NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FEDERAL LAWYERS
Can you go to prison for chip walking
|Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group. We’re a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek, with over 40 years of combined experience handling federal criminal cases. We’ve represented clients in cases that captured national attention – Anna Delvey’s fraud trial that became a Netflix series, the Ghislaine Maxwell juror misconduct case, and the Alec Baldwin stalking prosecution. If you’re reading this, you’re probably worried about chip walking charges and whether federal prosecutors are building a case against you.
Yes – you can absolutely go to prison for chip walking. Federal prosecutors treat it as money laundering, not some harmless casino trick. Between 2020 and 2024, casinos filed suspicious activity reports on roughly $1 billion moving through chip walking schemes, according to FinCEN’s analysis of Chinese money laundering networks. One individual alone moved $22 million and triggered 87 separate Bank Secrecy Act reports across four years.
Chip walking sounds innocent – buy casino chips, play a little or not at all, cash them back out. The money looks clean when you leave because it came from a casino cage, not a drug deal or fraud scheme. Federal prosecutors see 18 USC 1956 money laundering, which carries ten to twenty years in federal prison. The casino isn’t your friend – they’re required by federal law to file a Suspicious Activity Report when you move $5,000 or more in suspicious transactions, and they will.
What Federal Charges You’re Actually Facing
Money laundering under 18 USC 1956 is the main charge. You don’t need to be part of a cartel. The statute requires three elements – a financial transaction, proceeds from unlawful activity, and knowledge that the transaction was designed to conceal the source of funds. Buying chips with dirty money and cashing them out clean hits all three.
Prosecutors also charge 18 USC 1957 for transactions over $10,000 involving criminally derived property. Five to ten years in federal prison for that charge alone. If you crossed state lines or used wire transfers, wire fraud under 18 USC 1343 gets added – twenty years maximum for each count. Federal prosecutors love stacking charges because it creates pressure to plead guilty.
How Casinos Are Tracking You in 2025
Casinos filed 4,645 suspicious activity reports between 2020 and 2024 connected to money laundering networks using chip walking. FinCEN issued guidance identifying chip walking as a red flag – buying chips but not gambling them, irregular chip purchases that don’t match your reported income.
Every casino transaction over $10,000 in 24 hours triggers a Currency Transaction Report that goes straight to FinCEN. The casino fills out a CTR with your name, address, Social Security number, exact transaction details. You might think splitting transactions into $9,000 chunks avoids reporting – that’s called structuring, a separate federal crime under 31 USC 5324. Five years in prison just for trying to avoid the reporting requirement.
In October 2024, the Lake Elsinore Hotel and Casino paid $900,000 to settle BSA violations. That tells you – casinos are under enormous pressure to report suspicious activity. Your chip walking scheme is generating reports you’ll never see until the indictment drops.
The Prison Time You’re Looking At
Money laundering under 18 USC 1956 carries a maximum of twenty years in federal prison. The sentencing guidelines calculate your prison range based on the total amount laundered. Small amounts – under $150,000 – might result in probation if you have no criminal history and cooperate early. That’s rare, though, because federal prosecutors won’t take the case otherwise.
U.S. Attorney’s Offices typically have prosecution guidelines with loss thresholds around $250,000 before they’ll accept a money laundering case. Below that, you’re dealing with state prosecutors. Above that threshold, you’re in federal court facing federal sentencing guidelines that are much, much harsher.
If the laundered amount exceeds $250,000, the guidelines add significant time. Someone laundering $2 million through chip walking with no criminal history is looking at 37 to 46 months under the guidelines – three to four years before any cooperation or acceptance of responsibility reductions.
Asset forfeiture is automatic. The government seizes everything connected to the offense – the money you laundered, property purchased with laundered funds, bank accounts that received deposits from casino redemptions. Civil forfeiture doesn’t require a conviction.
When Federal Prosecutors Actually Charge These Cases
Not every chip walking incident becomes a federal prosecution. The feds focus on substantial amounts, repeated transactions over time, connections to other criminal activity. Someone buying $8,000 in chips once probably won’t get prosecuted federally – though the casino still filed a SAR.
Someone buying $50,000 in chips every month for a year across multiple casinos is getting prosecuted. That pattern generates dozens of CTRs and SARs, all linked by your Social Security number. Federal prosecutors use those reports to establish the money laundering enterprise – ongoing transactions designed to conceal the source of funds.
Chinese money laundering networks are a major enforcement priority in 2025. FinCEN specifically flagged chip walking as a method these networks use to move money from China into the United States and clean it through casinos. If you’re part of that network – even as a low-level participant who just buys and redeems chips for someone else – federal prosecutors will charge you with conspiracy to commit money laundering. Conspiracy carries the same twenty-year maximum.
Drug trafficking proceeds are another trigger. If the money you’re chip walking came from drug sales, prosecutors charge both offenses. The sentences run consecutively – you serve the drug sentence, then start serving the money laundering sentence. That’s how defendants end up with 25 or 30-year federal sentences.
What You Should Do If You’re Under Investigation
You might not know you’re under investigation until agents knock on your door with a search warrant. By that point, prosecutors have already gathered months or years of CTRs, SARs, casino surveillance footage, and financial records tracing the source of your funds.
Don’t talk to federal agents without a lawyer. They will tell you they just want to hear your side of the story, that cooperation now will help you later. None of that is true in the way you think it’s true. Anything you say can and will be used to convict you – not to help you.
Lying to federal agents is a separate federal crime under 18 USC 1001. Five years in prison just for lying, separate from any money laundering charges. Martha Stewart went to prison for lying to investigators, not for the underlying securities fraud.
At Spodek Law Group, we’ve represented clients in federal money laundering cases. We know how prosecutors build these cases from SAR filings and financial records. We know how to negotiate plea agreements that minimize prison time and protect your assets from forfeiture.
Early intervention sometimes stops the prosecution entirely. If we can show prosecutors that the funds came from legitimate sources or you didn’t have the required intent to conceal – they might decline to prosecute. That only works before the indictment.
If you’ve been chip walking – or if you think federal investigators are looking at your casino transactions – call us now. Every day you wait is another day prosecutors are building their case without opposition from your defense team.