Part IV: Financial Fraud · Chip, Cash & Ticket Fraud

Passing Counterfeit Bills at Cage and Tables

How it works

Criminals attempt to pass counterfeit U.S. currency at casino cages and table games, exchanging fake bills for genuine chips. Casinos are attractive targets because they handle large volumes of cash quickly, and staff may be less vigilant during busy periods. The U.S. Secret Service has stated they collect upwards of $20,000 in counterfeit currency every day from Las Vegas casinos alone. Counterfeit bills range from crude photocopies to sophisticated replicas using stolen paper stock. Criminals often use teams to pass multiple bills across different points simultaneously to overwhelm detection capacity.

Where it appears

Cage buy-in windows, table game buy-ins, slot machine bill acceptors

On the record

The U.S. Secret Service reports that Las Vegas casinos alone pass $20,000+ in counterfeit currency daily to their offices. FinCEN data confirms counterfeit currency as a persistent threat category in casino SAR filings.

Published as a detection reference for surveillance, compliance and gaming-operations professionals. Thresholds and tuning are set by the property. Nothing here is instruction — the method is described so it can be recognised.