What the Cage Will Take

Cash, debit and a tap

In Great Britain the tables and the cash desk deal in pounds sterling. You can buy chips with cash or with a debit card such as Visa Debit or Mastercard Debit, and by contactless where the venue's terminal accepts it.

Apple Pay and Google Pay are only a wrapper. The phone passes on whichever card is stored inside it: a debit card is treated as a debit card, and a credit card is still a credit card, so it is refused.

Three things the counter turns down

• Credit cards. The Gambling Commission has barred credit cards for gambling in Great Britain since April 2020, whether the card is plastic, contactless or sitting in a phone.
• House credit. Section 81 of the Gambling Act 2005 says a casino may not give credit. There is no tab and no IOU.
• Your room bill. Hotel and casino are separate businesses, and nothing spent at the tables can be charged to your room, however short the ride in the lift.

Identity checks at £2,000

Anti-money-laundering law requires identity checks, known as customer due diligence, when chips worth £2,000 or more are bought or cashed. Have your photo ID with you and expect the desk to use it. The check is the law at work, not a judgement of you.

Tickets from the machines

Gaming machines may hand you a printed ticket rather than cash. You take it to the cash desk, or to a kiosk on the floor, to turn it back into cash. Treat an uncashed ticket like a banknote and keep it about you rather than on the bar.

The cash machine as a signal

Some casinos have a cash machine on the premises. If you notice yourself walking towards it partway through the evening, read that as the moment to stop. You set a figure before you came down; reaching for more means that figure has already gone, and the lift upstairs is the kinder route.

The hold on your card at check-in

Hotels commonly place a temporary hold on a card when you check in. On a debit card, that hold reduces the funds you can use until it is released, and the timing of the release depends on your card issuer as well as on the hotel. If the same debit card is coming down to the casino floor with you, remember that part of its balance is already spoken for.

A card from home, a terminal in pounds

Foreign debit cards follow the same rules. When a terminal offers to charge your card in its home currency instead of pounds, the exchange rate is set by the terminal provider, not by your card issuer. Choosing pounds leaves the conversion with your own issuer.

Decide the figures before the lift

Set two limits while you are still in your room: how much you will spend, and what time you will leave. Bring that amount and no more, leave spare cards upstairs, and set a quiet alarm for the hour you chose.

Two rules hold whatever the evening brings. Never borrow to play, whether from a friend, a bank or anyone else. And never chase losses. Every game carries a built-in house edge, so money spent at the tables is the price of the evening, not a debt that another round can clear.