Gaming Guru

Can Counterfeiters Use Bill Changers to Pass Their Counterfeit Bills?

John:

For a person that would rather talk to a teller at a casino than use the automatic bill exchangers, I use the machines very little. Then the question popped into my head: What prevents the counterfeiters from breaking down larger bills and receiving good money? Or does the machine already address this problem?

To me, this would be too slow and maybe obvious for a counterfeiter to keep returning to the machines.

Always enjoyed your columns, especially the slot questions.

Regard,
Fred

Dear Fred,

Thanks for the kind words about my columns.

The companies that make the bill acceptors don't reveal all of the safety measures they've built into their devices, so I can't describe all of the checks they make to ensure that inserted bills are genuine. Unless the counterfeit bills are very, very good, however, the machines should reject them.

I've never tried to produce and circulate currency I printed myself, so I don't know exactly how counterfeiters profit from their activities. As you pointed out, using a bill changer to convert the bills into smaller, legitimate bills is time consuming and out in the open. It might work for a penny-ante operation that just wants to exchange a few bills -- but then again, that small an operation is unlikely to be able to produce a bill that would be accepted by the machine.

Best of luck in and out of the casinos,
John

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert, at slotexpert@comcast.net. Because of the volume of mail I receive, I regret that I can't reply to every question.