashiers get paid to be bothered with my coin, and the casino does not get to keep a penny of my money. Besides, eventually, all that extra coin adds up to paper money, and singles keep the cocktail waitresses and slot floors happy.

[Village WolfParticipant]

I’m so cheap that I collect them. Sometimes there will be $5 worth just sitting on the top of a bill changer.

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

^ I used to do that back in the day, but I’d advise against that, especially if you’re playing advantage slots. The casino could boot you. It would be exceedingly rare, I’m sure, but I’ve heard of it happening before.

[Short Coin CharlieParticipant]

One other thing I’ve noticed that seems to be popular outside the AP community, is that some people like to get angry and then tear these tickets into confetti-sized pieces, and leave them for the cleaning crew to pick up

[Nicholas ReedParticipant]

One of my local spots gives you the chump change ticket, and it’s not possible to stick it to a machine in the future. So I just have a stack of 23c tickets in a pile on my dresser. At the end of the year I’m going to cash them in for like $20 or whatever. I go pretty often and it’s annoying I can’t use them in a machine. I too, feel like they shouldn’t get a dime of my money.

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

Something sort of related happened to me recently: I forgot which casino, but I needed to show ID when cashing in a ticket under $1.

I’d imagine if I came with a pile of tickets, that might have caused an issue, as they might have assumed I went around the casino looking for vouchers. Although if I were doing such a thing, I’d just combine them all in a machine anyway.

Maybe it’s more if you keep coming in throughout the day with like 50 of these tickets. Or maybe they figure a homeless person might not have ID, or perhaps it’s just to identify someone like that so they can keep better tabs on everyone.

[King of HeartsParticipant]

On Ben Rosenthal said

Something sort of related happened to me recently: I forgot which casino, but I needed to show ID when cashing in a ticket under $1.

I’d imagine if I came with a pile of tickets, that might have caused an issue, as they might have assumed I went around the casino looking for vouchers. Although if I were doing such a thing, I’d just combine them all in a machine anyway.

Maybe it’s more if you keep coming in throughout the day with like 50 of these tickets. Or maybe they figure a homeless person might not have ID, or perhaps it’s just to identify someone like that so they can keep better tabs on everyone.

That’s exactly what it is. In Vegas, particularly on Fremont Street, homeless folks go around and cash out money left in machines, and very few of them have ID. Many of them are also aware of the principles taught here, although their entry points leave much to be desired. Having the cashier check ID before redeeming a sub-$1 voucher is an easy way to keep the homeless people from coming up on the money actual players leave behind, although it’s by no means a perfect solution. Gathering enough tickets, sticking them all in a machine, and then cashing out a voucher over $1 would defeat that, but most homeless people also have addiction issues, and they’d be more likely to play what they’ve gathered in desperate hope of getting lucky and scoring some drug money than cashing out a $1+ voucher. Video keno is a common game for homeless folks for precisely that reason; if you see a rather disheveled individual playing video keno, there is a .90+ probability that said individual is a homeless drug addict.

[Short Coin CharlieParticipant]

On Ben Rosenthal said

You can donate your ticket as you cash out at a kiosk, and the cynical side of me figures that’s a nice yearly tax write-off for the casino. But if there’s a charity that speaks to you (sometimes you’ll have options), by all means.

 

I know of one exception – a casino where I play often enough, just recently, they started offering you the option to donate your change. And if you donate, they kiosk also asks if you would like a receipt for your donation. A receipt for a potential 12c donation is something I want even less than a 12c casino ticket, but at least they are offering everyone a chance at their piece of the nice yearly tax write-off…

[Ben RosenthalKeymaster]

Interesting stuff. Who knew this would be one of the more popular topics!

[RealsquirrelsParticipant]

Just to pile on to the grossness of the casinos trying to extract every penny from people, I recently saw a place that the default donation option on the voucher machine was to the tribe that runs the casino. Hopefully they actually do something decent with it instead of just more to the execs but thats some shameless shit.

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