Part III: Business & Regulation · Banking, Chips & Financial Operations

Gaming Day

Financial TransactionsREPORTED

(1) A gaming day is the 24-hour period used by a casino for business, accounting, and regulatory purposes, including the aggregation of currency transactions for CTR reporting. The gaming day is a defined period (e.g., 3:00 AM to 3:00 AM) chosen by the casino, typically ending during the slowest business hours to minimize disruption. All of a patron’s currency transactions, among them chip purchases, redemptions, front money deposits, marker payments and currency exchanges, are aggregated within a single gaming day to determine if CTR reporting thresholds ($10,000) are met. A casino may have only one gaming day, which must be common to all gaming operating divisions. On December 31, all gaming days must end by 11:59 PM to close the calendar year. (2) A 24-hour period, typically from 12:00 AM to 11:59 PM, during which a casino aggregates a patron’s currency transactions to determine whether CTR reporting thresholds have been met. The gaming day is the standard unit of time for measuring reportable currency activity. A patron’s aggregate cash transactions (including front money deposits, chip purchases, marker payments, check cashing, and currency exchanges) during a single gaming day that exceed $10,000 trigger a CTR filing requirement. Casinos must clearly define and consistently apply their gaming day for compliance purposes.

In practice

FinCEN defines gaming day as “the normal business day of a casino”: it is not a rolling 24-hour window. Casinos must clearly define and consistently apply their gaming day in their internal controls.

One entry from the Casino Industry Glossary, 1,090 terms written for surveillance, compliance and operations professionals rather than for players. Definitions describe industry usage; where a term carries a regulatory meaning, verify against the instrument that governs your jurisdiction.