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?



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?