Kudos to Mike & Adam for bringing this issue to light (or at least to a larger audience) on the 2+2 Pokercast. I haven’t covered a WSOP Circuit event since they were televised by ESPN in 2006, so I can’t speak to any of these allegations directly. But here are my thoughts.
Asking players to pay additional money at the table for a full chip stack is a horrible practice that needs to stop. Immediately.
Whether or not the staff is honorable, it creates a situation where it is too easy to skim money off the top. I’m not saying that anyone involved in this controversy is skimming money, but the process of taking cash at the table is unacceptable.
Think of it another way -- if that money were going to the casino, do you think they would let their employees accept cash at the table without a receipt? Hell no. If you hand cash to a dealer at any other game in the casino, it gets announced to at least one other employee (pit boss) and then inserted directly into a lockbox.
(I’ve heard rumors that this difficulty in accounting for cash at the tables is one of the reasons that the WSOP discontinued rebuy events and replaced them with “triple chance” events back in 2009.)
People in this thread have claimed that some WSOP Circuit events have this cash-for-chips policy, and some don’t. I can’t speak from direct experience, but looking up the structure sheets online shows that WSOP-C Choctaw did have this policy while WSOP-C Caesars Palace did not.
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Here’s a link to the PDF file with all the structure sheets for
WSOP-C Choctaw (Jan 5-22, 2012):
WSOP-C Choctaw Structure Sheets
50 of the 51 events on that sheet charged a “Staff Appreciation” fee for a sizable portion of chips -- usually a $10 fee to get 25-40% of the full starting stack. (Players report a "Staff Appreciation" fee of $20 in the $1,600 Championship event, though nothing is listed on the structure sheet.)
Note that in at least one of their advertised schedules, there is no mention whatsoever of the additional “Staff Appreciation” fees, which are NOT included in the listed buy-ins. Here’s a link to the ad:
WSOP-C Choctaw Advertised Schedule
As a comparison,
WSOP-C Caesars Palace (January 19-30, 2012) in Las Vegas didn't have any of these extra "Staff Appreciation" fees:
WSOP-C Caesars Palace Structure Sheets
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A lot of casinos around the country have cash-for-chips policies, but that doesn't make them right. I’ve run into them myself in low-stakes tourneys as far back as 2004. Nothing about them seems inherently illegal.
However, based on the player reaction, this has become a customer service issue. I think the players should take their questions directly to the WSOP team in Las Vegas. (And I will probably ask these questions if we don’t hear from them this week.)
1. Was the WSOP aware that some WSOP Circuit stops charged cash-for-chips at the table as a “Staff Appreciation” fee?
2. Does the WSOP have any policies about withholding part of a player's chip stack in exchange for a fee?
3. Does the WSOP have any policies about giving players receipts for all tournament fees?
4. While WSOP Circuit events are held in casinos that fall under different gaming commissions, shouldn’t they be run as consistently as possible, given that they all award points to the WSOP National Championship?
5. Would the WSOP like to take the lead for the poker industry and begin a standardized process where tournament fees are clearly broken down so players know where their money is going?
As an example for Question #5, I think players would prefer to see something like this for the structure sheets of WSOP events:
Event #2: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em
($1,350 prizepool + $105 entry fee + $45 staff tip)
Event #45: $50,000 Poker Players Championship
($48,000 prizepool + $1,400 entry fee + $600 staff tip)
Event #55: $1,000,000 Big One For One Drop
($888,900 prizepool + $111,100 donation to the One Drop Charitable Foundation)
Event #61: $10,000 NLHE Championship (Main Event)
($9,400 prizepool + $420 entry fee + $180 staff tip)
I computed those numbers from information already available on the WSOP structure sheets, but it is buried in the fine print and disguised as percentages rather than dollar figures.
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The problem with the “Staff Appreciation” fee charged at the Choctaw WSOP Circuit events isn’t the size of the fee. But withholding 25-40% of a player's chips and then calling the fee "optional" is an insult. And taking cash at the table without a receipt opens the door for possible corruption.
If they simply added the $10 to the entry fee up front (paid at the cage and listed on the receipt), this controversy wouldn’t exist, and I doubt there would be accusations of corruption.
Players recognize that tournament fees are a cost of doing business. They just want the casinos to be clear and up front about what is a fee, what is a tip, and disburse the money accordingly. And they'd like a receipt that lists everything clearly.
In my mind, this isn't a legal issue, and I'm not accusing anyone of corruption. But it's clearly developing into a customer service issue.