At Poker Bonuses, we’ve taught you how to get cash and get seated when you enter a brick and mortar casino. So you have chips, you’re playing at a poker table, and now you feel like getting up for the night. What should you do? After all, the pile of chips at your disposal isn’t worth one penny in the real world. How do you cash out of a casino and reap the benefits of your hours at the poker table? We’ve got you covered.

The first trick is to know when to walk away. Many players get on a rush at the tables. Before you know it, their earnings have evaporated and they’re left scratching their heads as to what happened to the fruits of their labor. I often find that leaving the table within a half hour of winning a huge pot is an opportune time. Your earnings will likely be at a pinnacle at that point, meaning that you’re apt to leave the table with the maximum amount of money possible. I find that, after winning a monster pot, players tend to loosen up given their newfound bankroll. While that might be an effective strategy in tournament play due to the blinds and antes increasing at every juncture, it falls short of being useful in cash game play, when these mandatory bets remain constant.

So you’re ready to get up and walk away from the table. Now what? First of all, wait until the blinds come around to you in order to stand up. This means that the last hand you should play is when you are under the gun, or seated to the left of the big blind. If you think about it, every hand that you don’t have to pay a blind in during a cash game is essentially free. While this also holds true in tournaments, in cash games you are playing with real money. Each round of play starts with you paying the big blind, then paying the small blind, then being on the button, and so on.

As soon as the last hand is finished, tell the dealer that you’re leaving. If you fail to do so, the dealer may actually deal you cards in the next hand (since you are still seated at the table). Once you’ve bid your dealer goodbye, tell him or her that you need a rack for all of your chips. After all, you’re not going to double fist a few hundred chips in a vain attempt to make it back to the poker room cage without spilling them all over the ground. Put your chips in the rack and ask the poker room host (whom you met earlier in your session when you checked in) where to cash out. Immediately head to the cage or cashier desk and exchange those clay chips for real-life money.

Now, it’s time to be selfish. There are two other steps to take before you hit the exit for the night. First, make sure that the casino host “checks you out.” While it might sound like you need to fork over a hotel key and pay for those $4 Snickers bars that you ate from the mini-bar, it actually means that the casino host takes your players card and swipes it again to mark the time you checked in and the time you check out. This is important because it lets the casino know the amount of “comps” to credit your account with, which brings us to our next point.

If you want something free from the casino, don’t be afraid to ask. I often find that poker rooms are often exceedingly liberal about doling out free buffets and other meals for their players. You can’t play poker on a full stomach, can you? Likewise, even though you may not actually receive anything special, you can also ask for a free hotel room or show tickets, depending upon your play. The worst that a poker room host, or any casino employee can say for that matter, is no.