The Currency of Las Vegas
June 25, 2009
Brooklyn, New York – about 20 years ago.
I emerge from an F train station at about 3:00am with a cheap Fender guitar in a soft gig bag strapped across my back. As I walk along the sidewalk, I realize that I have a very bad case of the munchies. I also have bloodshot eyes and my mouth is incredibly dry.
Given that I am on my way home from Bible Study, I have no idea why I find myself in this particular state. I typically use my guitar to accompany the church pianist during late night hymns, and I often stop to serenade sick children, the elderly, and the underprivileged with uplifting songs on my way home … so this may explain my mild disorientation and hunger.
Fortunately for me, there is a small bodega about a block away that never truly closes, and I stumble … I mean … I walk to it in a very coordinated and deliberate manner.
When I get to the store, I stop and talk to the clerk about my love for Jesus Christ. I minister for a bit, succeed in showing him the path to salvation, lead a quick prayer, and then peruse the isles of the small store looking for Diet Coke, kettle chips, and peanut butter cup ice cream.
For whatever reason, I always crave these particular things after a long night of worship.
When it is time to pay for my items, I thrust my hand into my pocket and realize that I either forgot to bring my cash, spent all of my cash, or never had any cash in the first place. I can’t remember which of the three it was, because all of the praying that I have done has slightly impaired my short-term memory.
But wait? What’s this?
New York City Subway Token
I bought a ten pack of subway tokens earlier in the day, and there are still a few in my pocket.
In a valiant effort to figure out how many tokens I should have left, I hold both hands in front of my face, fold two fingers under, and begin counting. After counting several times, I come to the conclusion that ten minus two equals six, which is pretty much what I thought all along.
“Why don’t you just count them?”, the clerk says.
This man with a melting face seems to make some sense, and I grab all of my tokens, put them on the counter, and my late-shift-working buddy informs me that I actually have eight tokens.
“Wow, I must have bought some extra tokens today”, I say.
Even though all I have are subway tokens, and zero cash, I am permitted to take my food home, and I am able to quench the cravings placed into me by the holy spirit.
Everything above is actually based on a true story. At least what I can remember of it.
Back in the day, there were no farecards in the NYC subway system. Every ride was purchased with small metal coins, and the cost for each coin was $1.25. It was not unusual to carry them around with the rest of your change. Since these were also the days before the widespread adoption of the “debit card” to pay for petty items, it was also not unusual to have nothing but subway tokens left over at the end of the day.
Because there was such an abundance of these coins, a thriving “currency exchange” developed throughout the city.
If you walked into a small, independent market in an outer borough, especially a market near a subway station … your $1.25 subway token was typically worth $1 in merchandise.
Conversely, if you walked into one of these same stores and asked to buy subway tokens, you could often get them for a slight discount. $1.10-$1.20 depending on how many you were buying.
This provided the shopkeeper with ten to twenty cents in arbitrage on each token, which over the course of a year amounted to a nice little profit. The sellers were happy, the buyers were happy, the currency exchange guy was happy … it all worked fairly neatly.
Was this legal?
I don’t know. It never crossed my mind to check, but it was common enough that I doubt that it could have been stopped in any real way.
Of course, tokens no longer exist. The NYC subway now uses electronic strip farecards, and the underground token market is dead.
Fast forward twenty years. I am sitting in my home in Las Vegas and I once again get a craving for chips and ice cream. This time, it is not due to Bible Study. Consuming fat and sugar simply helps to relieve the depression of realizing that you are frigging old.
Once again, I scour the room for cash, but there is none to be found. I also realize that I am not in possession of my plastic cards. I left them in the car, the car is not here and … it’s not important … all that matters is that I have no cash.
Rex's Stash of Chips
Then, I look over, and see over a dozen plastic discs splashed across a table. This is the table on which I often dump my un-redeemed chips. Since I am often in a rush, it is not uncommon for me to bypass the cashier line and take chips home with the intent to simply redeem them later. It’s also not uncommon for me to forget to take these chips back out with me.
Because of this, I have a large number of “orphan chips” in my home. Some of them are three days old, some of them are three years old, but they are literally everywhere. If I lift up the couch cushion, I will probably find enough for a cheap Sahara tournament buy-in. The chips are never black (I cash those in right away), but $1′s, $5′s (and even the odd $25) from just about every casino in the city can be found somewhere under my roof.
I am relatively secure in their value, and they are the same as bills to me. This is my “spare change”, and with some exceptions, I can use just about any chip in just about any casino in the city.
While casinos generally frown on “chip walking”, many of them begrudgingly accept it. Harrah’s generally doesn’t want to turn away someone with $200 in MGM chips. They will often just exchange the MGM chips for Harrah’s chips.
This is usually the case city-wide. I once had a marathon Blackjack session after exchanging all of my Wynn chips for Suncoast chips, a full ten miles away from the Wynn hotel.
Since the practice is generally allowed, I assume the casinos have some kind of centralized settlement system. I’m not sure how it works (I’ve never asked), but it would seem impractical to send a runner to casino cages individually at the end of the day. My guess is that there is some kind of central clearing house, but that is just a guess.
The widespread acceptance of chips also means that, like Brooklyn circa-1990, Las Vegas has its own system of underground currency which can sometimes be redeemed without regard to the name stamped on the front. You can tip people with chips, you can pay for many goods and services with chips, and in some cases … this extends to businesses which have nothing to do with casinos whatsoever.
You see, several hours ago, I had no cash, and I had no snacks.
As I type this, I still have no cash.
I do, however, have a couple bags of kettle chips, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
I also have a couple less $5 and $1 casino chips.
I won’t elaborate on the where’s and how’s, but let’s just say that today I had a flashback to a certain Brooklyn bodega.
Now if you will excuse me, there is a carton of something called “Chunky Monkey” in the freezer with my name on it.
One of these days, I am going to get around to writing a “thank you” letter to Ben & Jerry. I’ve never fully expressed my appreciation of them for immortalizing my wiener with an ice cream flavor.
And were it not for my plastic discs, I would have no food at all.
Long live local currency.
Written by tully on June 26, 2009 at 2:09 am
If you ever get a yen for a different flavor, the Chubby Hubby is quite good. Vanilla malt base, with chocolate, peanut butter, and some pretzel bits for the total salty-sweet kick.
I suspect the name is a fair description of the eater if he is a married guy with a real a real jones for the stuff.
Written by bardolator on June 26, 2009 at 5:25 am
That was great fun. Every once in a while you post one that makes the wading worthwhile.
Any flavor will do if it’s good ice cream.
Written by FoolsGold on June 26, 2009 at 9:36 am
I doubt that the various casinos have any sort of settlement exchange for foreign chips, they want everything to go through their own hard count rooms anyway and foreign chips will be segregated out by the machinery automatically. Its mainly a realization that players do like to wander amongst various casinos to change their luck or to meet up with acquaintances and continue to gamble. Ofcourse casinos also have an awareness that their players are often too drunk to know which casino they are in. So casinos tend to accept foreign chips, though usually will want them all at once rather than fed in piecemeal at a craps table or something. After all, the casino knows you are probably going to lose. They also know if there have been any recent chip thefts in nearby casinos, so if anyone is thinking of doing this with blacks or higher: don’t!
Ofcourse the Secret Service does not want to see chips or subway tokens used as a medium of exchange, but they’ve got more important things to worry about.
Written by edzeplin on June 26, 2009 at 8:15 pm
There is/was a third party business that would visit the major and many not-so-major casinos on a weekly basis to pick up their foreign currency and deliver it to the correct casinos. The casinos paid a fee for this service rather than tie up the time of their own people to exchange the chips. I don’t know if this is still being done, but it would make sense if it is.
Written by catherine on June 30, 2009 at 6:32 am
I’ve never thought to pay for goods w/ chips before, interesting. I normally don’t have them lying around so that’s probably why it’s never crossed my mind. I’d lose track of them and be out a bundle if I didn’t cash them in immediately.
I’m going to get some Cherry Garcia later today, yummm.
Written by alberta on June 30, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Back when I worked in the industry our department threw off property toke chips into a big old jar. Then some of us would make the rounds cashing them in at the various properties. It added up.
Paul