On two recent occasions, different managers at the Borgata told me that the New Jersey Casino Control Commission has been giving grief to the poker room management because of players trading chips and cash with each other. On Friday, I saw a floorman stop a player from buying a rack of chips from another player and force the player to buy from the chip runner. There was a sign posted in the high limit area that stated something to the effect of "Chips must be purchased from the dealer or the cage."

One manager told me that NJCCC agents have been sitting in the surveillance room and specifically watching for poker players buying chips from each other.

This makes no sense to me. Why would the NJCCC care if I buy a rack of chips from someone at the table? Furthermore, do they have any authority to stop it? A ban on chip transactions between players would be very difficult to enforce.

Random thought. The only semi-reason I can think of would have to do with semi-out there stuff. Laundering money, counterfeit money, etc. but I really don't know if that is the NJCCC's domain to worry about, but it probably is somehow.

Edit: Opps, you said high limit. Reading comprehension is at an all time low (thought you meant buying from a guy in line at the window. I've heard people complain about people removing money in limit games (guess it could be similar to that).

The last time I was at Borgata (a couple days ago playing 10/20), I saw one player at the table buy chips from another on several occasions and nobody cared.

Obviously this would be a different situation in a NL game, where I don't think bills are permitted to play at least at low stakes.

This new "rule" (if it is indeed now a rule) was enforced sporadically at best.

I did consider that the reasoning might be along the lines of money laundering, but it seemed to be the case that the NJCCC was raising a stink specifically about transactions at the poker table. I didn't hear any mention of transactions between players that take place away from the poker table. I could be wrong, though, since I heard only one side of the issue.

I am quite worried about this. It could kill the high limit games.

At the Taj, at least, there are some signs (lovely engraved brass ones) saying something to the effect of "by law chips may be used for gaming and nothing else."

99% of the non-gaming exchange of chips is probably legit, though I guess technically illegal. They're presumably looking to stop the 1% who are passing counterfeit bills, money laundering, whatever.

Don't forget that stupid law where they have to keep a log of cash transactions, and report anyone who moves $10,000 in a day. Anyone seen trying to circumvent this law is committing "suspicious activity".

When I was booking sports, this law generated more paperwork than the bets I was taking.

probably falls under the same lame rule of having to buy full rows of chips .
My guess is actually because people/players are shorting others when buying stacks and people are complaining to the floor/NJCCC.

no ones laundering money a rack of reds at a time

I was told that rule had something to do with NGCC attempt to track 10k buyins and cash outs (mostly cash outs). If you over 10k at the end of the session (which Drew can only be by buying in for 20K ) not being able to sell chips at the table will force you to go to cage and get reported unless you have a box but many people do not have boxes.

I recently read that starting next March, casino's will have to take taxes out of any gambling winnings when the total winnings exceeds $5,000.

The NJCCC may be trying to get the rampant private chip for money exchanges under control in advance so players won't be able to get around the new tax law come March.

Right. Sure. You go to the cage with $6000 and how do they know how much you bought in? Are you a $5500 winner or a $2000 loser?

The "new rule" is that tournament wins over $5000 will have to be reported no matter what. The casino will have to take out taxes (28%) only if player does not provide a tax ID. If the casino fails to do either, they have to cough up 25% themselves.

IRS statement

Angus, you are right. I misread the article. It was clearly about tournament winnings only...

Drew - I think this was always NJ law because I heard that this was the case years ago except it was never enforced. Taj was subject to a fine a few years back because poker players were paying for takeout food using chips which is against the law, chips are not legal tender. Additionally its against the law in AC to leave a casino with chips, there are placcards on all the exit doors explaining this.

There has also been some discussion that does not apply to tournaments though. Specifically, anyone cashing 3k or more at the cage will be required to show their players card. 10k or more and the Casino will be required to report it. It's very easy to see how the buying/selling of chips from player to player would defeat this so I think we can expect to see more and more of this from the Casino.

Last year when I went to the Borg I had to show a picture ID anytime I cashed in more than 3k in chips. They only made a record of the transaction, no tax forms were filed.

CAZ and the Wynn are doing it as well.

I am not sure if everyone got together and decided on $3K all of the sudden, or the IRS stepped in and set down some guide lines for the rooms to track from or what.

This all has to do with the 10K in 24 hours rule. It has been around for ever (seems like it) but has rarely been used. Casinos are now stepping up the tracking.
Heck, here in Reno I found they track any exchange of $1,000 or more for24 hours. No big deal.

Instead of asking the floormen to split their attention on that, they should just make sure the cage is well-staffed so these transactions aren't as attractive. Most of us would rather buy chips at the cage, but if I'm in a 10-minute line, and the guy behind me has a rack of what I need, I'm inclined to make the purchase.

That's really going to cut down on the action at the high limit tables.

That's tournament winnings and they're not going to do that anymore.
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2007/1...e-debunked.htm
And a CTR is "over" 10K. That's 10,000.01 to file one.

But you must give the cardroom/casino a valid tax ID number to report to the IRS on the tournament wins over $5K or they must withhold 28% (or give the IRS 25% themselves).

Huh. I guess that I'm a criminal, since I have $24 in Borgata chips in front of me right now.

On top of that, many of the high stakes players there are lazy and complain about having to walk to the cage if there is no chip runner present. I don't mind the trip to the cage, but others seem to mind it. Whatever keeps the fish happy...

Lenny I know that you are joking, but the 20k to 10k problem makes a good deal of the cashouts that exceed $10k almost a non-issue. Think of the donators in that game who routinely buy in for $4k - $8k at a time, dump a few buyins, but then go on a huge rush. So what if one of them ends up cashing out $12k when he bought in for $8k on two occasions?

Of course, I could potentially face the problem of turning $20k into $40k, so long as I am given the opportunity to coldcap you with 2 4

The CCC is probably the toughest regulatory agency in US gaming. We have a procedure for everything at my day job, people coming here from Vegas and other areas are always pretty astounded by the red tape here. It's almost entirely my boss's job appeasing them.

I'd guess that a quarter of all my tasks have no purpose outside of some oddball compliance issue with no relavance to gaming security. I have to fill out data transfer forms when I send daily financial reports to our home office out of states. It's silly.