If you’re sick of just getting plain-old cash out of the ATM, head over to the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, where you can withdraw funds from your account in the form of gold.
From USA Today:
“The GOLD to go” machine spits out 24-karat gold bars from 1 to 250 grams. And it can vend gold coins and bars with the Golden Nugget logo. The cost is constantly updated to reflect the ever-changing gold market. A computer inside the ATM keeps up with current prices.
A rep for the ATM company tells the paper that the price of the gold in the machine is slightly higher than market price. The current cost at the ATM is more than $1,000 per ounce.
And unlike all the other vending machines at the casino that spit out $100 bills for you to take straight to the gaming tables, dealers at the Golden Nugget will not exchange gold for chips.
Las Vegas ATM dispenses gold bars and coins [USA Today]
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So now people can gamble on gold too; “I’ll buy $100 worth of gold and if the value goes up before the end of my stay, I’ll sell it back for a Profit!”
Wait … is that gambling or investing?
Sadly there’s no indication the ATM will accept sales of gold as well. I’m sure the price would be better than Cash4Gold.
But basically, if you use this to get gold, you’re left with a hunk of metal that’s far more of a hassle to turn back into cash.
Boooo, This is just what Tilman wants.. Publicity, I get enough of his junkmail sent to my house because I live in Houston.. Now I have to see it here too.. OH THE HUMANITY!!!
Yeah seems pretty useless if the dealers won’t change the gold.
That makes me think, how long until each table has it’s own built in ATM? Instead of having to walk all the way to the ATM and possibly realize maybe you shouldn’t buy back in again, you could just swipe your card at the table and have the table DISPENSE the chips!
An ATM that dispenses gold in a Casino is silly. An ATM that would dispense chips sounds better to me.
How about a compromise; an ATM that dispenses Lucky 38 Platinum Chips?
Or gold pressed latinum
I’ll only make my wagers in Quatloos. I wager 500 Quatloos on the newcomers!
If it’ll take all this stupid NCR money, then sure.
I’ll trade you my Lucky 38 Platinum chip for some fully repaired Remnants Power Armor.
“Yeah seems pretty useless if the dealers won’t change the gold. “
It’s totally useless, except as decoration. It’s basically a prop.
It’s in the GOLDEN Nugget, people!!
Phew…now Glenn Back can finally gamble with piece of mind.
I was just there 1/6/2011 the day after it was installed, 1gram was going for $60 – when market price of 1gram was $23…..
When you take your money to vegas, it stays in vegas – one way or another!
According to Kitco, the high that day was around $44 / g. 36% over spot is very pricey, even if it came with an assay, so I agree with your message, just not your numbers.
You can’t ever buy 1 gram of gold for spot price. The smaller the ammount, the larger the premium.
I bet the bulk rates are closer to the market price, though still with a premium attached. They probably have something like a $10 minimum spread programmed in.
Ooooooooo…..
Hiding cash from the IRS? How convenient.
Also a good way to stash your winnings in a way you can’t gamble them away in the morning.
THAT’S the only point to this thing, I was trying to find one…
It was almost like hunting for gold. Oh god that was awful. I’ll slap myself now.
Wow, I never would have thought of that. I hope I can find this thing when I’m there in November.
It looks like Vegas is taking a cue from Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace Hotel that have had a gold dispensing machine for a while.
As a side note, what are the dimensions of a 1 gram gold “bar”?
You could blow it off the tip of your finger.
This machine is from the same German company that supplied the one to the Emirates Palace. The first one in the U.S. was installed in an upscale South Florida mall last month, now this one in Vegas. We’ll see if they take off or not. You pay more to buy gold this way, but there’s no scrutiny.
Dimensions of a 1 gram gold bar, in millimeters: 15 x 8 x 0.4
So really freakin’ small.
Not sure about their dimensions, but if my math is right a gold “bar” with the dimensions 1 mm x 5 mm x 10 mm would be approximately 1 gram.
Saw this same thing at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. Ripoff for people with more money than sense there, ripoff for people with more money than sense here. I suppose if you’re going to rip off someone…
I see two new businesses to open:
Chips4Gold.com and Gold4Chips.com
Just registered the names, Thanks a MILLION GitEm$teveDave!!!!
LIES!
Next thing you know, strippers will be asking for compensation in crazy silly gumby gold.
Now all the right wingers who watch and listen to those shows that bombard them with gold adverts can pay for their apocalyptic delusions in the comfort of their favorite casino.
If you think only right wingers use gold as a hedge you are crazy.
The cash4gold companies take your gold jewelry and melt it down to get gold which takes resources which makes the cash you get way below spot. Totally different than investing in gold.
The connection between right wing entertainment, err I mean opinion and “news” shows is ridiculous.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/stewart-catches-glenn-bec_n_388362.html
I highly doubt it takes anywhere near the amount that Cash4Gold is underpaying you by to do that. Besides, if their core business is gold, then they should have a way to smelt the gold down quite cheaply, being in bulk and all.
It’s worth noting that this is not an actual ATM, it’s a machine that allows you to buy gold. You won’t be paying an ATM fee per se, but they charge higher than market value for the gold for obvious reasons.
From the price PeteWa reports it seems like a major rip off. You’d still have to cash your winnings in to buy the gold (I don’t see where it takes your chips) so you’d still have your winnings reported. But even if you could put your chips in and take them as gold you’d probably wouldn’t pay more in taxes than the mark up for the gold.
I make jewelry and have used gold in the past. I checked around until I found a gold seller who charges $10 (yes ten dollars) above market price to buy an ounce of gold. When I was in Switzerland and bought a gold coin (99% pure) I didn’t pay any mark up at all (and later melted it down for jewelry as gold prices rose.) I have followed gold prices since the 70s. Gold rises and falls all the time. Once in the near past it was almost $900 and a few years later cost about a tenth of that. I hear about that guy on Fox who tells his fans that the only safe investment is to put their cash in gold and I hope not too many are listening to him. They could lose more buying gold while it’s high than they did in the recent market crashes. It will go down again.
Won’t affect taxes much. Your winnings are taxed normally. When you buy the gold that price becomes your basis and capital gain is based on price you sell the gold for.
(these are annual averages)
in 1850 an ounce of gold was $18.93. It took 118 years to double in price ($39.31 in 1968)
it then took just 5 years to double again ($97.39 in 1973)
5 more years, another double ($193.40 in 1978)
then in 1980 it tripled to $615, and then gradually dropped into the $300-$400 range through the 90s
by 2008 it was up to $871
it is now around $1400.
that means in the last 40 years, it’s gone from $36 to $1400 – that’s a 38x increase, or more than 5 doublings in 40 years.
at this rate it’s not all that outrageous to suggest gold may hit $3000 in the next 3 years.
Through most of that time, gold prices were controlled, and not set by the market. So trying to acertain trends from that won’t really get you anywhere.
Great numbers, except what is the value of 1850′s $18.93 today? When you adjust for inflation, it really hasn’t gone up much. When there’s very little descrepancy between the two, I have to ask how much of a hedge it really is.
Woooo!!! We’re in Vegas Baby!!! Pennies aren’t good enough for these loafers!!!
If that’s not the most obvious sign that there’s a gold investing bubble then I don’t know what else can convince people. This is even worse than having 20 “Flip that House” shows per day in 2007.
This may interest some of you option traders…http://www.zerohedge.com/article/cme-launches-gold-vix-options
How about a machine that takes your money, and gives you nothing in return?
Oh, wait, they already have those in Vegas.
The ‘watcher’ over the machine stated that within the first day they had sold at least two of each size offered – the 1oz going for $1200 I believe – I didn’t scrutize it as I didn’t need to lose anymore money while there!
Other question about the size of the 1gram – tiny enough to lose if you don’t tape your luggage closed – thing could fly away in the wind if you don’t watch it closely enough. The nice thing is you get a very expensive box even for the tiny one to help you from misplacing it.
BOOOOO! I wanted to withdraw a gold nugget, and then use it over at the pai gow tables.
I just thought of a great new business idea: chipsforgold.com.