Much of the time, you never see some of the behind the scenes workings of casinos. Other times, those steps seemingly take place in front of players, albeit not often enough that it’s likely some players may have never seen it:
When do the casinos empty the money out of the slot machines? You never see the money when they open the tops of the machines.
Peggy
The process of casinos emptying out machines is sometimes known as a drop. The process often takes place late overnight, when casinos are at their quietest (although we recently witnessed a casino doing it at 10 am on a Monday morning).
The process can differ a bit from casino to casino, but generally, it goes something like this:
Slot machines have a bill acceptor. One reason why we don’t see the money when they open up a machine is it’s contained in a secure box (the bill and ticket collector) that is itself secured in the machine. So it’s a bit out of reach and out of view for a reason.
When a drop occurs, the casinos set up an empty box at each machine ahead of the arrival of a team doing the swapping. Often the area is temporarily closed off for a bit of space between the employees (and money) and patrons.
A cage (or set of cages) attached to a vehicle (or wheeled in by casino employees) is brought to the area, with security alongside it to keep watch over the proceedings. The bill/ticket collector that has cash is removed, and quickly swapped with the empty one so the machine, and the collector with money is placed into the cage.
The cage is locked up once the process is complete, so it can be wheeled back to the back office area of the casino to be emptied and counted.
If you play late enough into the night you’ve probably heard the loud clunking of the collectors being removed and replaced in the machines, or seeing them sitting on chairs in front of the machine.
It’s about as efficient of a process as can be given the circumstances (tickets have made this much easier since coins are no longer involved), but is clearly one of the areas cashless gaming hopes to streamline as it is time and labor intensive even in its current form.
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