Why should anyone ever cash out for another player? If a player takes a break to eat, gets food poisoning and has to go to the hospital or something, after X amount of time the casino should take his stack and keep it safe until the player himself can retrieve it.

Casinos being responsible of players chips doesn't bring any new problems/scam possibilities. Letting random people cash out chips from tables does. If a new dealer joins a table with a missing player he can easily ask the rest of the table for confirmation when that player comes back.

Dealers should never tell a player the chips are safe if they are not at all going to do anything if someone walks up to take them. It is irresponsible and possible illegal for them to say that. Period.

And the casinos are generally responsible for their dealers' behavior so it is on them too. If a representative if the casino is directly telling a player that the chips are safe and that they will watch them for him then that gives the casino some amount of responsibility whether they like it or not.

Train the dealers to not misrepresent the casino's role in protecting the chips.

It looks like someone finally found the real answer.
For those saying that you cannot take chips off the table to take a break, you are wrong.
The rule is that you cannot rathole.
Get up from the table, count your bills and large chips, tell the dealer you are taking a break and removing $8,800 from the table.
Return from the break, put $8,800 back.
Any poker room that doesn’t allow this should not be played in.

Casinos are not going to take responsibility for player’s chips. Think about the repercussions and then apply logic.

+1

Unethical & bad taste but definitely not illegal. Casino can be held liable only if they found out a dealer repetitively made that same promise with no reprimand/firing. Even then it would be class action similar to a discrimination case and you would have to prove the casino was negligent.

I def have learned a few things in this thread tho. I too have taken casino security for granted a little too much.

THIN wazz

You had 18K on the table and dissappeared for 2hrs...and you are pissed at the casino for not just handing over your stack when you got back based on your appearance?

Just a silly question...at any point in that 2hrs did it happen to cross your mind..."I have $18,000 sitting on a poker table...maybe I should go pick up and take that to the cage before I have another beer"?

If I had a new car sitting on a table for more than 10 minutes I would be paranoid as hell and picking up from the table if I was planning on being away longer than that.

You should of thought about both sides of the arguement. If casino gets stolen from 5x for 100k do you think they will just keep letting it happen? Or will they hire a security guard to watch the HS tables for 35k a year?

If the casinos were responsible it wouldnt happen more. It wouldnt happen at all.

Oh captain hindsight...

Whoa there. You'd be nutters to pay $20 a lock. Hopefully these are being purchased by humans, not the $16 DoJ muffin guy! I was talking per table and high balling it seriously. You can buy cheap lock and latch sets from China that work out to a pittance per rig (see something like: http://wang-tong.en.alibaba.com/productlist.html). I was giving $2 as a ballpark of how much I expect you could get something similar in the US for.

while this thread is definitely full of valid concerns i can't help but think of 1stworldproblemsmeme.jpg

I can see an obvious reason why casinos would fight a requirement imposed on them by the GCB that they must pay players who lose their chips via theft by a stranger. Once players think it is "safe" to leave their chips on the table while they take a break, it's just a matter of time until more and more of these thefts start occurring. It will turn out that in quite a few of these cases, the "victim" (and the "thief") won't be strangers at all - they'll probably be meeting somewhere afterwards to split up the money and laugh about how they scammed the casino.

The way to solve this problem is to have an employee (like perhaps a cocktail waitress or a chip runner) on hand to stand at a player's chair when he or she leaves for a short break - where "short" is defined as no longer than 10 minutes. The cocktail waitress would receive a "tip" in the amount of $10 (or $1 per minute for up to 15 minutes) paid by the player simply to guard the player's chips and block access to their stack. Any chump or clown attempting to steal a player's stack would have to physically remove (or push aside) the guard - which would be painfully obvious and probably draw the attention of the floor manager and security folks. (A cocktail waitress may not be the best choice for this type job, but surely the card room staff can find someone - like maybe one of the dealers who is currently on a break ...)

If you have $500 or $1,000 in chips on the table and you need to go to the bathroom, buying some "bathroom insurance" shouldn't be a major expense. It's certainly cheaper than coming back only to discover that your entire stack disappeared.

The story I heard today at the Rio cash game area is that a player left for an hour with about 20k on the table in various denominations. A scuffle broke out which drew the floor and security. During this scuffle, a man walked up to the game and began racking up the 20k in chips. People are reporting this incident as 20k, not 50k, but it's all speculation. Players in the game realized that the chips are not his and said something. The man said he is the player's friend and is taking them. As he walked off with the chips, the dealer began screaming to get someone to stop him, but security and the floor were occupied. Because the entryway to the WSOP is steps away from the cash game area, he was able to leave the building within a matter of seconds. His face has been caught on camera, but unidentified. It is in question whether the individuals in the scuffle were intentionally creating a diversion. The Rio claims no responsibility to replacing the value of the chips. I guess if you're a high stakes player, you better bring your rack of black chips with you to the bathroom where there are no cameras to save yourself from gunpoint.

Using the honors system to identify chip ownership is also an issue in tournaments. When I come back from a break how do I prove that table xx seat yy is my seat? Each dealer should retain a sort of claim check that assures that a player returning is indeed the same player that left. A bit of hassle but saves a lot of time going to video, which still does not resolve the problem. (read above)

Felted and wasn't even in the hand. If it is true that the Rio wont take responsibility - sucks.