Archive for June, 2009
Casino And $5,000 Chips Part2
June 8th, 2009
Gambling Today reported in their January 25, 1999 issue that so far five people have filed complaints about Binion's chip-cashing policies with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Former casino owner Bob Stupak is among the complainants. Stupak was turned away by the casino's cashiers, so next time he showed up flanked by an impressive entourage of supporters and media in order to put the casino on the spot, and force them to pay up. The result? He was turned away again! An anti-gambling activist to whom Stupak had given one of his chocolate chips also was unable to redeem it for cash.
I read in the Summer 1998 issue of The Intelligent Gambler of yet another customer run-in with a casino over the cashing of chips, and again the amount involved was $5,000.
Abdul Jalib, a resident of Las Vegas and a "professional gambler," writes about a friend of his who was playing blackjack at the MGM Grand casino for several days, losing steadily. At last his luck turned, and slowly but surely he hacked away so that finally he was even. At the cashier's cage he was asked where he won the money, and he explained that he won it little by little at tables all across the casino. The MGM Grand is a large place, with lots of blackjack tables, making his story entirely plausible —even common.
Incredibly, the cashier refused to cash his $5,000 in chips, and after a hassle she begrudgingly agreed to cash $2,500's worth. When he took the other $2,500 in chips to another cashier, the first cashier rushed over, screaming, "Don't cash those chips!" Only after the player went to see the casino manager and bitterly complained was he finally able to redeem the rest of his chips. Needless to say, he informed the manager in no uncertain terms that he would never ever again patronize the MGM Grand.
If it should happen to me, neither would I. And neither should you. If any casino becomes a hassle, avoid it and gamble elsewhere.
aren't like you and I. They number a scant few hundred, but they are the real meat-and-potatoes of big casino action. The gamblers I'm talking about make the fabled Nick the Greek look like a penny-ante player.
The majority of them are Asians who fly in on chartered jets with a retinue of bodyguards, mistresses, cooks, and interpreters. Whole baccarat pits are reserved just for them and are often specially redecorated to suit the tastes of these Very Special Players.
Casinos will go to extraordinary lengths to attract them. They wager in huge sums, and their limits at the tables can reach mind-boggling numbers. They are referred to in casino inner-circles as "whales."
Akio Kashiwagi was a whale. Baccarat was his game. According to a feature story in The National Enquirer, this High Roller literally broke the bank when he raked in $22 million from an Australian casino, and then followed up by winning another $12.2 million from one of Donald Trump's casinos. Trump successfully lured him into returning, and his casino was able to win back $10 million of it. But that didn't faze this Japanese jetter—he still had $24 million left in winnings when the smoke cleared.
Kashiwagi often brought $10 million as seed money, gambling for as long as fourteen hours a day. He took his gambling seriously, turning a large part of his mansion in Japan into a miniature casino, complete with baccarat table, dealer—even a cocktail waitress! When at home, he practiced ten-hours-a-day just "to keep in shape."
Kashiwagi was a wheeler-dealer in Japanese real estate, operating on the fringe of legitimacy. Finally his luck ran out, not at the tables but with his real estate dealings. When his house of cards collapsed, Kashiwagi committed suicide.
Kerry Packer, Australia's wealthiest man, is another whale who gambles for gigantic sums. He stuck it to Steve Wynn when he won a hefty six million bucks from his prize casino, the Mirage. His coup degrace occurred in 1996 when, in less then two hours, he beat the Las Vegas MGM Grand for almost $24 million. This adventurous Aussie—a casino owner himself in his native Australia—was betting as much as a quarter-of-a-million dollars a hand!
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Tags: Casino And $5,000 Chips
June 7th, 2009
Sounds far-fetched, I know. You've probably never even seen a $5,000 chip, let alone owned one. But here are three horror stories about $5,000 chips, one told to me, one that I witnessed, and one fairly recent episode I read about in a 1999 issue of Gambling Today.
The first instance happened on what was supposed to be a jolly and carefree, fun-filled junket to a Caribbean island casino. The husband, who gambled, took along his wife, who didn't. She was just eager to soak up a little winter sunshine.
While strolling through the casino the wife spied a chip on the floor and picked it up. To her amazement and delight it turned out to be a $5,000 chip. Now grandiose thoughts danced in her brain, like how she would surprise her husband with extravagant gifts, etc. Her dream turned into a nightmare when she went to the cashier's cage and tried to cash the $5,000 chip. Immediately the shift boss and the casino manager closed in on her, asking her exactly where she got the chip.
She wasn't a junketeer gambler known to them, and no one had ever seen her at the tables. She told them that she had found it, but that didn't satisfy the casino bosses. Without going into all the nasty by-play, I'll just say that she and her husband fled the island paradise, threatened with arrest! Truth be told, they probably were lucky to get out in one piece.
Another episode concerning a $5,000 chip happened on my watch recently at Caesars in Atlantic City. I was at a $25-minimum blackjack table, as is my wont. Sitting next to me was a young guy, who couldn't have been much older than eighteen, by law the age requirement for gambling in a New Jersey casino.
He pushed a chip toward the dealer for change—a $5,000 chip. The dealer froze and stopped the action. He immediately summoned the pit boss, who asked the kid a few questions and then called over the shift manager. Meanwhile all action at the table stopped.
After the shift manager had interrogated the kid, an impressive casino executive appeared, probably an assistant casino manager. He asked the youth for his ID and then wanted to know where he got the $5,000 chip. Still no action at the table. The lad explained—claimed—that his father had given him the $5,000 chip.
After a short sotto-voce conference between the three Caesar stooges, they pushed the chip back to the kid and told him to have his father bring it in. Red-faced and crestfallen, the kid left the table, and at last—the game went forward.
I relate these two $5,000 chip episodes, which occurred thousands of miles apart, to alert you to the perils of accepting high-denomination chips. I wonder what happens to the schnook who stumbles upon a $10,000 or a $25,000 chip.
In 1998 an entirely new set of problems arose over the $5,000 chip, this time in Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas. It appears that some very enterprising counterfeiter successfully cloned the casino's $5,000 chocolate chip, panicking the management. Hamid Dastmalchi, winner of the 1992 World Series of Poker, tried to redeem the five-grand chips for $815,000, but was rebuffed at the cashier's cage. The explanation he was given was that, with counterfeit chips in circulation, Binion's would only cash big-money chips they could verify as having been bought or won at the casino.
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