Unless you are an accrual basis taxpayer (most people aren't), the chips count as cash and the money is earned in the year you earned it.

I've never been mugged, but just so you're aware, you face a different issue with keeping your roll in chips -- technically the chips are the casino's property and are not supposed to leave the casino. The best possible thing to do if the casino has safety deposit boxes is to acquire one and keep your big denoms in it. Otherwise, I'm not too sure what to tell you -- I don't think the RFID in the chips is that much of a deterrent, I believe if the robber passes the chips to a high-roller regular, the casino isn't going to look askance at how the chips got into their pocket.

Thank you very much! Extremely helpful!

I have yet to be questioned yet about it

you want to know the consequences for tax evasion if you get caught?? seriously??

i'd guess financial penalties and potentially jail time. i'd consult with an attorney licensed in your state(s) rather than a free message board.

can't imagine the casino would refund you the money from chips you report stolen. opens them up to a whole host of other issues.

what happens if Person A were to pay Person B with a 1k chip, something happened and A "wanted to screw B over", just reports the chip stolen and gets refunded? Now B goes to casino to cash out, casino won't pay him and claims A paid him legally. you think the casino wants to be in the middle of that?

my best guess of what would happen if you report chips stolen: the casino will cancel the chips and refer you to the local police department and your money is gone unless you can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that those chips are rightfully yours and were stolen. i see lawyer fees being involved too.

Yes

It depends on who is robbing you. If someone specifically targeted you because they know you play poker, then no.

Some would say it’s actually a good thing to have cash on you when you are being robbed, as your main objective is to not escalate the situation. Some hyped up meth head is not going to respond well to empty pockets.

When in the history of mankind has common knowledge been a deterrent to crime?

Lol, no.

Also casinos definitely care if their customers get robbed...on their property.


wat. Don’t do this.

You are way overthinking this. Learn a safety routine. Make it so it’s not a routine (pattern). Tell no one, and I mean NO ONE, that you play poker, have money, etc. Call a safety buddy anytime you have to walk in a bad area to your car. Or just don’t be in bad areas in the first place. If at the casino after a big night, ask for an escort and tip the security officer. Take different routes home and one that is unusual (like taking the exit before your exit, then using backstreets to get home for example).

Above all this, don’t risk your life for paper or plastic measuring units.

I forgot another tip. If you have the option, cash out at different cages. A surprising amount of follow-homes are coordinated with people who work in the cage. So you don’t want to be the guy that is consistently cashing out $5K from cashier Britney on Saturday night just bc she has nice tits and you want to impress her. She has an alcoholic boyfriend that will beat your ass with a bat and rob you blind. She also has herpes.

So head on down to the blackjack cage and say hi to Mabel. She’s 83 and slow as **** but at least she doesn’t have an alcoholic bf that will beat your ass. Probably still has herpes tho.

lol

This is something that has me sketched out too about my trip home from the card room I play at. There’s only one main road to take back home and it’s always deserted at night. It feels like a really bad situation waiting to happen.

Just pay attention to the cars around you. I thought someone was following me from Seminole hard rock tampa after cashing out $3k and change in a tournament. I lived in Clearwater at the time and the drive was around an hour. It was late not too many cars on the road, so I called the police and pulled into the cop station near my house. Obviously the guy didn't follow me in there and he might not have been following me anyways. But I was then able to go home. The cops did tell me that there had been 3 muggings in the last month from people leaving hard rock.

Yes. There is a concept called "constructive receipt". You are taxed on income at the moment you gain control of the funds, even if you don't actually have cash on hand at the moment. As an example, if you do a job for someone and are issued a check for $1000, you are considered to have earned $1000 at that moment, even though you don't have $1000 to spend until you cash the check. Chips which can be freely exchanged for cash would surely fall under this.

Yeah, I had one time that felt like that too.
I think my routine for leaving is decent. Pay attention while walking to my car. Get into car and lock doors. Look around again. Record results in my phone. Take one last look around for anyone suspicious. Leave.
I’m more worried about the potential of someone blocking off the main road late at night to force your car to a stop.

gold. accurate af description of Britney and Mabel.


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I played at a local charity room in Michigan (Vision Lanes) and they raked $210 in the first hour. Still beatable

Here’s something that’s on my mind lately. What kind of win rate would you want at 2/5 over a 1000 or 2000 hour sample size before shot taking at 5/10? 6-10+bb/hr?
I feel pretty confident that I’d be fine playing 5/10, it’s usually 2-4 of the better 2/5 players, with a handful of bad players sitting as well.

I have the personal belief that it shouldn’t be about wr but instead about available buy ins.

Set aside an amount of buy ins (3-4) that you’d like to take a shot with and if you felt them then continue at 2-5 until you re-earn $3-4K, then try again.

This mistake is more prevalent with online players who want to hit some kind of magical milestone in wr at a stake instead of just focusing on accumulating enough buy ins to shot take the next level.

If you are asking about a direct comparison in win rates, I’d guess a 8bb/hr winner at 2/5 to be a 5bb/hr winner at 5/10 with zero changes to their game. Somewhere around there.

I would worry less about your current winrate and more about your bankroll. 5/T requires a much larger roll (I understand you're just shottaking) becuase games typically play substantially bigger.

Is this based on running well in one session or was this a consistently profitable game over a 1000 hour sample? Just curious. And what was the rake structure that produced $210/hr?

I've been thinking about this also. I was going to wait until June / July but I could take a shot sooner based on this. I'm only planning to buy 100 BB for my shots (even though the cap is 300 BB, is this a mistake?) so I have 4 BI set aside. The WR comparison is especially encouraging as I wasn't sure I'd even be break even with no adjustments. Thanks.

Ava is generally correct wrt to the winrate thing. However there will be rooms where the 5/T is much tougher than the 2/5, and you may not be a winner at all.

Just be aware. No need to play if the game is terrible.

Buying in for 100BB is fine as long as you aren't playing with scared money. If you are, don't play it at all.

Thanks Ava/Telly. I have the bankroll available whenever for shot taking, but had planned on hitting a # of hours at 2/5 before moving up. Now I’m considering taking shots the odd weekend if the game looks good and simply tracking results separately.
Probably will just hammer away at 2/5 hours for awhile yet and really pad a roll, but maybe in a couple months I’ll start adding the odd 5/T session. Pretty sure I’ll still have a reasonable advantage over the majority of the field.

Good luck if you shot take soon c0rnBr34d!
Keep us posted if you don’t mind.

Yea I don’t want to engage the 2/5 vs 5/10 debate in this thread (any questions after this, take it to chat and I will try to answer) but Telly is correct that there are some pretty tough higher stakes games out there. So I don’t want to give blanket statements like they are all jokes when people’s rolls could be on the line. But more often than not I am surprised by how soft 5/10 is, not how tough it is. I will admit I have played a lot less in the last 6 months, but I doubt much has changed.

There are pretty big adjustments (much less limping, more floating, more 3betting) but like I said if you can beat 2/5 for a good clip you should be able to realize what’s happening and adjust.

When shot taking I always recommend 100bbs buy ins. Table select and seat select aggressively, if they aren’t pristine conditions don’t play. Don’t prove anything to anyone or to yourself, just play your same game.

And finally, if you find your self up >1 buy in I strongly suggest locking up a win. It is a good feeling to shot take and profit.

^

The only thing I’d like to add to this is make sure you’re mentally/physically/spiritually/ (whatever you need) ready for to play the bigger game.

It makes much more sense to jump into a good game whilst you are ready and able, rather than to reach some sort of hour/win rate mark at a later date, but the game is bad and you feel like you need to play because you just hit whatever mark you were waiting to hit.


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I'm beating the game for 36 an hour over 64 hours... so i don't have a good enough sample size but I know for sure its beatable. And the rake structure is 10% of the pot up to 6$

That all makes sense. Don’t wanna drone on about it. Glad to get some perspective though. Feel ready now, just won’t jump on a table if I see it’s all top 5 regs in my room or something. Usually it’s just two of the handful though, and that’s not so bad.
Good to know you recommend only 100bb shots too Ava.
Eventually, the goal is to play less hours, but bigger games when I do.