Ask the Slot Expert: Jackpots, Social Security cards and tribal casinos

Question: Your article about the guy who "quit gambling" but only plays free play was interesting in all the different scenarios that could exist.

I think the ultimate answer was your last paragraph. It is the actual determination of whether or not he gambled.

For example, if he received $50 in free play, the only way he is not gambling is if he made exactly $50 worth of bets (or less) and cashed out whatever payoffs there were. Once he made a wager that crossed the $50 threshold, he is using HIS money and therefore gambling.

The example I would use is $1 VP. $5 per hand, 10 hands means $50 in bets. No matter how much or little credits he has earned (won) if he doesn't cash out and walk away, he is gambling, even though he has not taken any money out of his pocket. Even if, in the 10 hands, he only had one pair of jacks or better for a $5 payout, he must cash out the $5 and quit playing.

Answer: One element in the legal definition of gambling is having something of value at risk. Free Play, which you can't collect in cash, has no value. You are no better off financially with it and no worse off without it.

In my last paragraph, I dealt with an important distinction. I said that whatever you won from playing the Free Play is a completely different matter from the Free Play itself. You can collect those credits, so they have value. You are better off with them and worse off without them.

You are gambling when you bet those credits.

Another distinction has occurred to me.

At the end of the latest episode of Endeavour, Thursday finds Morse at a pub with a nearly empty glass of beer in front of him. Morse returned from rehab for his alcoholism at the beginning of the episode and is now cured and sober.

" 'There's nothing wrong with the odd beer, the odd short,' they said," Morse tells Thursday. " 'Everything in moderation,' they said."

I think Gamblers Anonymous would consider playing Free Play to be gambling, even if it's not gambling in the legal sense.

Remember the early days of Free Play when it was called Bounceback Cash? The Atlantic City casinos sent vouchers that could be exchanged for a half or full roll of quarters. At least that's the amount that I usually got.

I want to say that we sometimes got cash instead of coins after machines had bill acceptors, but I don't remember for sure. The casino wanted you to play the money, not walk out of the casino with it, and you're much more likely to play a mini-roll of quarters than a $5 bill.

At some point, the communication between the Slot Club Server and the machine was enhanced so that the server could add credits to the machine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was it also possible sometimes to cash out those credits?

Today, the software in the slot machine knows that the Free Play credits you have on the machine are promotional, non-cashable credits that you cannot cash out.

Question: I read the answer to the question about casinos not required to ask for a physical social security card. If the casino is on sovereign tribal land, and the tribe has laws and policies requiring a jackpot winner to present social security card in order to pay a jackpot, they must abide by tribal rules and present the social security card.

Answer: It used to be so easy when there was just Nevada, Atlantic City, and Mississippi. The regulations were pretty much the same because they were based on Nevada's. The machines worked the same because they were all RNG-based machines.

Today many more states have gotten into the legalized gambling game and they all want to put their own peculiar spin on the regs. And we have machines based on bingo drawings, scratch-off tickets, and even horse races.

I suppose you're referring to my column from July 11, 2018 W-2G jackpots and Social Security cards. A reader wrote me to say that someone was denied a jackpot at a tribal casino because he could not present his physical social security card.

About two weeks later, Las Vegas Advisor's Question of the Day 23 July 2018 was similar. That reader said that one needed to present a Social Security card at an Indian casino and wondered whether the same was true at a Las Vegas casino.

The LVA and I gave the same answer -- not surprising since we both used the same source for an answer. There is no federal law requiring you to show a physical Social Security card. The W-9 form, Request for Taxpayer Identification Identification Number and Certification, on which you certify that the SSN on the form is your SSN under penalty of perjury suffices.

The issue arose again in the LVA Question of the Day 24 August 2022 four years later. This time the questioner merely asked if one had to show a Social Security card to get paid in a Las Vegas casino.

The answer was pretty much the same as before. No law requires you to show the card. The W-9 form suffices.

This answer, though, had an additional paragraph about having to produce your card.

We most often hear about this issue from people who had a bad experience at a tribal casino. Casinos on reservations don't necessarily follow federal law and sometimes have their own rules and regs. You don't have much recourse, other than escalating a situation up the boss ladder, on a reservation casino.

The only times I've played in tribal casinos was when I played in the casinos in San Diego for an article for Strictly Slots a bazillion years ago. I have a few questions for people who have more experience with them.

• What is the rationale for requiring the physical Social Security card?
• Are you able to come back with your Social Security card and get your jackpot?
• Is the requirement to produce your Social Security card prominently displayed in the casino and on its website?
• What do they do about foreign visitors?

Preliminary data from the CDC's National Health Interview Survey estimates that only 11.1% of adults report being current cigarette smokers.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.