With TITO (ticket in/ticket out) and the evolution of the penny machines, there are now hundreds of discarded tickets daily littering casino floors. Instead, they evolved and became “ticket miners”. They loved finding the occasional lost silver dollar amongst the displaced nickels and quarters.Įventually coins and tokens went away, but not the silver miners. Since early slot machines were only legal in Nevada, these prospectors were originally dubbed “silver miners”. While a few of those coin collectors were well-meaning players, most were affectionately dubbed by casino staff as fleas, bums, scammers or tweakers.
When slot machines still used coins, if any of them were mistakenly left in trays or accidentally dropped on the floor, they were picked up by “customers”.
