Coming into US from Canada w/ > $10,000 -- problems?

[chicken10der]

get it in $100 bills and keyster it. $10 bills if you're like that.

[teddyFBI]

So post-trip report: I bought 9K in traveler's checks...wanted to stay under the 10K threshold, but not make it look suspicious. Customs lady was friendly -- upon hearing that i was going to vegas asked how much cash i had -- told her i had 9K in traveler's checks. She told me that because i had "so much" I would have to talk to the customs inspector officer in the other room. I dreaded this b/c the other times I've been to the "other room" I was there for at least 60 minutes before I even got to talk to a customs official, and then there were 15 minutes of 'splaining, and one time they unpacked and searched all my bags, which took 30 minutes. But this particular Saturday, the Toronto airport was completely deserted for some reason, and no one was waiting in the customs room so I walked right up to the waiting officer. I showed him my traveler's checks, he asked if i was playing in any tournaments (my guess is that they've had quite a few toronto traveler's come through in the last week or two with a lot of cash for the WSOP), I told him yes, and he let me go. Total extra time spent: no more than 5 minutes.

***BUT, I stress that if you're going to Vegas with 5K or more, you go to the airport an hour earlier than u otherwise would b/c if you need to go to the "other room", and it's a busy flying day, you might be delayed as much as 1 to 2 hours.