Cheating scandal

[DaBurglar]

well, all i can say is I am VERY glad I did not enter this tourney at Borgata....it really makes ya stop and think..... http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/comm ... l?mode=jqm  it is bad enough having to worry about people working and collaborating together during a N/L holdem tourney, but now, to not know if the guy across from you who just check-raised you ALL-IN is sporting a bogus stack of chips.

[Tedlark]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ac-casino- ... ZJUDMwNF8x

[DaBurglar]

wow   that yahoo story went into details and areas I was not aware of.....namely that the tourney had progressed all the way down to 27 people before they discovered the fake chips.......since total chips is always known and tracked during a tourney, the fake chips must have been slipped in sometime during late Thursday, otherwise they would have found it sooner!    but this makes sense, as the article points out......in a large scale big money tourney like Borgatas winter open, the first priority for a player is simply to survive long enough to make the money......plopping extra chips onto your stack will help you do just that;   but I am guessing the guy must have thought he could use the fake chips to survive, get to the money and then deliberately get himself knocked out and paid from the prize pool before anyone noticed.    Maybe he succeeded since the article says "All REMAINING prize funds"!     Maybe the culprit already cashed out and split.....if so, that sucks for the remnant. I truly feel bad for the honest players here and I hope the Borgata does right by them since some of the blame for this does fall on Borgata's shoulders for allowing it to happen.     Realizing that Borgata is head and shoulders above all the other casinos in AC, it is scary indeed that their security could not stop or contain this sooner......I have said before and still say that many of the other casinos have a JOKE for security......I tell people who want to gamble on the boardwalk to always be aware of their surroundings and not to sit by the exits when playing with a large (above 100 bucks) amount of money in the machine.   It would be no problem for a thief who can run to grab a purse, or someone;s money and bolt out the door(s).....the guards are mostly old, feeble and certainly not motivated to physically stop or delay anyone.    except at Borgata!

[DaBurglar]

I wanted to add one more thing here about actual POKER CHIPS during poker tournaments..... A  lot of casinos use plain old solid colored poker chips for events like a simple daily tournament or a sit n go..... I have not played in Borgata's Winter Open before, but other borgata tournaments like their daily, have chips that are plain but also do have Borgata's name......to counterfiet those would be harder than plain chips but not impossible.     But an event like the Winter Open, where MILLIONS of dolars are at stake, surely had chips more secure I would hope!    If so, then obviously someone on the inside may have had a hand in this scandal (either a Borgata Employee or someone at the chip factory.)    I am quite interested in how this is solved since I had planned on making Borgata my Poker HQ for 2014 and beyond! Edited to add:   as i was typing this, my brother (who is a bigger POKER player than myself and HAS played in a number of Borgata Special Events) sent me a text that says he just learned that the guilty party at one point flooded the tournament with about 1 million dollars (tourney value, no cash value) worth of $5,000 (5K face value) chips....he says, in a special event like this, the chips must have been PERFECT forgeries, which suggests a sophisticated level of planning, resources and plain old NERVE! Apparently a couple hundred people were paid, all the way down to 28th place before the scandal was noticed and tourney frozen.   Minimum cash out was $1,100 and 28th place made $6,000, and then BOOM!   All remaining prize money frozen and tourney suspended.....first place pays $375,000 so you can see, for the remaining players, a whole crapload is at stake. I cannot imagine what the chipleader at this point, whoever he is, must be thinking (assuming he was not the perpetrator which is HIGHLY unlikely.    The poor person was probably playing the best tournamnet of his life......Argh!  I would personally be devastated if such a thing happened to me!

[pokerforme]

Most likely it was a group of players. And I agree with a previous point made that when they got to the money then pushed hard to either climb the ladder or get the money and run.

[DaBurglar]

here is some more info from Card Player Magazine (I highly recommend this site if you are interested in either live poker or online poker...) http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/16 ... feit-chips    I have not found the picture yet, but my brother says he saw pix of the fake chips juxtaposed to the real authentic chips, and they were not even close!    I find that incredible, but then again, if this was a typical re-buy or re-entry tourney, then plenty of opportunity in the constant transacting to slip phony chips in.......still doesnt excuse it, and I am sure that, from now on, there will be some major new tourney protocols to prevent this ever happening again. 

[BillyJoe]

here is some more info from Card Player Magazine (I highly recommend this site if you are interested in either live poker or online poker...)

 
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/16 ... feit-chips 
 
I have not found the picture yet, but my brother says he saw pix of the fake chips juxtaposed to the real authentic chips, and they were not even close!    I find that incredible, but then again, if this was a typical re-buy or re-entry tourney, then plenty of opportunity in the constant transacting to slip phony chips in.......still doesnt excuse it, and I am sure that, from now on, there will be some major new tourney protocols to prevent this ever happening again. 
I suspect the mayor of Hoboken, trying to get that Sandy Relief money she felt she deserved. (Kidding of course )
 
Obviously, they DID spot it at some point, and stopped the tournament. How soon after the fake chips were introduced, we will probably never know. Of course, they are also known to deal unshuffled cards for many hands at tables in AC, so anything is possible.  

[DaBurglar]

That;s right billyjoe!!!   Holy crap I forgot about that, so you must have seen it too right billjoe?    how Showboat was fined a month and a half ago when they were caught dealing unshuffled or improperly shuffled cards 6 (six) times ???? I read that in the AC press, but it was right around the time in december when the AC club finally went under, and that news basically blocked out all other news in terms of import and scope.  it was a really small article too, without much detail.....  This is what I mean when I refer to the decrepit state of affairs in AC.....and it really truly is not a stretch to imagine casinos there, who are bleeding money, screwing with their machines, whether they be VP machines or slots or whatever..... What is worse, I heard from a dealer at Harrahs that the incidents of shuffling in question were, more or less, ACCIDENTALLY caught by NJ gaming inspectors who happened to see it (the first incident, which then caused him/her to surveil the table(s) and identify additional infractions)  while there for an entirely different purpose......basically, it makes you ask "I wonder what else is happeneing that they do not know about???"

[Tedlark]

  So the unshuffled cards were found at the Showboat and you heard from a dealer at Harrahs that this was ACCIDENTALLY caught by a gaming inspector? You just happened to get caught up in bridgegate too? And your brother has some of the counterfeit chips? Topper...

[DaBurglar]

   And your brother has some of the counterfeit chips? Topper...  show me where i said THAT please, seriously.    dont type anything else, just find the post where you claim I said that and copy/paste it