1) Whether OP was away for 5 minutes or 40 minutes is hardly as important as the basic security issue. "Walkers" do bother some people a lot, and it may be an etiquette issue, but they're within the rules, they don't deserve to have their chips stolen, and they ought to understand what the deal is regarding chips left on the table.
2) Dealers should never tell players that their chips will be safe on the table, or that the casino is responsible for them. This simply isn't true anywhere I'm aware of. And well-trained dealers do NOT "always" say this.
3) All of us occasionally leave the table for a few minutes or more. You should know that you have the options either to leave the chips on the table (but at your own risk); to use a cover (if they're available); or to color up and take chips with you, informing dealer of amount and replacing them on returning. Also, if you know you're going to be gone for a relatively long time, the safest (and most courteous) thing would be simply to pick up and to ask the floor for a meal re-seat if you expect to be coming back.
4) The casino has no right or legal ability to physically take the stolen chips back from the offender. They can eject and bar him, and (in some jurisdictions) they can turn him over to police for prosecution, as they did here.
5) What the Mirage did (other than the first wrong statement by a well-meaning but obviously misinformed floor), was totally standard and normal everywhere in the industry. Casinos will very rarely, if ever, make good to a customer on chips stolen like this, although they will normally try to locate the thief and press him to fork them over. We can debate whether this is good or bad casino policy, but it is very standard and no reason to single out or avoid the Mirage, as the same thing would happen (and definitely has happened) at most other casinos.
Finally, although the Mirage probably won't reimburse you, it wouldn't hurt to try kicking it up a level or two and seeing if someone will make an exception, or if they will at least extend some comps to you as a courtesy (it's a lot easier fot the casino to get its head around this than to shell out cash).

Well, in a legal proceeding, you no doubt would be correct, but this is a thread in a poker forum, not a legal discussion.... (thank goodness).
(But if it's actually possible to throw out the idiots, I'm for it.)

When I made my post it was only meant in response to OP's annoyance that his thread title had been changed. I think it was something like 'Robbed at the Mirage'. The moderator may have had some entirely different reason in mind but I assumed, like me, he thought 'robbed' implied some kind of physical confrontation as it does in law. I was intending to explain to OP why someone might decide 'stolen' was better to use in the title.

OP decided I was wrong and an idiot.

Sure people use these words outside of a strictly legal context all the time and meanings change accordingly. I wasn't trying to start an argument about semantics; just to be helpful.

Hopefully, as the mod requested, we can drop the side issue of the meanings of words, which I wish I hadn't brought up.

wow that sucks. I'm surprised he did not just get up and leave once he knew he got away with it rather than stick it out and see if he gets caught. but i hear it all the time at local casino , new guy will say i'm going to bathroom or smoke, what do i with my chips. dealer answers your in a casino, million cameras your fine.

idk why people would say they will never play at Mirage again. They forced the guy to give the chips back. He refused. He was 86'd and the police were called to further force him, but they gave him the option of giving the chips up or going to jail.

OP you will have to get the money back from the guy who stole them when and if the judge orders restitution. If mirage gave them back, and you also get them back later from the court, you would have been paid back double anyway.

Do you always take long walks during sessions? I wonder if this was the reason nobody at the table spoke up for you when the guy scooped up your chips into his stack. Next time don't take a 40 minute stroll, especially when there is a drunk guy sitting next to your money!

This is why I don't leave the table for more than a few minutes. Yeah, someone might take my chips if I leave for a few minutes to use the restroom, but it's much more unlikely to happen. Also, I might actually catch someone trying to take my chips if I'm gone for less than 5 minutes. If I'm gone for 40 minutes, then it's going to be tougher to find out who did it, and I would expect the person to be gone already. The OP was actually lucky that this guy was dumb enough to still be there, and lucky that the guy actually went to jail for this. A lot of people would have walked away $190 richer. If the thief wanted to play with those chips, he should have cashed out and walked into another poker room.

I also don't have a problem with anything the Mirage did.

I would train all the dealers to explicitly never imply that patrons’ chips are protected by any means. I may even go as far as having dealers tell players that get up, that they should use a play over box, rack up, color up, etc…. I would train my dealers to be more diligent about keeping an eye on vacant chip stacks. I would put a sign on the wall saying “Lock your stack, We are not responsible for lost or stolen chips” ala parking garage disclaimer.

Where are the missed blind and absent buttons? Are they sitting in front of an empty seat with no chips?

I would also train my poker room management and surveillance.

From OP….

Why is there a discrepancy in the floor prematurely saying the video is “inconclusive” and security saying it is “conclusive” is there an opportunity for training of staff or a procedural review here?

This is the crux of the situation. Problem solved If they got it right the first time and not prematurely informed the suspect that there was “inconclusive video evidence”. The suspect stated that he would return the chips if the video showed him taking them. Perhaps, a policy of letting an accused suspect view the video of him taking the chips would have prompted him to return the money?

Wow, welcomed and leveled. Thanks Rapini. So I guess you quoting yourself is the portion of the thread I didn’t read. So I will address that specifically. How do you know his chips were not taken in the first 5 minutes he was gone. Your point is mute and presumptuous.

For me, it’s an incompetent floor and dealer that work there.

I have. Wasn't too many months ago I posted the tale of a drug addled player who went all-in, lost, grabbed his $60 that he hadn't pushed in yet, and made a bolt for the door. Floor slowed the guy down, while yelling for security, and by the time the guy got out the door he ran smack into a large yellow-shirted security droid who took him down after a struggle. They paid the player the $60 on the spot. And I know of one other such event for a larger sum--I think about $600--where the casino paid the player who was stiffed after they 86'd the thief, but not immediately, and not at the table, and they asked he not be too loud about them having paid him back because they didn't want word to spread that they'd do this.

Years ago, a lady comes back to the table where her stuff is sitting, only there are no chips there. She only had like $17 in front of her when she wandered off 10 minutes prior, but it's not there now. Dealer figures he musta swept 'em into the big pot that just happened. Floor grabs $17 from the till and pays her--no checking with surveillance, no big argument about "sure it was 17 and not 16", no request to the winner of the big pot to cough it up, just "sorry for the trouble".

It's pretty easy to do for $17, or even $60. You can make a decent case for the value of keeping a customer happy. It's harder to do as the sums get larger. The $600 was owed to a very regular customer who certainly generated more rake than that for the casino annually. Dunno if they would have done it for a stranger.

Okay, I'm sure that would work too since dealers have plenty of free time on their hands to watch absent players chips. It may cut hph done to 10 but hey, he has a RIGHT to walk around for 59 minutes.

As to the disclaimer you want to see posted, I doubt it would change things. There are rules posted in every room but most people do not take the time to read them. My casino has such a warning included in the rules posted in the poker room.

While the Mirage may have miss stepped a little at first, in the end they called the police and everything that could be done, within their policy, was done. A casino cannot forcibly take money from a players stack and give it to another player. The alleged thief was offered the chance to fix the problem and he refused to pay up, he got arrested.

I like the way you told off Rapini, let me know how that works out for you.

Bav, I have no doubt that this happened but since it was away from the table and later on, isn't possible that the casino got the money from the 86'd player and used that to pay the player back?

Of course they could have made a business decision as well. Corporate policy has it's own version of "Rule One".

So what did the dealer do? I'm pretty sure you can't drunkenly knock over a chip-stack in a subtle manner. Dealer should have seen this and immediately stopped play to solve what happened. No more hands played. I mean what if i started shoving everyones chipstack into a big ****storm in the middle of the table? Besides me getting reprimanded as the guy did in your story, do they just say SORRY THE GUY GETS TO KEEP IT. The dealer is also employed by Mirage so they should be responsible for the $190.

My point is mute? Ugh.

So you think it's more likely that someone swiped the chips five minutes after he was gone--same dealer, players having a fresh image of their tablemate, etc.--than later on after a dealer change? I can't argue with that kind of logic.

In Mississippi the casinos take responsibilty for chips and will replace stolen chips but not any cash on the table. Don't know if this is state gaming regulations or not. But at Samstown in Tunica recently a woman left 300+ in chips and a $100 bill on table when she went to eat. A black chip and the $100 bill was missing when she sat back down, the casino replaced the chip after reviewing the tapes but stated they were not responsible for cash. They also gave her a buffet comp.

This is a category mistake. The dealer is not there to protect players. The dealer is there to protect the room and make sure that has many hands as possible are dealt.

Once you understand this, everything else will make sense.

Do you suppose it's possible that dealer did not see the player take the OP's chips? There are 9/10 players at the table, there is a lot going on.

And the casino did not say "sorry, the guy gets to keep the chips", the police were called and he was arrested after being told he could make it all go away by returning the chips. Genius that he is, he choose jail.