hmm.. very creative idea. I didn't think about that solution Hope you filed your provisional patent before disclosing . solves many issues. still have costs of RFID chips though which is getting cheaper but still not cheap,

maybe like other poster said, only large denom chips... which is basically what they do inside casino for table games.

Pninwin- i played this event and have to disagree on the level of dealers. From my experience on day 1A (busted level 15) 90% of dealers were horrible.

10+ times we had to tell dealers who to push the pot to. Slow dealing, many many misdeals. It was painful.

your assessment might be right but i am just saying even if we had the best dealers around the end result would be the same: tourney cancelled. all frustration right now should be focused on punishing the cheaters severely. anyone can rob a bank, easy as pie. it happens infrequently because prison is a near certainty for those who contemplate the crime. lets see some arrests and convictions before we turn our attention on how to overhaul Borgata events

Agreed....when the news broke the first thing I said to my wife was how sorry I felt for the 27 remaining minus any cheaters.

Sorry you're going through this. Really sucks

So the dealers and floor did NOT do a chip count at the end of the day before chips were bagged?

I was under the impression that in pretty much all multiple day tournaments that chips are to be counted before they are bagged with the dealer or someone from the floor signing off on each person's bag. This would help prevent crap like this from happening.

Well the thing with the final 27 is you don't know if they would actually be the final 27 if these chips were not put into play. If another player got busted by these fake chips that could have had a different impact on the tourney. They could have taken a beat that would have knocked any one of the final 27 players if they didn't win a pot somewhere along the way with fake chips in the middle.

It sucks for the final 27 but in an honest opinion the tourney would have played out differently with out the fake chips. I don't think there should be a chop in prize pool nor should they play out the tourney. Since everyone already cashed it would only be fair to give the remaining players 27th place money and refund every other player. Best solution that could be come up with in my opinion.

no they did not count or verify chip counts.

also, on breaks the dealers just sit at the table twiddling thumbs and chatting. why can't they count down stacks during the 10-15 min breaks?

Again, no it won't solve the problem but it certainly would make people less likely to try and smuggle chips in if they knew they were being counted down

I am shocked, SHOCKED! to discover that there is crime in the state of New Jersey.

I have not played a whole lot of live tournaments, but the few day 2's and 3's that I have made at the Venetian DSE series, they did NOT count or verify our chips at the end of the day. We counted them and then wrote the total on the bag. They were never recounted in the morning either by anyone other than myself. I actually asked the dealer if he needed to verify my count and he just said, "no. if you write the wrong number on the bag, it is no big deal since we will seal the bag and then you will have the same number of chips tomorrow and the count will be off by the same amount." I was actually thinking at the time that it seemed like this was kind of weird. In light of this Borgata mess, it makes sense that cheating scumbags would see it as an opportunity.

Apparently true.

It was too difficult to identify fake chips at the table.

I need to know which ones were fake? I know they were $5000, but which color? If it was the light silver, I was at a table that had them in play.

Were the light silver the fakes? Or the darker black silver the fakes?

Im not sure either are the fakes they have some newer chips that were alot brighter because they were made more recently i think anyway. I remember getting chips from the floor at the desk that were very shiny when i reentered but i think all the chips are the darker silver. They have using the same set the first WPT im sure they have more chips over the years.

Tbh, the last WSOP I flew out to play was in 2009. But, I do remember that when changing tables to a distant area (like not from Amazon 120's to Amazon 140's, but any time I was moved to a whole other vicinity) I was escorted there by a floor and required to have my chips in a rack. They may have stopped doing that but that was the routine in 2009.

The "semi inexpensive" fixes you suggest *are* already in practice at several tourneys. I once saw Matt Savage spot a player pulling a few chips out of his pocket while moving from a broken table from across the tournament floor in the middle of making an announcement. I have to assume it is because that sort of threat to the integrity of the tournament is seriously freaking important to him. Meanwhile, the Borg had over TWO RACKS of large denomination chips snuck in, and pointed out to staff, players and TWITTER the day before.

It was a huge event, with a very large prize pool, where players had traveled there to play at The Borgata, not some rinky-dink, local dog track poker room. No one (sane) thinks they scammed the players, but there was some serious flaws in their procedures for this to have gone down the way it seems to have gone down.

Facts boys! We need to know which were the fakes....

Because I was wondering when I got moved I walked into a table that had 5 guys with 100k and this was only 3 hours in....When I walked to the table I was shocked to see how many chips everyone had...And plenty of silver chips in play...the light grey..

I certainly hope the Venetian TD's that are following this thread read this and change that procedure. It takes NO extra money to require your dealers to verify each players count when they bag and tag. You have the dealer sitting there anyway.

I'm not going to speculate as to how or why some of these numbers are so far off, but its clear, based on "official counts" (from WSOP.com) that a total tally of chips in play is not a reliable way of detecting if counterfeit chips have been introduced.

WSOP 2013

If all the tables had the computer system, then maybe a possible solution would be to Swipe players at their respective tables when the tournament starts. Each player will register in the system as having x chips (starting stack). When a player busts, remove him/her from the table just as you would a cash game, noting that they are leaving with 0 chips. If the player moves to a different table, do a quick count of the chips and note it in the system. When that same player gets to their next table they are swiped, and another chip count is done and noted in the system. If there is a discrepancy - red flag, floor clears it up.

Break time, while the dealers are essentially doing nothing but suiting up the cards, they count the stacks. The system should keep a constant accounting of how many chips are in play at the table, verified during every break.

End of night, all counts are verified. I don't think this is impossible to do in a small tourney when they can use the tables that have the technology. Seems like it would be easy software to put together.

Tedious and annoying for sure.

Does anyone have an update on the actual situation as of noon, Tuesday?

I have searched the web and have not found anything.

The fact that no resolve has been made almost a week after the chips were found is kind of concerning to me, or there are arrest warrants out for a few people and the proper authorities are trying to apprehend them, which could be quite some time if they bailed NJ.

Maybe one of the 27 could please break down how that meeting went, what was said, etc.

Because it is my understanding that if you cash for xx amount in NJ, you need to provide two forms of ID. What if you live in Ohio and are awarded money? Do you have to fly back to NJ to claim your prize? Are they going to waive that two ID requirement? Seems a little over the top.

Christian Lusardi who was day 1bc chip leader with more than 70% chips over prior day 1a chip leader needs to be looked at very closely. No real cashes in any prior tournaments and was caught running illegal gambling house http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3684348/. More interesting he took down his Facebook page right after the tournament was suspended

Easy tiger... if you would have actually read the thread instead of just popping in on the last page you would have seen this...



You tell me which one (1) is fake

So we should look at him closely because he ran a home game? GTFO...

FWIW, I am not Christian, never met him, or have any ties to him.

Was more than home games genius and not your everyday outstanding citizen. But more importantly was the % amount of chips at end of day. Not saying guilty but obv should be looked at more closely regardless of priors more interesting was taking down FB page on Sunday

No you simpleton ...
The fact that he took down his page makes it odd.

Good job arguing only part of one thing he said.