From www.lasvegasAdvisor.com
Q:
How much does each deck of cards cost the casino?
A:
That’s an interesting question, only in light of the fact that that this seems to be one of the few commodities in life that’s actually gone down in price since we last checked (like gold!)
The principal supplier of gaming equipment to casinos around the world is a company called Gaming Partners International (GPI), whose head office is actually located here in town, on Industrial Road. Several years ago, GPI took over another local firm, Paulson, which was the leading casino source for playing cards, and today (well, last year, to be more accurate), according to GPI’s 2013 10-K playing cards accounted for 8.8% of their total sales.
Interestingly, we can’t find a sale-price per-deck in that Form 10-K, but for the previous year, on the same form the company stated that: "A deck of cards typically sells within a price range between $0.65 and $1.25. Based on casino controls and practices, cards, which are consumable products, are generally replaced at least every 24 hours. A casino typically enters into a one- or two-year purchase commitment with a supplier to supply its cards at regular intervals, generally monthly." (From a previous QoD we learned, courtesy of the buyer at Bellagio, which has around 150 table games (excluding the poker room), that he has a weekly standing order for 60 cases of cards, or 8,640 new decks.)
That 2012/13 price of $0.65 to $1.25 compares to a price-per-deck range of between $0.80 and $1.65, back in 2009.
A couple of other interesting tidbits:
•Spinetti Gaming, which is a major Las Vegas vendor of casino paraphernalia (it bills itself as "a candy store for real gamblers") sells used casino playing cards for $1.25 a deck, on average — about the same price that the casino pays for ’em new.
•Those "recycled" casino cards, which generally last less than one eight-hour shift on the gaming floor, are actually then sent to a facility under the Nevada Department of Corrections, where the inmates sort and reseal the decks. Spinetti purchases these decks pre-sealed and takes no responsibility for a missing or duplicate card in sealed decks, which may or may not contain Jokers, since casinos don’t use those cards for table games, and hence may already have disposed of them. The used decks have a corner clipped and are invisibly marked for security reasons, but otherwise they’re pretty much like new.
•The recycled casino decks you can purchase come almost exclusively from blackjack pits and are of the plastic-coated paper variety; only licensed casinos may purchase plastic poker cards.
Replies:
No replies were posted for this topic.
