how often does the 9/18 game go?

Every dealer I had operated in the same way. The players were acting like it was situation normal. I finally asked one of the dealers if they ever got fills. She looked embarrassed and shook her head no.

There is no way they don't get fills. The room can't operate that way. They may set a threshold that is not optimum ..... but they have to get fills at some point or it becomes impossible for dealers to take rake or get tipped.

None of this sounds like any experience I've ever had there. Even when they have the overflow set up in the sportsbook, they have fills done whenever needed. And to say the floor is just standing around waiting for a bribe is laughable. Vegas works on tips and you might be able to get sat faster with one but I've never seen someone hold out and do nothing just waiting to get greased.

Yeah, again this seems the opposite of everything I have experienced there over the last 3 years.

Although it is true that the floors / brushes are generally inattentive, and some of the fills are done in a poor manner. One example of this is that there were sometimes fills of $5 chips brought into the 9/18 game when the max rake was $4 so there was absolutely no need for those chips at the table.

Normally the first page would have a FAQ, so I figured I'll ask here instead:
Haven't been to Vegas since props started charging to park. How much is it at the B (and is the same across all MGM props?) and is there a threshold at which you get free parking, a la Total Rewards properties on the east coast?

Staying at Rio for a few WSOP events, but will look to play cash somewhere on-strip to avoid the wait, and will have car.

I'll chime in that it hasn't been the case for me when I am in Vegas either. They do fills whenever the rack runs low on rake and dollar chips. I have honestly never even had a whiff of a fill not happening in plenty of time over many trips there.

They don't generally sell chips out of the rack to players, if that's what p4b meant, though they might sell 100-200 if they've been waiting for a chip runner for a while. But cash (at least 100s) will play until a chip runner arrives, and players can play behind while the chips are in transit, so this is the preferred method for handling rebuys.

It's fine to ask here, but I would check the LVL forum. There is a thread there dedicated to the parking charges.

edit: here - https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...rking-1641072/

There you go. They had plenty of one dollar chips, so as long as they can keep taking rake, they don't care.

I didn't see any chip runners, at all. If there were any, one would think the dealers would have asked for a fill. Since there were no chip runners, dealers were selling black out of the rack.

Look, people. I sat when this table started. I played through at least 4 dealer downs. Never once did any dealer ask or look for a chip runner, nor did I notice any in the room. The business where the dealer sold blacks and then asked other players to make change happened a good 10 times while I was there. Everyone acted like it was completely standard. When I asked the dealer about fills and she answered no, a couple players also said "Naw, they don't do that".

Maybe it's different in high limit, but that's how things are at 1/3.

I don't get what the problem was then. Bellagio does not have dedicated chip runners, and they do not have large enough racks to sell small chips to players. Players who want to rebuy in small chips are supposed to go to the cage. Seems like you were expecting a totally different system.

The brushes do sometimes get chips for players, but that always creates problems because then they are not doing their real necessary jobs of seating new players.

Now I see the disconnect. You are not saying the dealers don't get fills when they need them. You are saying the dealers don't get the fills you think they should be getting because you think they should be getting red chips to sell in the $1-$3 game.

But this is not practical. The nature of the game is that dealers are constantly converting red chips from the pot into white chips from the rack. So they are taking in red chips and losing white chips.

now the racks only fit so many chips. I can't speak for the Bellagio, but in my room our racks have six tubes in which you can ideally keep 2 stacks in a tube (you can reasonably fit 2.5 stacks in a tube, or if you jam it up 2.75 stacks in a tube but that is a pain in the ass to deal with).

Now lets suppose you think that the dealer should be getting a fill to keep enough red chips in the rack to sell to players for each buy in. How much of the rack do you need to keep red? 6 stacks? One player sits down and buys in for $300. now you need a fill again because you don;t have 6 stacks of red. And if you are keeping black and green chips available in the rack that is even less space for white chips.


So you bring in red chips as you go you sell those as needed along with black or green and if there is a lot of red on the table lett the players make change for each other ... or get a chip runner or brush dealer to convert other chips.

You don;t bring red in for a fill. You get fills to bring in white chips. I know this seems wrong to sme people but they are people who haven't really thought about the mechanics of the rack and the flow of chips. (and people used to table table games and NJ style poker where the racks are bigger and dealers stop the game to color up departing players)

yes but they are lining their pockets and generally aren't big fans of doing their jobs properly anyway

I'm very confused by p4b's and chillrob's posts.

* I know the room has chip runners, especially during prime time. That is not all they do (they also run food orders, for example), but on many, many occasions I have heard the dealer yell for chips, and had a chip runner in their blue/black vests arrive, collect bills from a player, count them, announce the amount to the dealer and table, walk to the cage, then return with chips. Like, every time a player wants to rebuy during the non-wee hours of the morning I have seen that happen.

* Often, if it's an off hour when there are no chip runners, or if the chip runners are extra busy, the floor will run chips instead. On rare occasion I've seen off duty dealers do it.

* I certainly have never heard that players are supposed to go to the cage to rebuy before. I know some players do so, either because they need to shake off a beat, or because they don't want to (have to) tip a runner to do it, or they are just tired of waiting for a runner to show up while they and the table are trying to work around it with bills, but I don't think that is the default expectation.

* Having said all the above, I am always playing in the mid-stakes part of the room, not at 1-3. Maybe things are different 30 feet away.

* I certainly can believe that for some reason the runners weren't around on a given night. Every room runs into this from time to time, be it runners, servers, etc. But it doesn't make sense to me that everyone would act like there are no runners. More likely the dealers were just grousing about how there aren't enough, they're understaffed, the floors aren't doing their jobs, etc. I have certainly seen that attitude before too.

Well, this is funny, because I have played there tons, and I never knew they had any position called "chip runner". I have seen the brushes get chips (which always annoys me), and I have seen dealers who were not currently dealing do it.

I thought they did have people whose job was "food runner". I guess I have seen those people also run chips occasionally, but they certainly spend multiples of more time taking food orders and delivering food than chips. If their primary role is supposed to be chip runner, then the system is certainly broken, because they are doing a terrible job. But personally I have never cared because I always go to the cashier when I'm buying chips.

Hmm, weird. I can't be sure I'm right, and maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see or have been conditioned to see, coming from a room with dedicated chip runners. But I'm like 90% confident that there are some people in the room (not the brushes or off duty dealers) who are responsible for doing fills and running chips at least part time, if not primarily. You are (or at least were) there more than me, though, so I'm tempted to think I have something wrong.

Give me an effing break. Every other poker room I have played in finds a way to get players chips to the table. Either by chip runners, floor, brush, dealers not in the box, or janitor. Not Bellagio.

Once again, you sound like you've gotten way too big for your britches. Remember from where you get your income - players bringing in money to the tables.

All I can say is my experience was as I posted. The other players were saying that's situation normal, and the dealers basically confirming, so I doubt it's the first time it's happened. BTW this on Saturday evening of President's Day weekend, so it wasn't the wee hours of a random Tuesday. And they weren't "too busy" because to repeat myself, I saw a number of floor just standing around doing nothing.

Well I am to big for my britches but I don't think that is relevant.

I'm not talking about if they are lacking in having employees get chips for players. That well may a shotcoming of theirs.

I am only addressing the issue of fills. I have worked in many rooms in this town, and none of them made a practice of bringing fills to keep reds in the rack for small stakes no limit games. Some might try to bring some red when a fill of white (or blue) is done but none would get a fill solely for red for the reasons I explained.

I'm not sure why you take offense at that. Vi have heard other players comment on it (always tourists) I suspect most of them come from Jersey style poker rooms where the rake goes in the rack not the drop slot, so their experience is different.

Nobody here is questioning your experience. Whether it is representative of how the room is being run is another question.

While not a Vegas local, Bellagio is my go-to room, and I clock more than a couple of hundred hours at the $1/3 games there every year. As other posters have described, I am aware of at least three poker room employees whose job exclusively is to provide fills and to deliver food to players - call them what your want. Once in a while they take time off or get sick, and obv this causes problems, especially during more busy periods.

You can rightfully question why a mega-operation like Bellagio is incapable of providing replacements for these workers, but it may reflect the management's understanding of how significant poker room revenue is compared to other segments of the casino. In terms of Strip rooms, it is not my impression that Bellagio is unique here.

Lots of reasons to avoid playing at Bellagio, but the dealers not having $60 in their rack so Pig4 can rebuy is not one of them.

The only casino I've ever played in is Twin River in Providence, RI, and players can reload via the dealer from the rack. They get a fill every few hours with a mix of all denoms. The floors come over a half hour before the fill and ask the dealer what the rack needs. Rake is up to $5 at 1/2 and 2/5 so normally reds are being taken into the rack. Dealers also drop reds as tips. There's never once been in issue in years of playing of a rack being too short to sell chips to players in whatever denomination they wanted. Granted I have a sample size of 1, but doesn't seem like it takes them too much effort to maintain this system.

Nope, not much effort, but what it takes is larger racks, and dropping the rake into the rack. That is the way they handle things in Atlantic City as well, and I prefer that system. But everywhere in Vegas has smaller racks and the dealers drop the rake into a slot in the table, so there is never an abundance of extra chips.

Times are a changing ... In the last two years or so the number of chip runners and casino's Dealers selling chips to players has decreased and probably will be eliminated. There is some Federal law about counterfeit cash that's being touted as the reason why. Casinos are supposed to control who handles the cash, so they push all the poker players to the cage with no cash being allowed on the table anymore.

My most visited casino wont even allow players to give other players cash at the table in exchange for chips. Chip for chip, fine ... cash for chip, no!

Now I don't really understand how 'every' table game can take in cash but not the poker room but that's what's been going on. I'm sure there's a labor savings portion of that for some rooms.

As far as Floors .. I don't think you will find too many Floors jumping up to handle Player's cash chips in most any room without first calling in the camera when they are removing a player.

Most of us remember the event at the WSOP at Rio where a 10-20 player handed a 'runner' $10K and the guy just walked out the door with it, never to be seen again ... now that's a good runner! GL

It is rare to find poker rooms that allows cash to play anymore outside of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut where 100's still play. Such a pain to have to either buy extra blacks for your pocket or what the majority do which is slow the game down to rebuy or top off to table max.

It is rare because FinCEN basically told all casinos they would not permit it any longer, since it creates a loophole in their anti-money-laundering capabilities and reporting requirements. This is why many rooms have also stopped "allowing" players to sell chips to other players for cash - these transactions occur outside of the casinos flow control procedures.

I'm surprised that MS and FW still allow it - it must be because their tribal status allows them to ignore FinCEN rules?

I do not believe fincen told casinos that they can not allow money to play. Its just that FinCen reminded them that when money plays its still the casinos responsibility to track it and report it if it meets the reporting requirements. Most casinos recognize that this is practically impossible in a poker room if you allow cash to play or players to sell chips for cash at the table. (the exception would be smaller rooms with small limit games where its very unlikely a player may reach the limits -- keeping in mind that pit play has to be considered as well).

Some rooms allow cash to play temporarily while waiting for a chip runner. The idea being that since the cash is going to be converted it is still possible to keep track.

Nothing about this process prevents the use of chip runners as long as they are trained in the Title 31 requirements. In my room the chip runnners simply alert a floor when they see transactions that may indicate a player needs to be tracked, the floor people alert the shift manager who has access to the casinos tracking system.