A significant milestone in the history of U.S. currency arrived last year when the federal government decided to stop producing the penny coin. While production has ceased, an estimated 114 billion pennies are estimated to be in circulation, meaning they likely won’t completely disappear anytime soon. They remain legal tender and are eligible to be circulated.
That leads us to today’s question:
I wonder, if the government stopped making the 1 cent (penny) coin, why do casinos still offer 1 cent gambling? Curious.
Brian H.
There’s a few reasons for this. For one, denomination doesn’t necessarily have to be linked to a real coin – there’s 2 cent, 20 cent, etc. denomination options found on many casino floors, for instance. Some older IGT slots offered a 3 cent denomination!
We saw machines at Mohegan Sun (and we’re sure they were offered elsewhere) for years that had ¼ and ½ cent denominations. The payouts were structured to ensure players would never be put in the position of having to cash out a quarter of a cent.
For now, pennies are still around, and casinos can still provide them at the cashier (especially with more and more ticket machines not dispensing coins). But should a shortage occur, casinos may adopt the same rounding scenarios that retailers are being advised to do when coins are in short supply.
Over time, games might start to be designed so that payouts, even on one cent machines, stick to 5 cent increments (such as a 3 of a kind paying 5 credits, not 8 credits or 4 credits or whatnot).
But we can also look to other countries and how things have evolved. Canada discontinued their penny coin in 2012, but that hasn’t changed things in the casino, as another player shared as a comment where this question was left:
Canada stopped the penny years ago and we still have the 1 cent machines and they still suck every darn penny out of me lol
Beverley L.
So we wouldn’t expect any major changes anytime soon – and it’ll likely be gradual when it happens.
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