New vouchers won’t expire
TITOs amount to pretty penny
Gamblers forfeit over $1 million
By RICK ALM
The Kansas City Star

Gamblers at Missouri casinos have walked away from $1.2 million in cold, hard cash, and the casinos get to keep every penny. In fact, most of it is pennies.

Starting in 2001, slot machine winnings have been dispensed through bar-coded vouchers that have to be redeemed for cash. On Friday, the Missouri Gaming Commission disclosed results of an audit that found players had failed to cash in $1,244,710.72 worth of the so-called TITO, or “ticket in, ticket out,” paper vouchers.

The vast majority were worth “very small amounts, a few cents to less than a dollar,” said commission enforcement manager Clarence Greeno.

But Isle of Capri Casino general manager Mike Tamburelli said his accountants reported occasional instances of unredeemed vouchers in the neighborhood of $50. And people walk away from money daily, Tamburelli said.

The commission audit was prompted by a policy change last fall that barred casinos from issuing TITO vouchers with a standard 120-day expiration date. Since that change, which took effect Oct. 30, the vouchers have carried no expiration date.

Greeno said expiration had been allowed mainly because the thermal-printed images tended to fade after a few months.

Since early March, any voucher dated before Oct. 31, 2005, has been void and worthless, said commission counsel Mike Bushman. He noted, however, that casino executives could choose to honor expired vouchers, mostly for the sake of public relations.

The commission audit did not publicly disclose individual casino data or any single voucher sums.

With the audit complete, Bushman said casinos were free to write off outstanding vouchers and bank the money — minus the state’s 20 percent tax cut, of course.

The Missouri Lottery a few years ago moved in the opposite direction, shortening the one-year period to redeem winning tickets to 180 days.

That 2003 change had a profound effect. That year players statewide abandoned $16.7 million in winnings, according to the agency’s 2005 audit report.

The following year the amount fell to $12.2 million as players apparently learned to cash winners more promptly.

The sum shrank again in the 2005 fiscal year, to $7.8 million — and a level comparable to 2002 before the change, the auditors noted. All unclaimed lottery winnings are deposited in the Missouri Lottery Proceeds Fund, which benefits public education.

In the beginning, Missouri slots could be played only with metal tokens available for purchase in various denominations and redeemable for cash. A few token-operated slots remain in Missouri, but nearly all have made the switch to electronic credits that gamblers buy.

When a player is ready to cash out, the slot machine prints and spits out a bar-coded voucher equal to the value of all unplayed credits.

Say, for instance, you’re playing a penny slot machine for the typical wager of 45 cents.

You’re down on your luck and the credit meter is way down, too, say to 4 cents. You don’t want to bother resetting the machine’s wagering options to accept that final, tiny bet. But you also don’t want to walk away with credits on the meter.

So you push the “cash out” button and walk away with a printed voucher reading $0.04. It winds up forgotten at the bottom of your purse or in the glove box of your car.

And the casino owes you 4 cents — forever.

Or, maybe not.

Bushman said Missouri law regarding unclaimed property could be applied by casinos, typically after a year or two, to periodically void unredeemed vouchers to clean up the books.

The good news for taxpayers, said Bushman, is that under the law such unclaimed money would be turned over to the state treasury.

For players, one alternative to walking away from a handful of credits on a slot machine is to give small TITO vouchers as tips to casino workers.

In the Kansas City market, the practice is permitted at Isle, Argosy Riverside and the Ameristar casinos. Employees at Harrah’s North Kansas City Casino are prohibited from accepting TITO tips.

TITO tipping could be a routine someday. Argosy’s Johnson noted an emerging discussion in the industry of adding a $1 TITO cash-out option to slot machines, giving players fast access to a buck, for instance, to tip a cocktail waitress.