At the casinos I play at, recs and regs frequently ask each other for cash and they transfer over funds on Cash App, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Zelle in exchange. Sometimes a huge whale will be the one asking for cash after busting many times and regs are always happy to give them more cash to keep them in the game.

Surprisingly I haven’t heard of anyone getting stiffed.

Anyone have stories and experiences of getting stiffed? On which platform?

Anyone get audited from the cash transfers or having monetary transactions with shady people (plenty of those in the casino)?

I had a policy of not lending money to people because I had friends not pay me back a few times (though years later some of them did).

When I started playing poker I made it a point of not lending money to people who played because I knew it wouldn't end well.

One time in the 20/40 LHE game at Foxwoods a really nice lawyer fish lost all his money and asked me for $2,000 and I said no. Though I considered it because I actually trusted him and thought he had a decent amount of money because of his career.

Then I won a $600 tournament with 1st place of about $38,000. The next day I was playing in a tournament and this guy who I had known for years told me he couldn't buy in (for like $200) because his brother wouldn't give him the money he owed him. So he asked if I could buy in for him. And for some reason I did. Later in the tournament he said that he would give me 20% of his winnings if he cashed and I told him no I wouldn't accept it. But I immediately knew that he wasn't going to pay me back if he didn't cash and that he was trying to make it seem like I was a backer and not a lender. And sure enough he busted out and I never saw him again. I did see his brother and I asked his brother to pay me back but his brother told me that his brother (the guy I lent money to) was a jerk and completely a financial wreck and that he owed money to a lot of people including him.

Since then a few people asked to borrow money and I said no each time. Once it was a guy who was huge (like a heavyweight boxer huge) and he was really nice in asking right up to the moment I said no and then he almost hit me.

I was surprised though that a guy who owed a ton of people money and who I was friendly with never asked me for money. Guess he might have known that I knew and he didn't want to jeopardize our friendship.

But did they say they were going to cash app you?

That's not what he's been asking about though. People transfer money on cash app (or a different app) in exchange for money/chips on the table. I'm sure there are some negative experiences with that too but generally speaking you should be fine once the money hits your account?

Someone asked me for 1000 once because he busted his buyin and had reached his withdrawal limit already. He venmo’d me the money. I gave him the cash. There’s nothing shady about it because it’s not like a check that can bounce. Once the money is in your account it’s yours. By the way I had never seen that guy before or since.

I would stick to venmo or zelle and make sure it is marked as a personal transaction and not a purchase of a good or service. They are instantaneous transfers and can’t be undone.

Of course I wouldn’t make a habit of it just because it would annoy me but as a one off or with your poker buddies? Absolutely.

A hot girl with a puppy asked me to receive cashapp/paypal for cash at the Venetian last WSOP. When she heard my British accent and realised i don't have any of those wallets she quickly departed. With the huge rise in volume of apps like pokerbros all the agents have massive a massive surplus of these wallets and want to swap them for cash/crypto at spot rate instead of paying vig.

That’s a good point to bring up. Cashapp and paypal are much more likely to be scammers because they can do transaction disputes. I would stay away from those platforms.

If it's someone you don't know and not in exchange for money on the table you should always ask for vig.

Is that true? AFAIK there's no "buyer protection" or transfer disputes on PayPal if you don't buy anything but do the friends and family transfer option. I might be wrong though.

For sure. I would just feel safer using zelle or venmo though.

Good luck documenting you are not money laundering especially as it is possible you are.

How do the platforms differ? Cash app and PayPal allow disputes and chargebacks while Zelle and Venmo doesn’t? What about Apple Pay?

Zelle is the most reliable one and the only one that can't be reversed. Zell is like a wire transfer.

Paypal is the easiest to dispute, and venmo's owned by paypal. I don't have too much experience with cash app but you're able to open up disputes on it.,

If someone I don't know (unless it was a reg I've played with for a while*) asked me to do him a favor, I'm not gonna give him cash for a zelle, why would I want my bank account tied to his bank account if he was doing something shady (a lot of people in casinos are doing shady things) and someone looked into his records then arrived at my house at 5am ransacking it and asking me why I wired money to an human trafficker (you never know) but that's just me.

*Around 5 years ago I was in a bbj share of 12K, it was a Saturday night. I came back in the next day around 10am and one of the regs I was in the hand with was still there, looked like he was up all night drinking and was a mess. He told me he lost it all in the pits, and asked me to borrow 1K to buy into the game. I luckily didn't, and I never saw him again (my money woulda been gone with the wind).

I doubt you could show a single case of that happening.

Zelle and venmo they never reverse transactions that are authorized by the owner of the account. Whereas paypal and cashapp do have disputes. However with paypal I believe that if you send as friends and family you can’t dispute it.

In general my preferred one is zelle because it goes directly into my bank account and they only need my token (phone number or email) to send it. It goes in instantaneously.

Better not to do it. I also wouldn't lend people money for gambling. It's just a bad idea in general.

Hah! No. This was 15 years ago and he was going to give me a check. Which in theory could have been cancelled (though I doubt he would have done that).

There were other people who lent money at the casino but it was always a cash transfer and they didn't always get their money back. I think the reason they did it was to fund the fish who were basically going to lose it back eventually.

I missed that...

Personally I don't think its a good idea.

One day I was at Foxwoods like 2021 during Covid and a guy said he didn't have his phone and he needed to call his wife and asked if he could borrow my phone and he would give me $20. I had a stupid moment and gave him my phone but told him I didn't want the $20. He said he wanted to give it to me and some time later I realized that had if I had had a phone app that could accept the money he would have used the phone app to send himself a lot of money while he was calling his wife. I ended up getting a ton of weird texts about financial matters (either saying I owed them money or wanting to help me deal with financial debts or trying to sell me things). It took about a year and a half before it ended. But it ended up costing me not a cent.

Ultimately at casinos there are going to be people who take advantage of situations. Either cancelling transfers of money or using the account info to hack into your account. I will never lend people money or accept a transfer from somebody I don't know especially if its on a transfer system that allows cancellations (as have been mentioned above). On the bright side I have no phone apps that do money transfers so that saved me in the end.

I've gotten into the habit of zelle, the only platform I use as it seems the most secure, to keep players in the game. I will probably limit it going forward now that some of you have raised these issues.

One time my friend agreed to do a zelle with someone for $500 and he sent him $0.5 instead of $500. My friend didn't notice. We later learned this dude owed a ton of people money.

If it’s someone I know, maybe. Someone I don’t have a rapport with no. There are extenuating circumstances, one time at borgata the atms were down, so I guess in that situation maybe. Also some regs have chips on them and offer them to me when I pull up with cash

People always tell me no when I ask if they got Cash App. Guess they think I’m gon scam them somehow

I hear people talk about it at the casino a lot but have never been directly asked. If I was I wouldnÂ’t do it. I feel like it is on people to bring what they want/can afford to the casino rather than depend on other people to get them more cash. If they want to go to the atm a bunch of times and pay the fees thatÂ’s on them but I donÂ’t think IÂ’d feel great about enabling them (IÂ’d also worry they would ask repeatedly or it would encourage others to ask). I have also seen people get annoyed when people wonÂ’t do it for them, to me theyÂ’re asking someone who they probably barely know for a favor, which you could avoid by just planning better or sticking to limits you probably mentally set before going to play. I understand why people may want to help a bad player stay in the game but I just personally wouldnÂ’t do it. Let them figure out how to access their own money or try again another day.

If it was completely scam proof, would you naysayers still say no?

No. Because I know anyone telling me it is completely scam proof is not telling me the truth.

Can still claim stolen, email support or chargeback cc.

Some may result in F&F being blocked

I think even zelle people can somehow chargeback. PayPal it’s super easy lol. But I was more asking if it was completely scam proof, not if someone tells you it’s scam proof lol

I had a guy at Mohegan sun send me PayPal, then he did the transaction dispute thing and there was nothing I could do. Dumb ****ing mistake and that POS scammed me out of 1900. Never again to anyone except friends I've known for years. I was too sloppy in the moment to notice he hadn't done the friends family option. Guy is a smooth talking scammer with history too and I was an out of towner who had only known him for a couple of days. Glad I'll never see that scumbag again.