Players do all sorts of weird things. Here’s one that led to a question from one observer:
Why would someone take their players card out when their machine goes into a bonus and then puts it back after a bonus?
Ellissa
It may seem weird that players are doing that, and it is weird because they’re making an attempt to dupe the players card system.
By removing the card at the start of the bonus, they’re hoping that they can lead the players card system to fail to record the outcome of that wager, leaving winnings off their win/loss statement. This can be for a few reasons:
- Players want their win/loss statements to look like they lose more because they use it to file their taxes
- Players want their losses to look bigger in the hopes of getting better offers
- They think the players card system impacts payouts, and so they try to “be anonymous” for the bonus
There’s one problem though – many players card systems won’t end a session until a bonus is complete, because it already knows the wager has been placed and will simply wait out the outcome of the bonus before closing the session.
This is probably not true of every system everywhere, of course, but we’ve certainly seen examples of systems that show on the screen that a carded session is still in progress when a card is removed before the completion of a spin or bonus, and most of the systems aren’t that transparent but will still do it behind the scenes.
And, the reality is none of the examples really work out when it comes to pulling a card. For the win/loss statements and taxes, the unreliability of win/loss statements being fully accurate to begin with are why the IRS wants more paperwork than that if you get audited. Most casinos don’t rely on total losses for comp calculations unless you had a really rough session and are a really big gambler. And slot payback has nothing to do with the cards anyway, as we’ve discussed earlier.
So ultimately if there are casinos out there with subpar players card systems and offer generators that are somehow benefitting players who do this, it’s a loophole, but probably one that is rare nowadays and players do it because they think it works, not because it actually does anything.
That was really interesting to read… I had no idea that anybody actually did that. Very much. Enjoy your articles.
Thank you so much for reading, Ron. We’re glad you’re enjoying Flip The Switch!
It also could be that the account will lock up after a longer bonus, too, thus necessitating a visit to the player desk. This has happened quite a few times to me, and is very annoying!
Good point Carol – a lengthy bonus could cause a card to time out and potentially lock!
I have seen players remove their player’s card when the get a bonus and I wondered why. I thought it might have been related to the same idea as “As soon as I remove my player’s card I get a bonus or big win”. Attempting to cheat the IRS is never a good idea. 😬
Win/loss statements aren’t enough for a reason – the IRS is aware it’s an imperfect system for a variety of reasons so they want more to back up the stated losses.