Table games pay in chips, and chips become currency only at the cage. It also handles markers, cheque cashing, safe deposit and large transactions.
Cash transactions above a reporting threshold, $10,000 in the United States, are reported to the authorities, and deliberately structuring transactions to stay below the threshold is a separate offence from anything to do with gambling.
Practical note: chips are generally only redeemable at the property that issued them, and often only in the specific denomination series in circulation. Chips left in a pocket from a previous trip are not always spendable.
Practical timing matters more than people expect. Cage queues are longest at shift changes and after large events finish, and some properties limit large cash redemptions outside main hours. If you are carrying a significant amount in chips, cashing before the room empties rather than after is the difference between five minutes and forty.
Related terms in casino floor
- Commission — A percentage charged on winning bets that would otherwise favour the player.
- Push — A tie in which the bet neither wins nor loses and the stake is returned.
- Natural — A hand that wins immediately on the first cards dealt.
- Shoe — The box holding several shuffled decks from which cards are dealt.
- Cut card — A coloured plastic card placed in the shoe to mark where dealing stops.
- Penetration — The proportion of a shoe dealt before the reshuffle.
Where an entry quotes a number, that figure comes from the computed sections of this site rather than from another glossary, so the definition and the derivation cannot drift apart. Each entry links to the page where the number is worked out.