Monetary Transactions: Protecting the Money

Monetary Transactions

Observing monetary transactions and ensuring their accuracy is a core aspect of being a floor supervisor. Dealers and players all make mistakes. It’s our job as the supervisor to make sure transactions are correct. This means observing the entire transaction whenever possible.

When I say observe the entire transaction, here’s what I mean in an example where a guest buys in $2,000:

• Hear the dealer call out “Changing two thousand”
• Make sure the total of cash on the table is indeed $2,000
• Make sure the total of chips the dealer is prepared to give the guest also correct
• Make sure you know which player the cash came from and that the correct player is given the chips
• Make sure all the cash is correctly and securely dropped into the drop box, and there are no bills sticking out

That’s a lot of steps for just one transaction, right? It might seem like it, but again, it will become second nature as you train your eye to watch for each of these steps.

Everything that we just talked about with buy ins also applies to color ups. Rather than repeating all the steps over again, I’ll just say that it’s important to observe correct and complete color ups.

You’ll want to make sure all payouts are correct and approve the complete procedure as well. For example, if a guest hits a bonus that pays 30 to 1 with a $50 bet you’ll need to:

• Make sure the dealer knows the correct total of the payout, $1,500
• Make sure they get out the correct amount of chips
• Make sure that correct amount is handed to the correct player

A couple side notes here about big payouts:

• Always tell the guest something along the lines of “Congratulations, that’s a good hit!”
• Try to make sure the dealer pays them with enough chips that they can throw some in as a tip. For example, if the payout is $1,500, don’t just hand them three $500 chips. Pay them with $1,000 in $100 chips and $500 in $25 chips. It feels like more money to them when there are more chips. Big chips go in their pocket. Smaller chips are more likely to be tipped

When talking about these types of monetary transactions, I want to warn you about how easy it becomes to hear a dealer call out their transaction and simply say, “Ok,” or, “go ahead” without thoroughly checking it. As you get some time under your belt with the job, you might start just trusting that everything is correct. But even the best dealers make mistakes all the time. There might be an extra $100 bill that they don’t see, or a spacer from the rack hidden amongst the chips they’re about to give out. They might get the payout wrong, or not know it entirely. Mistakes happen on the floor every day. We don’t want you guys to be responsible for mistakes because you didn’t observe the whole transaction.