Why don’t more casinos have self pay for jackpots?

Self pay for jackpots seems like a no brainer.

You hit a hand-pay type in your pin and keep playing. This has been out for awhile now but why are so few casinos offering this option?

It saves the casino money for labor costs, especially now when there is a labor shortage. It keeps the machines in action longer instead of being shut down for 20 plus minutes.

No more tipping for hand pays. Should make everyone happy. Players don’t have to worry about tipping or tip shaming. Money that would go to employees in form of tip is cycled back through machine instead and exposed to house edge should make the casino happy.

Would encourage bigger bets. Sometimes I avoid high bets I would otherwise make at a casino with self pay as I don’t want to wait 20 minutes for a $1200 handpay and $20 tip on a $50 slot bet.

So why isn’t everybody doing this now?

I suspect that eventually everybody will in the longterm, 5 to 10 years out or more. But why have casinos been so slow to adopt this?

I'd have to guess cost to implement. I'd assume some older systems don't have it in the programming to even be able to do that.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

I'd have to guess cost to implement. I'd assume some older systems don't have it in the programming to even be able to do that.

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Reasonable assumption. You would think though that in all but the smallest casinos cost savings would easily dwarf cost to implement.

There was a medium sized casino a couple of years ago that put self pay in place and they went from having 5 - 8 slot attendants on the floor to having 1-2 on the floor during slow times, and 3-4 during busy times.

I believe it has a lot to do with the plops wanting to see and hear "jackpots" around the casino. A lot of meatballs think just because someone is getting a handpay that the machines are loose and paying better. Most rational people would be in favor of this being implemented.

Do new casinos like Resorts World have this?

If it's not cost of implementation as Mission said I really have no idea.

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Originally Posted by Ozzy

I believe it has a lot to do with the plops wanting to see and hear "jackpots" around the casino. A lot of meatballs think just because someone is getting a handpay that the machines are loose and paying better. Most rational people would be in favor of this being implemented.

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Possible. With self pay people still see and hear the jackpots, just nit the floor coming around to do handpays.

If a casino wanted people to see a lot of jackpots, they could just have shills run around and do $100 bets all over the place.

In fact there is a small funky tribal casino that I follow on twitter.

They always tweet pictures of handpays and when I look closely at the pictures, they are always on $1 Ainsworths or Konami’s where the bet was $50 or $100 so the handpay is not a large mulitple of the bet.

This casino is in a poor rural area, so it always makes me wonder if these are real or if there just doing these themselves,

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Originally Posted by smurgerburger

Do new casinos like Resorts World have this?

If it's not cost of implementation as Mission said I really have no idea.

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I could be wrong be I think I recall they do.

If not I think I recall on Druffs show them talking about how they had the reserve feature there so you could lock the machine up yourself with your players card to run to the bathroom.

Being able to self reserve your machine for a few minutes or more is another feature that is often found at casinos with self pay,

This is yet another thing that saves the casino on labor costs, is more convenient to the customer than having to find and tip an attendant to hold machine and is another absolute no brainer that very few places are doing.

I suppose it's an exercise in futility to think that the reporting threshold will ever be increased from $1200.

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Originally Posted by tableplay

I suppose it's an exercise in futility to think that the reporting threshold will ever be increased from $1200.

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I often have the same thought.

Unfortunately slot machine and video poker players don’t have a very strong lobby in Washington otherwise it might be a different story……

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Originally Posted by tableplay

I suppose it's an exercise in futility to think that the reporting threshold will ever be increased from $1200.

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Should be at minimum 3k, 5k would be a pipe dream that will never happen !

I wonder whether a casino, preferably a tribal joint, would allow a player who won a small handpay, let's call it $1200.00, to accept less than that in order to avoid having it reported to the IRS?

I'd be happy to pocket $1100.00 instead of #1300.00 if it didn't automatically get reported via W-2G.

A win - win for both sides.

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Originally Posted by MisterV

I wonder whether a casino, preferably a tribal joint, would allow a player who won a small handpay, let's call it $1200.00, to accept less than that in order to avoid having it reported to the IRS?

I'd be happy to pocket $1100.00 instead of #1300.00 if it didn't automatically get reported via W-2G.

A win - win for both sides.

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Yes or perhaps accepting $1200 in free play instead of $1200 cash for example. I speculate your example is very rare, but not non-existent.

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Originally Posted by MisterV

I wonder whether a casino, preferably a tribal joint, would allow a player who won a small handpay, let's call it $1200.00, to accept less than that in order to avoid having it reported to the IRS?

I'd be happy to pocket $1100.00 instead of #1300.00 if it didn't automatically get reported via W-2G.

A win - win for both sides.

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That would be structuring. The Biden administration is trying to enact a requirement for banks to report all transactions of $600 or more. If that happens then casinos will have to comply as well ...RIP

There is a reason the IRS is hiring 87k more workers. Shit is about to go full commie lockdown.

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Originally Posted by MisterV

I wonder whether a casino, preferably a tribal joint, would allow a player who won a small handpay, let's call it $1200.00, to accept less than that in order to avoid having it reported to the IRS?

I'd be happy to pocket $1100.00 instead of #1300.00 if it didn't automatically get reported via W-2G.

A win - win for both sides.

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I’ve joked before at Tribal casinos, just give me $1199 and no W2G & keep the rest and we’ll call it even.

They are always like uh huh huh, no sorry we can’t do that.

As much as people complain about tribal casinos being unregulated I think that stems from being largely unregulated only in terms of abusing players, lawsuits etc.

Too lazy to look for it right now, but I believe I read once that they are actually quite tightly regulated in terms of federal tax reporting requirements, CTRs, & all that kind of stuff.

The Gubment don’t care about them abusing players, but they do care very much about getting their own money.

I certainly don't think they will change it anytime soon but you would think they would realize it is different if someone is betting 125 dollars per hand on video poker compared to someone betting 1 dollar and 25 cents per hand.
I'm all for Free Play as tableplay has suggested.
The Plaza did that years ago when they ran the Double Royal Promotion so when you hit your Match Royal you could take Free Play and avoid the paperwork.
I've been in other situations like that as well but its rare these days.
I know that Stations have to get approval from Corporate to add any free play to your account, so its a pain but I have had them give me Special Free Play Days.
I've had Casinos make up Free Play Days that I missed that were on my calendar as well but that's a different issue.

On Topic with this thread... Fast Pay is pretty sweet.

About asking the Casino to pay you LESS, I remember asking on another Gambling Website something like," Can you ask the Casino to pay you LESS if you hit a Jackpot but left your ID at home, like if you won $1200, can you just ask them to pay you $1100 and keep the $100?" The answer was something like,"The Casino won't agree to pay you LESS. They would hold The Jackpot for you until you can get your ID. "

I have a seemingly simple solution: allow self-pay of jackpots in high limit rooms only, as that is where they'll most likely occur.

Keep the handpays on the main floor where they are less common and that is where the ploppies can see the flashing lights, hear the bells, and envy the staff counting out the hundered dollar bills to the winner.

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Originally Posted by MisterV

I have a seemingly simple solution: allow self-pay of jackpots in high limit rooms only, as that is where they'll most likely occur.

Keep the handpays on the main floor where they are less common and that is where the ploppies can see the flashing lights, hear the bells, and envy the staff counting out the hundered dollar bills to the winner.

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Good idea,

In fact I know of a couple of casinos that do exactly that. The Atlantis in Reno for one.

One stumbling block: how to generate and deliver the required W2-G to the bettor?

I suppose the solution is to have the casino mail it to his LKA, as opposed to delivering it to him on the gaming floor.

E-Mail?

I take that back. I just thought of a way that could get messy, and it has nothing to do with hacking or data breeches.

Mr. V's idea of self pay being only for High Limit and letting the manual Handpay being only for the normal Casino area is a good idea in Theory, but self pay should be for EVERYBODY, considering how many Vultures there are in Casinos. I was playing a game and near me, I personally saw a crowd SWARM near a Machine when a Player just minding his business got like 8 or 9 Quick Hit Symbols on a Quick Hit Game and the Machine started BLARING his Winning business, flashing and basically screaming,"Big Winner! Big Winner!" He looked troubled as the crowd swarmed near him to see. He seemed to be thinking,"Great. Now a whole bunch of Random People I don't even know now know that I got a $5,000 win! I'm going to get harassed for this money!" He CLEARLY didn't want the crownld to now that he won $5,000. A machine that you can manually turn off the sound and self pay would be beyond ideal.

That is not what we mean when we use the term, "Vulture."

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Originally Posted by MisterV

One stumbling block: how to generate and deliver the required W2-G to the bettor?

I suppose the solution is to have the casino mail it to his LKA, as opposed to delivering it to him on the gaming floor.

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They mail it, or deliver electronically.

You don’t really need copies anyway for self pay since self pay is only available if you don’t withhold taxes.

When you file your taxes you only need to submit copies of W2Gs that have had taxes withheld.

For W2Gs that have no taxes taken out, you need to know the total amount of payouts you received with W2Gs but you do not need to submit copies of these with your tax returns.

I don't know why self pay would have to be limited to situations where no taxes are taken out.

Should be easy enough to have an option for tax withholding, and then allow the bettor to enter the dollar amount he wants withheld.

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Originally Posted by MisterV

I don't know why self pay would have to be limited to situations where no taxes are taken out.

Should be easy enough to have an option for tax withholding, and then allow the bettor to enter the dollar amount he wants withheld.

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I don’t know why they couldn’t have models come out and pleasure us too whenever we hit a hand pay but for the moment I would just be happy if more casinos started offering self pay at all to avoid the tips and long waits.

Self pay is always screwy. I don't think I've seen it ever offered on the main floor, only in high limit. Even in HL, a lot of machines are screwy and it doesn't even work on them. Of the machines where it does work, occasionally it'll just fuck up randomly. Even when it's advertised in HL, lots of people don't even do it. Hell, most people in HL aren't even playing "high" limit stuff where handpays are common. You'll see people playing shit like $1 5-play. They may hit one handpay (AWAK, RF, or dealt quads) for the session...2 if they're lucky.

Only one place I've played where you are just automatically set to self-pay, the other places you have to tell them before you start your session that you want self pay enabled for your session. So it is or can be a hassle, especially if you don't hit any jackpots. You find a slot dog, tell them you want to do self-pay / fast-pay / whatever, half the time they're like, "what is that? huh?". Eventually they'll print out an empty w2g for you to sign. Then at the end of the session, you tell them to close you out and they'll print up your finalized w2g, you sign it, and you're on your way. The only place I've played where you're automatically setup for self-pay (not having to tell them before each session), they didn't even give me a fucking w2g. They were supposed to email one to me, but never did.


Even on the main floor -- look around. A vast majority of people are not playing something where they can even realistically get a w2g. Are they going to setup self-pay just for that one time a year, if that, that they hit a monster bonus round on $0.50/spin and trigger a w2g? No.

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Originally Posted by RS__

Self pay is always screwy. I don't think I've seen it ever offered on the main floor, only in high limit. Even in HL, a lot of machines are screwy and it doesn't even work on them. Of the machines where it does work, occasionally it'll just fuck up randomly. Even when it's advertised in HL, lots of people don't even do it. Hell, most people in HL aren't even playing "high" limit stuff where handpays are common. You'll see people playing shit like $1 5-play. They may hit one handpay (AWAK, RF, or dealt quads) for the session...2 if they're lucky.

Only one place I've played where you are just automatically set to self-pay, the other places you have to tell them before you start your session that you want self pay enabled for your session. So it is or can be a hassle, especially if you don't hit any jackpots. You find a slot dog, tell them you want to do self-pay / fast-pay / whatever, half the time they're like, "what is that? huh?". Eventually they'll print out an empty w2g for you to sign. Then at the end of the session, you tell them to close you out and they'll print up your finalized w2g, you sign it, and you're on your way. The only place I've played where you're automatically setup for self-pay (not having to tell them before each session), they didn't even give me a fucking w2g. They were supposed to email one to me, but never did.


Even on the main floor -- look around. A vast majority of people are not playing something where they can even realistically get a w2g. Are they going to setup self-pay just for that one time a year, if that, that they hit a monster bonus round on $0.50/spin and trigger a w2g? No.

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Valid points, but a lot of higher rollers the most profitable customers for the casino play stuff like $1 Ainsworth’s & Konami's or $5 denom machines with $10 to $20 bets or more standard & these are the people that hit a lot of handpays.

Sure people who do .30 cent bets aren’t going to need self pay, but outside of the high limit rooms even most of the new penny machines now are coming out with $6, $7.50, $8.80 or more max bets so even regular players that like to max bet are hitting a lot more handpays now.

The casinos that jump on self pay first are going to have an edge in both attracting bigger bet players and reducing labor costs.

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Originally Posted by Mission146

That is not what we mean when we use the term, "Vulture."

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I was using "Vultures," as in "Leeches." I know that "Vultures," is more like People who wait for Ploppies who will leave a bunch of multipliers open on a Ultimate X machine and take advantage of that or worse trick them off the machine in the first place. I remember a Culture in that term saying something like,"A Ploppy had a bunch of Multipliers on an Ultimate X machine. I claimed that another Machine was hot and had been giving out at least 5 Jackpots just that day and he should try it." He took my "good advice," and went to the other machine. I sat down and played his Multipliers and won big money off of his Multipliers.

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Originally Posted by Tasha

I was using "Vultures," as in "Leeches." I know that "Vultures," is more like People who wait for Ploppies who will leave a bunch of multipliers open on a Ultimate X machine and take advantage of that or worse trick them off the machine in the first place. I remember a Culture in that term saying something like,"A Ploppy had a bunch of Multipliers on an Ultimate X machine. I claimed that another Machine was hot and had been giving out at least 5 Jackpots just that day and he should try it." He took my "good advice," and went to the other machine. I sat down and played his Multipliers and won big money off of his Multipliers.

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That would still not usually be considered a vulture, though I'm sure you know that.

I suspect a casino knows how much money this will cost their attendants in tips and they're afraid of employee loss and other unintended consequences. On a higher level, we also don't know if the IRS will be happy. Truthfully with this system, abuse and fraud could happen. I'm not personally aware of the real world details of the system, so I am speculating based on what and how the system works to my assumptions. I'd predict people would pay to use another's card just to avoid tax headaches. People would 100% be committing a crime and a conspiracy, but if a casino didn't care, they wouldn't care. Then things would get out of hand.

So what happens then? Patrons become criminals inside the casino and the casino has to have crime occur at the casino. Then casinos would be barring their own good customers who were too greedy to just be greedy enough to gamble in the casino. I assume it would be perjury the gamblers would commit hitting a button on a screen to self-pay the jackpot. People could even commit this crime not knowing it is a crime. People always want to have someone else claim a jackpot usually for financial reasons(such as owing child support or taxes and also possibly be excluded.) They also want the money to go to the other they are "playing for". Since the casino considers the button pusher the winner, the IRS would not like not knowing who actually won.

I just don't see how casinos can pull this off on a wide scale because there 99 many problems, but a bitch ain't one.

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Originally Posted by Tasha

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Originally Posted by Mission146

That is not what we mean when we use the term, "Vulture."

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I was using "Vultures," as in "Leeches." I know that "Vultures," is more like People who wait for Ploppies who will leave a bunch of multipliers open on a Ultimate X machine and take advantage of that or worse trick them off the machine in the first place. I remember a Culture in that term saying something like,"A Ploppy had a bunch of Multipliers on an Ultimate X machine. I claimed that another Machine was hot and had been giving out at least 5 Jackpots just that day and he should try it." He took my "good advice," and went to the other machine. I sat down and played his Multipliers and won big money off of his Multipliers.

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So if I get this right, Tasha is a creator? That's how the word is used, right? Really low-level scummy moves Tasha. Worse than credit hustling TBH.

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Originally Posted by theywontpayontuesday

I suspect a casino knows how much money this will cost their attendants in tips and they're afraid of employee loss and other unintended consequences. On a higher level, we also don't know if the IRS will be happy. Truthfully with this system, abuse and fraud could happen. I'm not personally aware of the real world details of the system, so I am speculating based on what and how the system works to my assumptions. I'd predict people would pay to use another's card just to avoid tax headaches. People would 100% be committing a crime and a conspiracy, but if a casino didn't care, they wouldn't care. Then things would get out of hand.

So what happens then? Patrons become criminals inside the casino and the casino has to have crime occur at the casino. Then casinos would be barring their own good customers who were too greedy to just be greedy enough to gamble in the casino. I assume it would be perjury the gamblers would commit hitting a button on a screen to self-pay the jackpot. People could even commit this crime not knowing it is a crime. People always want to have someone else claim a jackpot usually for financial reasons(such as owing child support or taxes and also possibly be excluded.) They also want the money to go to the other they are "playing for". Since the casino considers the button pusher the winner, the IRS would not like not knowing who actually won.

I just don't see how casinos can pull this off on a wide scale because there 99 many problems, but a bitch ain't one.

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Since many casinos are already doing this, doubtful the IRS has a problem with it or it wouldn’t be allowed in the first place.

Sure it could be abused, but when a casino doesn’t have self pay the system can still easily be abused by having someone else claim the jackpot (assuming the casino doesn’t check with surveillance on handpays) or having someone else spin. All the IRS cares about from a legal standpoint is that if a $1200 or more handpay is hit is that the tax form is issued and assigned to someone so they can tax that income.

The tips thing is very valid though. I’ve asked some casinos if they are planning to get it and the loss of tip income is a big concern to them.

It’s a poor excuse though because making a customer wait 20 minutes or more for a handpay and then have to tip on top of the wait solely to keep that revenue stream is short sighted and bad customer service.

The more casinos that get self pay, customers will vote with their feet and prefer to play with no tips and no wait on jackpots.

Also I’m only talking about players that play high limits and casinos that have a lot of high limit machines.

Most machine players rarely get a handpay and don’t care about tipping or waiting. Not a big deal to them either way.

For bigger players that typically get several handpays a week the difference between having self pay or not is huge in terms of both lost time waiting and money spent in tips. And these players are the most profitable for casinos.

A locals joint that has a lot of low rollers and very few big players probably won’t need to worry about self pay.

Large places though that have high bet & or high denom machines and a lot of bigger players could find themselves losing a lot of their most profitable customers if competitors start offering self pay & players see the convenience of no wait and the tip savings.

If a player is hitting several hand pays a week, just the savings in tips could amount to several hundred dollars or more a week.

No way a bigger player is not going to take that into consideration if they have an option between a casino with self pay and a casino without it.

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

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Originally Posted by Tasha

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Originally Posted by Mission146

That is not what we mean when we use the term, "Vulture."

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I was using "Vultures," as in "Leeches." I know that "Vultures," is more like People who wait for Ploppies who will leave a bunch of multipliers open on a Ultimate X machine and take advantage of that or worse trick them off the machine in the first place. I remember a Culture in that term saying something like,"A Ploppy had a bunch of Multipliers on an Ultimate X machine. I claimed that another Machine was hot and had been giving out at least 5 Jackpots just that day and he should try it." He took my "good advice," and went to the other machine. I sat down and played his Multipliers and won big money off of his Multipliers.

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So if I get this right, Tasha is a creator? That's how the word is used, right? Really low-level scummy moves Tasha. Worse than credit hustling TBH.

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I wasn't the one who tricked the Ploppy off of a game with Multipliers. A guy said he did that, not me...

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Originally Posted by Tasha

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

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Originally Posted by Tasha

I was using "Vultures," as in "Leeches." I know that "Vultures," is more like People who wait for Ploppies who will leave a bunch of multipliers open on a Ultimate X machine and take advantage of that or worse trick them off the machine in the first place. I remember a Culture in that term saying something like,"A Ploppy had a bunch of Multipliers on an Ultimate X machine. I claimed that another Machine was hot and had been giving out at least 5 Jackpots just that day and he should try it." He took my "good advice," and went to the other machine. I sat down and played his Multipliers and won big money off of his Multipliers.

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So if I get this right, Tasha is a creator? That's how the word is used, right? Really low-level scummy moves Tasha. Worse than credit hustling TBH.

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I wasn't the one who tricked the Ploppy off of a game with Multipliers. A guy said he did that, not me...

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YOU ARE THE PLOPPY.

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Originally Posted by Ozzy

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Originally Posted by Tasha

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

So if I get this right, Tasha is a creator? That's how the word is used, right? Really low-level scummy moves Tasha. Worse than credit hustling TBH.

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I wasn't the one who tricked the Ploppy off of a game with Multipliers. A guy said he did that, not me...

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YOU ARE THE PLOPPY.

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I was not the Ploppy either in that anecdote! I promise!

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Originally Posted by Tasha

I was not the Ploppy either! I promise!

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There are two kinds of slot players: AP's and ploppies.

So Tasha, if you aren't a ploppy you must be an AP?

Is that correct?

What strategy do you employ to achieve a positive expectation?