Yesterday, I went to cash a winning sports betting ticket, and almost didn’t get paid.
So, what exactly was the problem?
The ticket had faded badly and wasn’t completely readable. Accordingly, the teller had no other option to call his sportsbook manager who then went to considerable trouble to locate the record of my original bet so I could collect my winnings.
Let this be a warning.
Apparently, most Nevada casinos print sports betting tickets on thermal paper. This is a special kind of paper that’s coated with a chemical that changes color and sometimes even fades entirely, when exposed to heat. In other words, when you make a wager at a Nevada sportsbook, a ticket gets printed out which lists the official record of the wager. However, over time the ticket begins to fade. Sometimes the ink discolors so badly, it’s no longer readable.
It’s tough enough beating the sportsbooks without the added aggravation and fear that a ticket might not be redeemable. Many readers will recall the distressing story of my $5,000 casino chip being confiscated at the Las Vegas MGM (to this day, the issue was never resolved and I was out five grand).
READ THE LAS VEGAS SUN ARTICLE ON THIS CONTROVERSY HERE
I have to wonder why casino sportsbooks would do such a thing, using ink of such poor quality that the very real possibility exists a winning ticket might not be cashed. Casinos wouldn’t intentionally try to increase their margins by resorting to such dubious practices, would they? Sure, only a small percentage of tickets fade so badly they can’t be read, but every penny the casino doesn’t have to pay out to a winner counts towards bottom line profit. That’s crooked. In an industry with so many expensive amenities catering to gamblers, I wonder why sports betting tickets are the exception. It does make you skeptical.
Several years ago, I was doing my taxes and had a large amount of write-offs in losing sports betting tickets. I kept all my betting slips for the year tucked inside a large manila envelope, which was sealed and filed away. When the time came to add up my wins against losses, I was shocked to discover that perhaps half the tickets were no longer readable. Bar codes had disappeared. Many of these tickets would have been worth several thousand dollars had they won. What if I discovered a stray that I had mistakenly thought was a loser? Would I be able to read and later redeem the ticket for my rightful winnings? I seriously doubt it.
What was most alarming about my most recent encounter was, I made the football wager about 10 days earlier. Yet within the short span of only about a week and a half, the ink almost completely faded. Had I waited another week or two, perhaps the ticket wouldn’t have been readable at all, and I would have been shafted and shit out of luck.
I asked the sportsbook manager about this problem. He was forthright in his explanation, that tickets fade badly and quickly when exposed to heat (especially in Las Vegas where temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees). Using an extreme example to my make point, I asked the manager what would happen if I placed a sports betting ticket on the dashboard of my car, leaving it exposed to the Las Vegas sun. “It would be completely white within a few days,” he said.
“Would I still get paid,” I asked?
“Not if we can’t read it,” came his reply. The manager noted there’s usually a way to look up the record of all wagering transactions. But it’s not easy, and never a sure thing. “Sometimes, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” he admitted. Those were his exact words.
Fortunately, my wager was easy to look up. I remembered the exact date when the wager was placed, and (lucky for me), it was for an unusual amount of money. I remembered having only $840 in my pocket that afternoon, so that was the (somewhat odd) amount wagered, which was easy to flag by computer. But what if instead, I had bet $110 on the Green Bay Packers? How many of those wagers were made last week? Hundreds? Thousands? Had that been the amount of my bet, I’d probably still be holding onto a worthless blank sheet of white paper.
Frankly, I find this practice negligent at best, and downright deceptive at worst. Many sports bettors probably don’t know the limited shelf life of these tickets, which can sometimes be less time than a head of lettuce stays in a supermarket. Licensed Nevada sportsbooks have an obligation to provide materials to the betting public which are not subject to deterioration which could lead potentially to deprivation. I strongly suggest the Nevada Gaming Board institute new regulations which protect the integrity of all these wagers and better serve the interests of the betting public.
Moreover, I strongly suggest that all sports gamblers take note of this warning and be very careful about they way they handle the betting slips. The winning ticket inside your pocket might not be worth the paper it’s printed on.
Postscript: Smart suggestion by Ernst-Dieter Martin, who just so happens to be my webmaster — always take a cell phone snapshot of your sportsbetting tickets.
Another: From noted tax accountant and gambling tax specialist Russ Fox who posted on Facebook: “Nolan Dalla‘s point is well taken–and it’s even worse for taxes. An audit won’t happen until 1-2 years *after the return is filed*, so potentially up to 3 years after the bets were made (and 4 years for California). I strongly recommend you scan all your receipts, betting slips, etc. as soon as you can. It’s not only betting slips that are printed on thermal paper–some casinos use them for poker tournaments, many stores use them for receipts, etc.”