Container · Board game rules
Can I take out Loans or participate in the auction with 0 money?
Quick answer
Yes — you can always request a loan regardless of cash on hand, and you can bid $0 (using bluff cards) in a delivery auction, but Bank cash-auction bids must still be cash from your hand.
Details
Requesting a Bank loan is a free action you can take at any time, specifically because you're "short on cash" — there's no minimum cash requirement to request one, and you can even do it during other players' turns [p.16 — BANK LOANS]. This makes it possible to take a loan even if you currently have $0.
In a Delivery Auction, each opponent secretly bids any amount of cash, and they "may use $0 bluff cards" — the rules explicitly state "You can choose to play only $0 cards," so bidding $0 is fully legal there [p.15 — DELIVERY AUCTIONS][p.16 — Bluffing].
For Off-Shore Bank cash auctions, you must use the cash bid tile to offer real cash from your hand, and if someone already has the tile you must bid at least $1 more than they did [p.12 — BANK AUCTIONS]. If no one has started an auction yet, you place your "opening bid" on the tile — the rules don't set an explicit minimum, so a $0 opening bid isn't forbidden, but you cannot outbid an existing bid without at least $1 more in cash [p.12 — CALL BANK ACTION].
Watch out: For Bank container auctions (bidding containers for cash), you're wagering containers, not cash, so having $0 in hand doesn't stop you from bidding there as long as you have containers to offer [p.12 — BANK AUCTIONS].