At a table people were talking about scams at casinos and poker rooms, and someone wondered whether anyone had heard of people bringing in a fake chip racks that would hold 18 or 19 chips in each row, instead of the normal 20. That person said most times the cage just tests if the racks are full, but doesn't count out the chips while you're there, plus they shouldn't be too tough to make in a way that would look like the ones casinos use and if you get caught you could always say it wasn't yours - that you found it lying around.

Eventually the consensus was it wasn't worth the risk/expense for, with reds, only an extra $20 or so a session, and with greens or blacks the risk of actually having the chips counted was too high.

Has anyone heard of this actually having been done, or discussed? I figure every scam and angle out there has to have been tried before, but this was the first time I could recall someone bringing up this particular one.

That sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go to in order to have the chips counted at the cage.

While I'm at the table I keep my chips stacked in stacks of 20. So, when I leave I would know then the racks where not right.
Just my thoughts.

LOLOLOL........the cage people handle racks for a living and would know one's not right as soon as they saw/touched it.

What are you going to do, counterfeit hundreds of racks to make a few thousand bucks?

You're kidding right?

I mean SOME people might notice it by touch. Most won't.

But the fact is - when it's a stack of greens+ they're gonna most likely pull one stack out and check it.

Are you serious?

How is someone going to design and make a custom chip rack that looks and feels exactly like a standard one that holds 5 less chips?

Do you know it will take thousands of dollars to produce these (if not tens of thousands)?

And what are you doing to say (if and when) you're cashed in - "Oh, I need my rack back please"?

Sorry, but you're going to have to keep thinking of other ways to scam casinos.

I've heard of many scams but never this one.

They do make different size racks to accommodate different thickness of chips. It's conceivable that someone could discover one casino has thinner chips than another, steal racks from there, and smuggle them into another casino. It would have to be sized such that 19 chips fit as snugly as 20 would in a normal rack or the cashier would notice right away. As mentioned, it would only work with small denomination chips, so you're making at most $25 per rack and it will be noticed quickly.

If you roll up with 5 racks of $5k chips there's no way they don't pull out at least one stack to verify.

The cage I cash in at has a set procedure. They fill the rack, take out one stack, break it down in stacks of 5, run their finger along the top confirming even height, spread the 4th stack out so its clear its 5 chips, put it back in the rack, and slide a chip along the edges to show each slot is full. I assume this is all recorded on camera.

You would have to somehow get it so that the slot they chose to pull a stack from to break down had 20, but all the rest had 18 or 19. Then somehow hope they dont catch you on the spot, then never show your face again because when they check the tape when the cage is short they will spot your phony rack.

I've heard some dumb ideas in my day, but this one is on another level.

It was a boring game, and people were tossing out crazy things that made zero sense or were already well known. This one struck me because I'd never heard of it and yet it didn't seem entirely implausible. So I figured I'd share and see what folks had to say.

I don't see this happening with chip stacks over $25 so at most you're getting 5 green chips, $125, for the cost of the rack itself plus the risk of being caught if you try it more than once. You can probably make more money with less risk by trying to legitimately rob the cage itself even after accounting for the cost of a hand gun.

You ever play BJ? I do and when I want to leave I push stacks forward and the dealers are able to grab a stack of 20 off of them by feel, no problem. Many poker players can do the same thing. There's no way anyone gets away w/ this dumb idea.

If I ran a shady poker room, I'd make the racks hold 105 chips.

The chips at The Orleans are so old that 21 fit in a row. A tourist might lose a few dollars if the cage person doesn't watch out for them.

Really the $2 chips are fine and the $1s are mostly ok. But some of the the $5s are so worn that you could fit 22 in a stack if you have all old ones.

Now I know why The Orleans hasn't bought new chips for the 20 years that I've been going there?

Sounds like an amazing poker game, OP! Were the blinds chopping 90% of the hands dealt?

If the banter at the poker table is about this kind of BS, it's time for a snap table change.

the new chips are out on the dice tables

I would be very surprised if any (not brand new) cage person couldn't tell a rack is off just from the weight difference. Muscle memory is a hell of a thing. Maybe these fake racks have the extra weight built in to them?

But I'd also be leery of playing in a room with a cage that just hands out cash without verifying the chips...

Oh brother, you obviously haven't played in some of the casinos I frequent. Some of those cage workers couldn't count their fingers and toes, let alone spot a 19 chip rack if it were brought to them. I'd venture to say that plenty would spot this, but there are several cage workers at my home casino that I could approach with a rack like this and know it'd get through with near 100% certainty.

There are some cage workers that will always pull out one full stack from a rack and count it down (which I'm assuming is the correct procedure for them), but there several of them that merely run a single chip down the entire rack just to assure that each stack in the rack is full.

I'm not a scumbag that would ever try to cheat anyone, but even if I were this seems like too much risk and work for very little reward.

Tell me again why only the stupid criminals are in jail?

Chip thickness does matter and racks do get stretched, but in order to pull this off it would have to just be 'convenient' to do so. The amount of money you'd have to invest in an injection molding tool .. and find a company to make them for you ... would be way more than I think you could ever profit.

I agree that a lot of cage workers would sense the difference but some might miss it with the sweeping chip check.

Robbing a place that has strict checks and balances in place with cameras everywhere .. Nice. Right up there with bank robbers, who are the most likely to be caught criminal of all criminals!! GL

Yeah - it wasn't exactly a splashfest, hence the meandering conversations. People also were debating for probably 45 minutes on what age Donald Trump lost his virginity. There was a strong contingent for 16-18, but an equally vocal faction who said no way before 21.

Chip thickness isn't constant either. Case in point - Rivers - they have some newer chips that are just ever so slightly thicker than the older ones. When you stack 20 old next to 20 new, you end up with about 2/3 a chip height difference. Both fit in the rack without being able to fit an extra chip in either.

So a cage can really have to count down at least one stack to be sure it's 20 regardless of the rack. But again, when it's a question of reds or whites - they're probably less concerned. Greens and above? It'd be irresponsible not to require checking.

This was all I could think of, when I saw the thread title. Back in my day, the Gold Coast $1 chips were so old:

--varying thickness
--many were slightly bowl-shaped. You could put two of these bowls back-to-back, so to speak, and make the top one spin. "How did you do that?", players would ask, as I was 20 years ahead of the Fidget Spinner craze (but only at the GC).

Thanks to those two factors, you could have a single rack of chips that included stacks of 19, 20, and 21...I may have even got 22 once? Also, didn't they use the old wooden racks? That may have contributed as well.