Is Caesars Palace running low on cash?

When I was paid cash for my royal flush on Saturday, one of the bundles of $100 bills came in a Federal Reserve bank strap or wrapper. It was a $10,000 stack.

The cash was deposited in a Bank of America ATM that takes cash. They have these cash-accepting ATM machines all over now.

I kept the "strap" (the paper wrapper) as a souvenir. I don't often take cash for large wins and usually I ask for a check.

What really intrigued me about this particular "strap" is that it came from the Federal Reserve Bank. I've gotten wads of cash before, but they come with a strap applied by the casino. In fact, the other bundle of cash (it ws a $20,000 royal) did not come from the Federal Reserve Bank.

That was the first thing I was curious about. So I started to examine it. I never saw a strap from the Federal Reserve before.

As I was looking at the wrapper, I noticed some "type" on it. It's faint, but it appears to have the date of 09-19-11. Would this be the date that the cash was assembled at the Federal Reserve?

http://www.alanbestbuys.com/sitebuil...21111-1725.jpg

Then I got to wondering...

Did Caesars have to dig down deep into its vaults to come up with a bundle of cash from a year ago? Why didn't it use its own bundle of cash?

Did Caesars have to get money from the Fed because it didn't have enough of its own cash?

I would think that Caesars and other casinos would be sending cash to the Fed and not take cash from the Fed? This would be because the ATM's are serviced by outside companies and high rollers using markers might write checks, and other high rollers carry cash with them.

Any ideas here?

Casinos are required by law to always have a certain amount of cash on hand in various "departments" depending on the typical handle and size of the casino. The only way they would have a 9/2011 $10k stack from the Federal Reserve available is a bank transferred it to them as part of a draw for their bankroll. Is Caesars Palace low on cash because of your suspicion? Could be, but I doubt it. Not a place like that, unless some whale got really lucky for millions just before you and demanded cash.

From Ocean's Eleven--the remake:
“The Nevada Gaming Commission stipulates that a casino must hold in reserve enough cash to cover every chip in play on its floor. That means on a weekday, by law, it has to carry anywhere between $60 and $70 million in cash and coin. On the weekend, between 80 and 90 million. On a fight night, like the one 2 weeks from tonight, the night we’re gonna rob it… $150 million, without breaking a sweat”

From the Nevada Gaming Commission website:

(m) “Reserve” means a restricted account consisting of approved funding sources used exclusively to satisfy periodic payments of prizes arising from all gaming or promotional activity conducted in Nevada, and includes any existing funding methods previously approved by the board or commission. The reserve shall not be less than the sum of the following:
(1) The present value of the aggregate remaining balances owed on all prizes awarded to patrons who are receiving periodic payments. For balances previously funded using U.S. Treasury securities, the discount rate on the date of funding shall be used for calculating the present value of the reserve.
(2) An amount sufficient to pay the single cash payments offered in conjunction with qualified prize options for prizes previously awarded for which elections have not been made by the patrons;
(3) An amount sufficient to fully fund the present value of all prizes currently on public display for which periodic payments are offered;
(4) If cash is used as the approved funding source, an amount equal to satisfy the current liabilities to all patrons receiving periodic payments due and payable within 12 months; and
(5) Any additional amounts administratively required by the chairman.

What does all that legal mumbo-jumbo mean? It basically says that the casino must keep in reserve, not only every chip in play on the floor, but the total amount advertised on all slot machines and all the payments that the casino owes to previous winners.


I actually have had to wait for Arlington Park OTB to order in some cash after large winners. But they have no security and keep a minimal amount of cash on hand so it is understandable.

I found a Federal Reserve website with regulations for ordering and depositing cash with the Fed. www.frbservices.org and from what I was able to read, it appears that this particular "strap" (100 bills) of $100s came directly from the Fed and not from another bank -- because the Fed "strap" was intact and thre are code numbers on it for trading. I doubt Caesars or any business would keep a "strap" of bills intact without checking if they came from another source. The strap (paper wrapper) on my bills matches the description of what the Fed uses so this was an "official" delivery of money from the Federal Reserve.

But since these were not "new bills" why a shipment from the Federal Reserve? Does it mean that the casino didn't have enough cash in its own vaults to cover its obligations? Or, did the casino swap old, damaged bills for another shipment of currency? Perhaps there was a swap of mangled currency from bill counters or bill acceptors?

Or does some cage manager get on the phone once a week and say to the Federal Reserve branch bank, "hey guys, we need $14.2 million in hundreds this weekend because some high rollers have wired in cash via ACH"??

I've never seen a strap of cash from the Fed ever change hands intact like this before.

This is actually a fascinating question. Good eyes, Alan -- most people would not have noticed this.

I've never seen this either, and I don't understand it. The fact they were not "new bills" is the very weird thing.

Fascinating topic, but the big thing is you hit a $20,000 royal. Congrats!

I put in a call to the Federal Reserve media office in San Francisco about this. Ironically there is NO Federal Reserve Branch Bank in LV which I find hard to believe. I wanted to ask them about the procedure for "straps" getting into circulation rather than having the money counted by a bank. That strap means that the cage at Caesars didn't verify the count either so the money MUST have come directly from the Fed. So was the money trucked in from LA or SF?

As I said earlier I thought casinos send money out and not bring it in. And to get money from the Fed without a branch in LV raises other questions.

I stopped by the cage earlier today (when there was no line) and asked a cashier about the "strap" from the Federal Reserve. Sure enough, this cashier had several straps from the Fed. But... her straps were different. Each one had the initials of a casino cage employee who verified the strap's amount. "We take the bills out of the strap, and then slip the bills back in," she told me. This was their way to "save the strap banding."

But on the strap I got, there are no casino employee initials. And as I wrote initially, my strap was on very tight.

The cashier also told me that the "bank" they get their money from uses money "strapped" by the Federal Reserve -- but again, EVERY bundle is verified. Except mine.

So maybe Caesars isn't running low on cash afterall. But if their procedure is to verify each strap (bundle) someone may have forgotten mine and certainly did not initial the strap.