Though I am not an expert in RFID chips, I do know a little. this is not an "added" costs issue. it is a "economically impossible" issue for tournament poker. costs of readers, and chips are beyond cost prohibitive even if they charged 100% rake.

There are also many technical issues as I am not sure the current technology could process multiple 200+ chip stacks. These systems were designed for table games where betting patterns, chip volume and movement, and game flow are much different.

As far as e-tables as solution, though I would love it, but not going to happen. They are, IMHO , a great solution for 10-table weekly/monthly tournaments in PERMANENT locations, running tournaments every single day.

WAY too cost prohibitive for temporary event. educated guess of rake would be 50% to provide etables in tournament like Event #1. This assumes operator could run same event twice a year for 3 years. that just covers costs of technology and assumes casinos would run tournaments for free. anyone interested in a $280+280? prob not

Much more importantly, player psychology just not ready yet for disruptive technology as this in large field 100 table tournaments. see Geoffrey's Moore pivotal book on this topic - Crossing the Chasm

Alan

has anyone ITT provided the exact NJ Crimincal Code the cheaters violated. As gross as this is, I don't beleive they cheated the casino, more like cheated players. Most states statutes protect casinos not players. Laws were not written with $2M prize pool, player banked poker tournaments in mind.

Fraud against another player I guess, but what is Fraud amount? $565, ICM of my stack when I busted? ICM of my current stack?? Full $2,000,000? Dollar value of fraud determines penalties/sentencing. Not sure what a criminal penalty would be in NJ for fraud amounting to $565

Lots of civil suits possible against cheaters with Borgata as plantiff, but good luck collecting that from a bunch of poker degen scammers.

Definitely agree POTY

People enjoy the experience until the guise of security is removed and they see what's going on. I wonder what % of the players that played in this tournament would say they enjoyed this particular experience.

People, I understand it's fun to speculate and all that, but "cancel" is a word with a meaning. If a tournament is cancelled, everyone is refunded, no matter at what time the cancellation happened. If a tournament is cancelled, there is no prizepool to somehow distribute.

The Borgata maybe will eat some costs, maybe give out some comps, maybe even compensate for some equity, but none of the players is entitled to anything other than a refund. If they choose to do so, then as a business decision regarding PR.

It's not possible to do a full legal brief on NVG of all the aspects of gaming law, criminal law, and tort law that this clusterf**** entails. I can't stand all the speculation going on though, so here is my contribution with some actual facts, at least in regards to the duties the Borgata had as a casino to protect players from fraud:

Part 1: The Borgata's Legal Obligation to Players

The NJDGE Permanent Regulations have a large section specifically devoted to gaming chips. If you are interested in reading the full text, the link is http://www.nj.gov/oag/ge/docs/Regula...CHAPTER69E.pdf

Cliffs in plain English:

1) Casino chips must be approved by the NJ Casino Control Commission. The regulations mention 3 things specifically that are scrutinized:

The Physical aspects of the Chip "Face"
Chip "Edge"
Chip color/words/design/graphics (anything placed on the chip face, basically)

2) Chip design must prevent "to the greatest extent possible" the counterfeiting of gaming chips.

3) A casino licensee may issue promotional non-gaming chips that are prohibited from use in gaming or simulcast wagering in any casino or casino simulcast facility.

4) "A casino licensee shall remove a set of gaming chips in use from active play whenever it has reason to believe the casino or casino simulcasting facility has accepted counterfeit chips or whenever any other impropriety or defect in the utilization of that set of chips makes removal of the chips in active use necessary or whenever the Division so directs."

Without going into the case-law I would say that the Borgata is required to make unique chips, is responsible to ensure only those chips are used, and has a duty by virtue of its license to immediate stop use of potential counterfeits as soon as they think they spot them. What standard "reason to believe" is, I have no idea without any relevant court cases.

I put #3 in there because I guess the Borgata could argue that tournament chips are by definition "non-gaming" chips since they have no cash value (which would exempt those chips from the requirements applicable to gaming chips).

It would seem a stretch to me to argue that, since the chips are being used in a gambling activity, but those possibilities are what people pay lawyers to argue so I'm throwing it out there in the interest of providing complete information.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Part 2: The Borgata's Obligation to Provide a Secure Environment for Players

Also, article 7 of the actual NJ Gaming Control Act sets this idea out pretty clearly:

http://www.state.nj.us/casinos/actre...-article07.pdf

(15) Procedures and security standards for the handling and storage of gaming apparatus including cards, dice, machines, wheels and all other gaming equipment;


- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Part 3: The Penalties Borgata may face vis-a-vis players (NOT the government)

As for the cheaters/scammers themselves, that is covered by article 9 which can be found at http://www.state.nj.us/casinos/actre...-article09.pdf

the most interesting part of that section is this sentence:

(5) The amount involved in swindling and cheating shall be
determined by the trier of fact.

Which is a fancy way of saying "a jury decides". So, it is possible that anyone bringing a civil suit against the Borgata is going to have to explain EV/ICM to a jury of their peers.

Good luck with that! ha.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Part 4: Conclusion

Without reading cases, I have no idea how any of these provisions are applicable to tournament poker specifically. It could be that this is a precedent setting situation (could also easily not be, again, I didn't dig any deeper than the laws/regs themselves).

It seems pretty obvious to me though that, to use legal terms, the Borgata f***ed up big time. They are specifically charged with making sure their chips are unique and getting rid of fakes. I could make a strong argument that they did neither, or, that they failed at best to do one or the other, since either:

1) These fakes were good enough that play wasn't stopped until after they had been in use for a long time, meaning the originals were not unique enough;

or

2) They did know they were fakes and didn't do anything about it.

Either way, they are in violation of their license.


I won't even attempt to speculate on the trouble they may/may not be in (remember this IS NJ, and I'm a born/raised Jersey kid so I'm not hating there just saying the truth) with the Casino Control Commission. As far as individual players filing civil litigation against them for "Equity Lost", since the matter would be sent to a jury the first thing that pops into my head is "Good f****ing luck". A jury would most likely see the "scam" as the value of the buy-in + rake.

That means, unless you are going to pay your lawyer less than $560, it won't be worth your time to pursue this through the courts.

The only worthwhile legal channel I would see is if a group banded against the Borgata and went after the deep pocket for some kind of systemic fraud claim against the total prize pool. Even then though, you are in NJ, so I would assume the Borgata has a lot more clout in the Atlantic City courts than a bunch of poker players.

There are real legal issues raised here, but it appears that whatever the Borgata and the Gaming Commission agree to do about them will be more or less final.



Hope this helps inject some facts into this speculation train

How much is borgata worth? I think setting up proper cameras would not be very costly for them. So if a problem does arise they can catch it on a decent camera.

Maybe I am wrong but not every chip would have to be RFid, just large denominations. If this were two hundred 100 chips it would be the equivalent to one entry. In contrast the entire field would only consist of ~16,000 5k chips or 80,000 1k chips for a cost of under $100k (based on an earlier post of about $1 per chip). The rake for this ONE event was over 300,000. Seems it would have been a good investment in hindsight.

Also, I have a hard time believing that in a 3 day event there could be anywhere near 300k in expenses, not to mention all the other money these 4000 entrants spent while at the casino.

Nobody is going to put RFID tags in tournament chips.
And even if they did, each dealer isn't going to have a scanner and scan each chip as it enters the pot to make sure each chip in play is legit.

ok disclaimer i'm not a real lawyer just a student. but the guy who actually is a real lawyer basically came to same conclusions as me later in thread.

i do think it will be a real issue to find a sympathetic judge/jury. and then explaining the damages will be really hard.

meh. name a better poker room on the east coast. i like playing at borg more than in vegas just because of how well they take care of poker players, with room comps etc.. i have faith that the outcome will be favorable as borg is the only casino in AC that knows whats up and that they need their reputation to stay gleaming with the upcoming WPT championship and online gaming.

i was trying to find the sections of NJ code that trustinbrass posted, and they basically answer everything so ty to him.

so yea this is basically it as far as civil liability goes.

can't the case be brought in federal court though cause of the amount of money involved and the diversity of plaintiffs? this would avoid the clout that boyd gaming has in AC.

Everyone says the borgata has done so much for them what have they done? Besides what's expected of a casino. With out the players these guarantees aren't met so it's more along lines they need us. Without players they don't function as top east coast poke room .