casinos almost never do unless its a tiny amount or ordered to do by the gaming commission.

Definitely less inclined to play at Borgata. The bad publicity must be killing them. Without the internet you'd probably be SOL in making publicity. Doubtful a newspaper would pick it up, but perhaps worth a shot. It's an incredible story with layers of intrigue, that is if the newspaper is willing to write it. I dare say people would read it.

It is mostly a PR problem for Borgota. They are not law enforcement and they are not even the victim here. The guy stole from another player. But they should help the OP and the authorities all they can to make the OP whole and punish the offender. It is the smart business move. IDK if this story is "killing" them , but it certainly is not making them look good in the minds of many players who read the forums.

How many players read 2+2? 1 in 1000? less? It doesn't sound like "publicity" has motivated anyone to do anything in this case. LEO's are gonna LEO, and Borgata hasn't done a thing.

If the casino gets fined, the dealer gets fired. Now that Gaming is involved, she might already be fired. If that needs to happen to help OP, so be it....but folks who are actively cheering for this to happen are just heartless. She's as much a victim here as the OP. She didn't push into the game planning to collude with a thief. The theft took place literally behind her back.

OP came to this thread to ask, "What should I do?"
The dealer had no one to ask (that clueless floor wasn't going to be any help).

Very, very few poker dealers would be unflappable enough to handle this extreme situation smoothly. The dealer in this story does not sound like an outlier to me--the outliers would be guys like the ones who post here on 2+2. I'd like to think that if someone like Suit or SteamRaise or Quadstriker or Psandman were in the box, the thief wouldn't even TRY a move like this, or be drawing dead if he did try it.

If she gets fired, I can't say that crazy, I would understand the casino's position. But I know what it's like to lose a job after a bizarre incident when I had three kids in diapers, and that's something that should only happen to the worst people on earth, not someone who is working for a living.

If she's gone, I get it--but let's not cheer like we're watching a game.

the dealer did not question Seat 10 and just pushed all the chips to Seat 10.

Immediately Myself, Seat 5 and Seat 1 started questioning "what the Hell had just happened?" and Seat 5 stated he swore he saw Seat 10 throw his hand into muck (as well as I and Seat 1 did as well) and the only way Seat 10 could have cards is if he reached into the muck.

We immediately called the floor supervisor and as the floor supervisor was headed over to the table, the dealer started dealing the next hand in which we complained to the dealer "stop dealing".


Let's not pretend that the dealer was not extremely incompetent. Maybe this was the first time such a thing happened and I might let this go if she is a capable dealer ignoring this but everyone has problems and keeping incompetent staff is bad management. I much rather prefer a hefty fine for the casino because the dealer acted mostly out of ignorance but the casino knowingly failed to contact police.

1) Maybe you can't protect the muck 100% of the time but you can't start counting chips and shoving pots when there is a potentially live hand. Either villain mucked and she shipped the pot over to the wrong person or she failed to wait for all live hands to either muck or show before moving chips. Neither case is good.

2) When multiple people start doubting your decision, of which one is basically implying cheating is going on, and you don't think something is wrong that's negligence.

3) When a floor is called in a big pot like this where you might have made a mistake, don't compound it by wiping the board and start dealing a new hand.

jeeez, I just literally had a ten-minute flashback of that whole ugly incident (me getting fired over ten years ago). That was a scary feeling, realizing I had been lost in my head for 10mins.

Kelvis,

Of course, you're 100% correct. In a perfect world, 100% of dealers would handle this flawlessly.

But most folks ARE incompetent.

I've come to expect the room service guy to forget the butter.
I've come to expect cashiers to struggle with simple calculations.
I've come to expect contractors to need to be called back to repair the floor tiles or electrical outlets or whatever they installed.
I've come to expect doctors to need 2-3 swings at diagnosing anything.

I guess I just hate it that the only ones fired the first time they botch something are the poker dealers.

I'm certainly not as experienced as most in this thread, so forgive the possibly naive questions.

1. Why would the dealer not just freeze everything and call the floor? She obviously saw the villain muck his cards and when she turned around and they were no longer in the muck why is that not a huge red flag to just stop everything?

2. I understand, mostly, that the casino has little interest to help because they were not the ones stolen from here. Is the casino, any casino, all casinos, required to run a fair game? isn't it on them to govern cheating? I mean legally or at least according to the rules of the gaming commission. Don't they have an obligation here?

I would look at it differently (from the casino's point of view) if he got held up in the parking garage and the money stolen from him, but he didn't get money stolen, he was cheated out of it in their poker room. Don't they have liability in this case?

I believe I also stated earlier in this thread that I did not "blame" the dealer... Dealing is a tough job and there is a lot of detail that needs to be paid attention to and she made what I believe is a mistake.... Did she do anything to help rectify it? no.. Is she incompetent? probably...... But unfortunate things sometimes happen and it seems like I am always the unlucky recipient. Should the dealer have collected the mucked/dead hands right away? Yes, of-coarse she should have but I understand that accidents happen.

The person that I blame besides obviously Seat 10 (villian) is the Floor person. He is the one that could stopped all of this from the jump but refused to call for security review. If anyone should be fired or demoted it's the Floor person.

jmho....

Sat afternoon. Borgata has 60 games running and the total of the wait list is 190+. I don't believe the PR is hurting much less killing borgata. As ytf notes, 2+2 is a great site and in some cases because who some of the readers are it can have an outsized impact. It is still a small population. In this case, at this point postings here have had minimal impact on borgata. Heck, minimal impact,on poker at borgata which is a small part of borgata overall.

These sorts of responses are way way too pat. Things happen very fast. And physical actions can actually get you in trouble.

I sometimes see people say things like "I grab the dealer's hand if necessary". Well, grabbing the dealer's hand is misdemeanor assault. Do you really risk jail time over a poker pot? No, like the rest of us, you try your best to protect your hand but things happen, which is why dealers and floormen are supposed to act competently.

if the dealer is pushing your pot away and doesnt stop after you saying so. you had better grab his hand if you have any brains.
and no you arent going to jail if you do.

Forgive my ignorance here, but a question for those saying villain stole from the players and not the casino.

In Ohio, the revised code breaks down that basically walking out of a casino with any ill-gotten gains (due to cheating, finding chips on the ground, walking out with a slot ticket, etc) is theft. Does NJ have any such verbiage?

Even if he technically did not steal from the Borgata, they take a ton of rake from people to provide a safe environment to prevent this.

GL OP. I had an issue at a casino in the Midwest where villain, just to be an A-hole and rub in my face that he won the hand, back away from the table and put the cards basically in his lap and then did a 360 in the chair. Then tabled his hand. Floor called, ruled him the pot. I left because floor was too stupid to read her own rule book. I came back the next day, the staff reviewed the tapes and gave me the entire pot out of the cage + 2 free buffets.

I was one of the unlucky few who did not get reimbursed from Borgata during the whole Fake Chip scandal during a Winter Open. No one ever returned my calls and emails. Vowed to never go to the Borgata again and I wont.

NJ does has a similar law on lost property and theft by taking, but I'm not sure that what happened here would fall under that statute. The player cheated at a casino/poker game. It would fall under that statute I imagine, or a general one on fraud or theft.

IANAL.

Thanks for the update. Continues wishes for a just resolution.

SMH at R & R, holding his cards wasn't the issue here.

What villain did is no different than reaching over and taking chips off another's stack. I would just be totally shocked if the whole bit of, "Pass the responsibility of prosecution and filing a report on to the victim because this is poker obv.", is actually true. Seems like a far reach. Borgata collects rake to protect the games, they hire the dealers entrusted to enforce the rules accurately and they hired the idiot floors and managers who compounded the problem. They should be held 100% responsible in compensating the victim; for the full pot, not just what he lost.

I'm not sure why that was a response to me. Nothing in what you said is related to lost property or theft by taking.

In any case, whether Borgata gets fined is up to gaming - I don't know NJ gaming law well enough to know whether they would or should be. Yes we pay them rake to run the game, but that doesn't necessarily translate into specific actions they need to take common-sensically.

Whether they bear any civil liability will be up to a judge or jury, assuming OP decides to go after them, which seems unlikely (maybe small claims?). Whether they bear any criminal liability is up to the prosecutor/jury, though I highly doubt it.

I have to say after reading this, I am most angry at Seat 8. There are plenty of scumbags and they will always be around. But seeing someone cheating and not say anything? Seat 8 deserves to be cheated. How can you not say anything when you see someone cheat like that? The only justifiable reason (although still not acceptable) is if Seat 8 was scared by seat 10.

This was my initial thought as well.

Put me in the "WTF Borgata" camp as well. However minor of a publicity hit it may be it's got to be worth more than $1,500 ie zero impact on their P&L.

If that's the main thing that stops you from grabbing peoples' arms, there's something wrong.

In order of decreasing weight, this is why I don't grab people:

1. At least 90% of the time, when my brain thinks "HEY WAIT" it just needs another 2 seconds to remember "oh, right."

2. In any sort of physical confrontation, the cost of my health care is probably going to exceed the money at stake. Maybe those who are MMA trained badasses feel differently.

3. When I need to stop something, verbally yelling "Stop!" usually works just fine.

hope you do get your money as it belongs to you in this case. even if you were lax about the situation.

however forget about criminal charges. they may threaten him and he may give back the money but no way is he getting indited for this. all he has to say is he mistakenly threw his cards in and then realized he won and retrieved them. and the casino ruled in his favor, so he left with his money. you can argue whether it was cheating and it was but no one to convince anyone who delves into it that he was a law breaker..
lots of mistakes were made by all parties in this hand.

I feel like the biggest blame should be on the floor guy in this one. The dealer is mildly at fault for dealing the next hand. The floor guy should have realized this and handled the situation. The severity of the problem demanded that he investigate further and he did nothing. Should he be fired though? No.

if it is also part of his job to teach his dealers the fundamentals and he doesnt bother then maybe more so.
either the dealers dont know what to do, then you cant blame them entirely except for the contempt of someone dealing with the public that doesnt take on learning what he is getting paid for.

or the floorman for not instructing the proper procedures to his dealers out of laziness or indifference.

both those are very common in casino poker.

Yah, I never understood the whole "I wasn't in the hand" excuse. If that guy got dealt a hand, he was in the hand. Speak up!

Obviously I don't know what was going through Seat 8s mind when this happened, but I have to say if I were in this situation, I might be scared to speak up as well (I'm guessing instinctively I probably would because it would be like wtf are you doing if I saw this going down but hard to say until it happens).

But being realistic about it, considering what Seat 10 did, that is effectively stealing from another player in front of several others, on camera no less in an environment full of security, well someone who would do that, they very likely could be quite dangerous. Is it really so easy for anyone to call out a blatant thief, knowing that if the thief views you as being the one responsible for them being caught, that they might try to exact some kind of revenge on you at some point? It's far easier no question to just keep your mouth shut and keep yourself out of any harm's way given you are not involved in the situation for sure. Not saying it's correct by any means, but I have trouble blasting someone too much over it if that happened to be the mindset.