A few months ago I was waiting in line after a long session to cash out. It was around 3am, I was dead tired and only up around 100 bucks. Anyway, a guy comes up to me and asks to buy my chips so he doesn't have to wait and I can be on my way. This was the first time I've encountered this, so I said "No thanks, I just can't trust that." He looks at me confused and angrily says "Why not? It's real money." I again apologize and just state that I can't. He stares at me for a good five seconds and finds someone else to trade with. Am I being too protective of my money? Am I a douchebag? This was at my local casino, not Vegas.

Lol. This happens more than you would imagine. People don't like to wait in lines. Really it's your choice but it does make you look like a bit of a douche , but it's up to you if that bothers you or not.

I wouldn't trust someone I had never seen before, but often sell chips to people I am confident of seeing again.

I'll generally sell to anyone (at least in part because my casino doesn't check bills as they come in), but if you don't want to, just say "sorry man, last time I sold chips I got a fake bill and had to eat the loss."

I don't blame you a bit, OP. I've refused many similar requests at my local casino. I tell each "Sorry, I got burned with a counterfeit once, and would rather not chance it again." Most understand, but I do get the occasional ticked-off look, and the rarer angry rant.

The counterfeit was only a $20, passed off by someone who actually took $15 out of a bubble payout in AC. So it was only a net $15 loss, but that tells you the level of degenerate we sometimes end up dealing with.

Nothing wrong with refusing. You don't know the guy, and it's 3:00 AM, which I can easily see serving as scam o'clock for people who want to take advantage of really tired/drunk folks. It's not like you are obligated, legally or socially, to do business with him, and there are obviously a lot of other people in line that he can ask.

In fact, the asker is the douchebag here. He's free to ask, for sure, but when someone says "No," just move on. Don't start demanding reasons or otherwise making a thing out of it.

Yeah, it's just something I think about every time I'm in line now. I've always been an online player or live tournaments. Just starting to go to my local casino a lot this past year for cash games. Wasn't sure if I handled it correctly, because I'm not trusting some random guy's money at that point in time.

Happens all the time, but your response was accusatory.. just say "I don't buy bills, but someone else will".

I have done this many times without problem, never said no till my last trip.

Was cashing out at Ballys with about $800. Pokerroom cashier was closed so I had to bring my 2 racks down the big escalator and use main cashier (big pain in ass and they couldn't color me up either). There were about 4 people in front of me and scary crack head lookin old man comes up to me with a bunch of crumpled 10s and 20s and asks to buy $90 worth of chips. I was a little drunk and engaged him asking him why, you can buy chips at any table, he started some story about why you should never buy chips at the table, quickly getting aggressive . Luckily I made eye contact with security and they came over took him aside and id imagine kicked him out.

Looking back on it I really should of just said no, sorry and ignored him since I knew there was no way I was doing any business with him.

Not really related to this story I suppose though, just thought I would share.

I sell chips in line most of the time I'm asked. Though I'm not going to sell just part of my cashout since I'd still have to wait in line anyway.

If ever I don't want to I'd say "No thanks" and nothing more. The guy is asking for a favor and you don't need a reason to decline nor do you want to imply you don't trust him.

I never considered it, until I was stuck on a long line and saw another dude but chips. I then bought more chips off the same guy.

I'm usually too leery of random strangers, and would probably have declined with a simple "No thanks" in the past.

Since a trip to Vegas where it seemed common to sell $100 at the table ($100s played), I might accept a $100 from someone who looked both regular and like a regular. I might also ask the cashier to validate/wash it when I got to the head of the line. I guess we'll see if I happens.

If you're uncomfortable with it just say no. Remember this is 2013 and my motto is DTA, don't trust anyone.

Better safe than sorry. If you're ever stuck with a casino bad bill, you can always go back and complain. If they refuse to take care of you, just carry a $4 pen from Staples to check their bills. The last thing they want is for you to say loudly, "sorry, I want another bill because this one is fake" in line. Outside of an Indian casino, they definitely don't want you going to the gaming commission with proof of passing off counterfeit money.

I sell to everyone but if you don't feel comfortable, for whatever reason, I like Dinesh's line. Or, you can always the ole standby of: "I'm sorry, but I'm too superstitious, I just can't!"

It's fine until the time it's not. Protect yourself. No one else is looking out for you but you.

You guys are all nuts!

Do you really believe the guy who approached OP in line is 1/1000th as likely to be running a scam, as he is to just want to avoid having to stand in line? How many of YOU stand in lines unnecessarily? Do you queue up seven deep at one grocery checkout, and ignore the cashier one register over who is shouting, "I can help someone over here!" Of course you don't!

So you thwarted his scheme, you didn't accept his money. You'll only take money from the cage cashier. Well....where do you think all of THAT money comes from?????? Does the casino drop customer's money down a hole somewhere behind the counter, and pay you with mint-fresh greenbacks? NO! That guy you said "no" to? He went and sat down at a table, and gave that money either to a dealer or a chip runner--either way, that money ended up in a cage cashier's drawer eventually, in the pile they use to pay YOU.

What, do you think the Swiss Bankers who work in that cage are expert at spotting phonies, or something? They barely make more than minimum wage, they're not examining each incoming bill like art authenticators! They're WAY too busy, and get WAY too few bad bills, to slow down operations for that nonsense.

To be fair, if the casino gave you counterfeit bills, you are more likely (a non-zero probability) to recover your money.

Where I play all cash that players give the cashier for chips and all cash going out from the cashier to players is run through a counting machine that also kicks out conterfiet bills. So there's definitely a protection level there. I have no idea though if other poker rooms do that.

There's this, I know the money from the cage is real, even if it is from another player originally.

There's also other potential problems. Say you are walking out and the guy claims he gave you $600, but you only gave him 500 in chips. Now you're in a dispute over a transaction you really didn't want to do.

Not nuts. I'm just not a cashier.
Maybe not a scam, but I don't want to be involved in this -
Are you saying people waiting in line at the cage are the equivalent of checkouts at the market?

IMO you're a douchebag for refusing, nothing wrong with saving you both some time. I've sold my chips many times, even for an amount of 3300 once.

Just make sure your casino personel are OK with that.

OP is not a db for refusing, he just doesn't feel safe doing it. You can't tell someone how to feel. But, at the same time, he does feel bad and a bit awkward refusing to sell his chips, and he doesnt want to come across as you're perceiving him to be, which is why I told him to just say that he's superstitious. That way, the guy who wants to buy chips won't think of him as a db but maybe as someone who might be a bit...goofy? And imo, its probably better having someone who thinks you're a tad goofy for even being superstitious over this than it would if they labeled you as a complete deuchebag.

Of course, there's also nothing wrong with just telling the person, no, I don't want to. But he doesnt seem to be that type, so I was just giving him an "out" so he doesn't have to feel bad at a place that he's probably going to frequent often.

Bottom line, they're his chips, and he's going to trade them in for what will be his cash. He is free to conduct this transaction as he chooses. The guy who asked was probably just upset because people don't like to be told "No." Doesn't make OP a douchebag.

I can see invoking the DB word if he'd refused to sell them to a guy he knows or even just a guy he plays with regularly. But based on the post, the asker is a total stranger. Maybe you're comfortable making medium to large cash transactions with total strangers, but that doesn't mean everyone should be.

Personally, I usually won't even interact with strangers if it seems like money is or will be involved. My first instinct anytime some random person approaches me is along the lines of, "Great, what kind of **** is this one going to try to pull?" Someone coming up to a random stranger out of the blue to ask for something is the #1 sign a scam is about to be attempted. It might not even be 1/2 the time, or 1/10 of the time, but the potential is there. The cashier, on the other hand, is never a scammer.

Really, the only reason I'd even consider this transaction would be if I were cashing out such an amount that the cashier has to file an SAR or CTR. Then I might be willing to take the small chance of getting swindled to avoid that hassle. But that's it, and it doesn't seem like OP had an amount anywhere near that much.

Well, that's not very nice. Your avatar is irritating to look at.

It's not really just a scam possibility that's at issue. Do I think that, for every 999 times everything goes fine, there will be 1 time that he's a scammer, that he accidentally has a counterfeit note, that he makes a mistake counting the money, or that any number of other things come up that create a situation? Yes, absolutely. He's far more likely to be a scammer just by virtue of having approached a random stranger with a proposition—I'd say more likely than 0.1% off the bat. Add in all of those other things, and it's not even necessarily a big issue, but it's a reason to refuse for someone who is being cautious.

Do you really think the casino just willy-nilly accepts every bit of money that comes to them without any safeguards? A random $100 note selected from among a bunch of random strangers is far more likely to be counterfeit than a random $100 note selected from an equal number of notes in a cashier tray at a casino. And that's just the chance that the asker has a counterfeit by accident. The probability goes way up when you consider that he could be a scammer who deliberately brought counterfeits to the casino, or that he's an otherwise normal guy who got stuck with a counterfeit and is trying to unload it.

It doesn't take much to spot a counterfeit note. I've personally spotted a lot of them in the course of jobs where I wasn't being paid enough to really care about it. It's not about them being paid enough to bother. They work in a job at which they regularly encounter a lot of cash. In doing so, they get very familiar with the look and feel of genuine notes, and they become much more adept at spotting counterfeits.

Do these experiences differ in any significant way?