Two major Strip casino operators recently made changes to their poker operations that may reflect a broader push to beef up their anti-money laundering efforts.
Effective this month, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts no longer allow cash at their poker tables. Previously, poker players could use cash without first converting it into chips.
Some experts think the change is motivated by a desire from casinos, facing pressure from financial regulators, to keep a closer eye on the money moving through their properties. The casinos themselves, however, have not publicly said that’s the reason behind the policy shift.
“This change is a result of one of our regular reviews of our policies and procedures, and puts our poker room operation in line with how we operate our other table games,” said MGM Resorts spokesman Gordon Absher in a statement.
A Wynn Resorts spokesman confirmed the change, but said he didn’t have any additional comment.
Nonetheless, Chris Grove, publisher of the Online Poker Report, said that poker tables going cashless can likely be understood in an anti-money laundering context.
“Poker is unique in the modern casino, as it’s one of the few ways that money can be wagered without being first converted into chips or credits,” Grove wrote in a post revealing the change at MGM. “In practical terms, it’s the only way you could legally win (or lose) large amounts of cash at a casino without ever entering into the auditable financial flow of the casino.”
In another post revealing the change at Wynn, Grove wrote that a cash play is “effectively a blind spot in the casino’s field of vision,” one that “inevitably results in under-reporting of qualifying currency transactions at the casino cage.”
Casinos already have strict policies in place to prevent themselves from being used as mechanisms for laundering illegal funds. They’re required by law to report transactions that exceed $10,000, and they have to file other reports if they suspect that a patron is spending money tied to illegal activity.
But regulators have signaled that casinos can do even more.
Jennifer Shasky Calvery, the director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, said in a speech in Las Vegas last year that casinos need to adopt a “risk-based approach” toward combating money laundering. In the speech, she encouraged casinos to keep “thinking more like other financial institutions.”
“Think about what happens each time a customer enters your casino. Often, the first thing a customer does is conduct a financial transaction — they buy chips. And the last action a customer takes is usually also a financial transaction — they cash out those chips,” Shasky Calvery said. “And while the vast majority of these transactions are purely for entertainment purposes, casinos can serve as the vehicle for the use, movement, and concealment of ill-gotten gains.”
Citing Shasky Calvery’s speech, Grove wrote that cashless poker tables “could certainly be understood” as an attempt from casinos to think like other financial institutions.
Cashless poker tables could have benefits for players too.
“I think it’s actually a better thing. When you’re playing there and a guy has a bunch of cash, you don’t know how much he has,” said professional poker player Blair Rodman. “Chips are a lot easier to count.”
In any case, players who like to use cash while playing poker may soon have even fewer options on the Strip. A spokeswoman for the Venetian and Palazzo said in an email that the resorts are “reviewing our current policies and procedures” due to the changes at MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts.
But Caesars Entertainment casinos still allow cash at poker tables, and the company doesn’t plan to change that right now, according to a spokesman.