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Bob Dancer writes a video poker column for beginners to experts. He also writes a column with Jeffrey Compton, "Player's Edge", featuring information on promotions at various Las Vegas casinos. Player's Edge is published each Friday in the Neon section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Click here to send Bob Dancer an e-mail.

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July 07, 2009

Caught in the Crossfire

I was playing Quick Quads at the South Point during the recent gas card promotion. While feeding $100 bills into the hungry machine, I noticed that four of the bills were rejected by the bill acceptor. I flagged down a floorman to exchange the bills and he told me he'd be right back because he'd need to get the bills at the booth. A minute or so later, he returned with four Benjamins, which I promptly fed into the machine.

This type of experience is familiar to all players. Bill acceptors are sometimes finicky and casinos replace bills all of the time. But this time, things were different.

About ten minutes later, the slot shift boss came over to me and told me one of the four $100 bills that I'd presented was counterfeit. He had a bill in his hand and showed it to me. I pulled a regular $100 bill out of my "stash" and compared the two bills. The paper was a little bit different, maybe, and when I held it up to the light the hologram of Franklin on the right side of the bill was clearly different.

"Okay," I told him. "I agree that this bill might be funny. What now?"

"Our security department needs to do a report," I was told. "Don't leave."

This was a little bit of a problem. I was supposed to meet Shirley for dinner across town in a half-hour or so. It took me less than three seconds to decide that Shirley would have to wait. Whatever the paperwork was going to be on this shouldn't be too burdensome, but "running away" when being investigated about a counterfeit situation couldn't be a smart idea. So I called Shirley and told her I'd be a half-hour late.

A security officer came and asked for my I.D., which I turned over. He asked me if I wanted to make a statement --- but he told me I didn't have to. I shrugged and said I had no idea where I got that particular $100 bill.

Which was true. Within the previous four days, I'd received ten W2G "hand pays" from a total of five different casinos --- including the South Point itself. Was this bill from one of those occasions? I don't know. I don't label the bills as I get them. While those were the most recently-obtained bills, I had some to start with and couldn't tell you if the one that failed the test was one of the new ones or one of the old ones.

Plus, while the vast majority of $100 bills that go through my hands are obtained from casinos, there are some others. Earlier that same day I was at my dentist's office when the receptionist was asking people if they had change for a $100 bill. I helped them out. I didn't look at the bill closely. Was that the pretender? I haven't a clue.

Fifteen minutes after they'd obtained my I.D., it was returned to me. The officer asked me to initial the actual bill. I declined. I told him that that bill had been out of my sight more than once and I couldn't possibly know for sure that it was the same one. The player sitting next to me told me I'd made a smart move by refusing to identify the bill.

I doubt it. There is no way that I believe the South Point was trying to pull a fast one on me. While I can't know "for sure" that the bill they showed me actually was one of the ones I asked to have exchanged, as a betting man I'd say the odds are about a zillion to one against them cheating me this time.

I did end up losing $100 in this. When the South Point asked me to replace the false one with a fair one, I did. I don't know what they would have done if this had been my last $100 bill (or I claimed it was), but it wasn't and I didn't.

There was a time years ago I would have insisted that the funny bill came from the South Point itself. Making this claim likely would have saved me $100. Since that casino had paid me some jackpots that day, they probably couldn't know for certain whether I was correct or not. (In fact, this would have been a lie. On this particular day I was losing and the particular bills from the South Point jackpot money was long gone back into the machine. I doubt the eye in the sky or other security devices could identify the exact bills I received versus the exact bills fed into the machine.) My autobiography, "Million Dollar Video Poker," tells of several "morally suspect" shenanigans I pulled in the 1990s. I played those games when I was a struggling "regular player." Getting caught in a lie back then wasn't such a big deal. Today I'm a famous player and I teach classes at the South Point. Getting caught in a lie has potentially major consequences. No way am I going to intentionally tell a lie.

This is the first time this has happened to me in the 15 years I've lived in Las Vegas, which is actually surprising. I play for rather high stakes and a LOT of money goes through my hands. I suppose this is testimony to the efforts that casinos, banks, large stores, etc., use to check bills. This is something we take for granted.

A case could be made that it was very foolish of me to "make change" in the dentist's office, since I'm not a trained observer and I don't have a special pen to check the bills. Presumably someone who was trying to pass bad bills would be smart enough to do it at the "out of the way" places rather than at the banks or casinos or big department stores. At a minimum, if there's a "next time" that I voluntarily make such an exchange, I'll check the holograms against a good bill.