I know a few employees who were working. When fake chips were found it should be stopped immediately. There's a big issue. And in the class action suit it says floor staff ignored counterfeit chip claims.

Fake chips and saying two guys are colluding in a game is a big difference and you bring that to a floors attention. They are warned and can be disqualified.

A single chip and 30,000 at minimum there's a big difference.

If you expose it you get a penalty.

Parx did it. They took stock of all gray chips and did counts at dinner break.

So a minute or two every single time some person arrives at or leaves a table? The process of breaking a table and sending 9 players all to new tables, which occurs dozens of times in tournaments like this, now grinds that table and all 9 new tables to a halt. It is unworkable.

and CK, your hearsay is unpersuasive. Also that is 6 chips. So same thing, 6 fake chips found in WSOPME, stop the tournament? absolutely asinine.

the table that breaks has players that break, they count their chips....assuming all the counts equal to the total chips at the table...no new chips introduced...
players move to new table where there individual totals are added to the new tables totals so when that table breaks they know how many chips should be at the table.

So how do we know they didn't add chips between the old table and the new?

And how long is it going to take for all 9 people to count their chips, and have that amount verified? We are going to verify, right? Otherwise if I added 40k to my stack, I will just report 40k less than I have, and it all works out.

And the player and dealer/floor at each new table will also count/verify, right?

And will each table have some electronic device? Or at the end of the day, is someone just going to have to manually add dozens of hand-scrawled chip counts?

[QUOTE=Alan C. Lawhon;42340405]BA:

pniwin or one of the other 26 finalists posted in an earlier reply that he had received an email from Borgata indicating they were "hoping" for some kind of decision and resolution from the NJDGE sometime this week. I suspect a decision may be some time in coming ...


you might be right. no news is bad news right now. i really thought the DGE was going to come to a decision this week and release the remainder of prize pool. the Borgata email, I suspect, was not capriciously sent; they really thought this was the week of resolution. i was checking my iPhone constantly today, hoping for an email from the Borgata. Nope

I hate to turn the 27 against the rest of the field who want their buyins back but I can't help but wonder if the Musterel lawsuit might play some part in grinding this whole process to a halt. i still say there is no point in getting a lawyer at this point (not to sue the Borgata anyway).

I totally agree with Doug, jjjou, and others who think this should not be treated as a catastrophe that forever changes poker....cheating suspected, DGE brought in to investigate, cheater caught and punished, players given their money and everything back to normal...this should be the collective narrative of the poker world regarding Lusardi and his crimes

Okay, but what happens when somebody over counts or undercounts their chips. Mistakes are going to happen, are we going to stop the tournament everytime. What if some guy counts his card holder (a chip from another casino like some guys use), has he introduced fake chips in the tournament.

What about colorblind players like me who have dirty stacks all the time? Or, chip runoffs that increase the chip counts?

The only thing i can guarantee about a running chip count is it will NEVER be accurate.

This.

I played the event, busted day 1 and I don't expect a full refund and I don't think the borgata needs to take some huge hit here but if they want to convince people they are committed to doing the right thing I don't see how they can keep the $60 rake. That's really about all the PR I'm expecting, because the event was a mess on those day 1s and then this happens. Hard for me to believe that they couldn't have done a little bit more to ensure things went smoothly, even if they couldn't have prevented this.

Everybody talking about counting chips when you leave one table and go to another. It does absolutely no good unless the entire table reconciles the chip count before that person leaves. Further more they would have to be recounted when he arrives at the new table or an escort would have to carry them to the next table to avoid chips being added on the way. Then the table he is going to will have to reconcile chip counts to make sure none were added at that table he is moving to. Totally not practical. Next issue would be are you going to trust each person counting their own chips if what you are trying to stop is dishonest peoples actions?

I cannot wait for my next wsop: it will be like the airport with criminal checks. Taking off my shoes and belt, being searched, throwing out my water and oversized toothpaste and shampoo because some terrorist once almost made a toothpaste bomb. Maybe even some fingerprinting, in case my DL is faked. Dq'd for an unpaid parking ticket in Utah. Maybe even a table for sex offenders 400 feet away for the 21 year olds....

I'm sure the numbers will be record setting!

I don't mind any of this if they catch one cheater or crook who is trying to get advantage over 4800 players. !

I do.
I once almost chopped my foot off with an axe. Should we outlaw axes?
If we lower the speed limit to 2 MPH, we won't have anymore traffic fatalities.

Reasonable precautions eliminate 99.9% of the problems. You have to be unreasonable to get rid of that last 0.1%

And as someone who has worked at airports for the last 15 years, all the BS you're put through by the TSA does absolutely nothing. It amounts to no more than a sugar tit for a crying infant.

Don't forget body cavity searches just in case someone goes the extra step in trying to hide counterfeits.

River, are you volunteering for these too? Oh la la.

You don't want me to be a security volunteer as none of the crook will be able to play the tourney .

Then u will say "too harsh security"

You want to be the searcher not the searchee?

So some guy just got barred for life from all WSOP events and properties due to taking a 25k chip out of the tournament at the PBKC.
Guess he planned to add it to a different tourney.

And the beat goes on.

If they said that to you this week, you will probably hear from them soon. My guess is that borgata is going to make the right decision and you will likely get an ICM Chop. I don't think they want any negative press considering wpt playing there again soon.

This has probably been stated but I definitely think it was foolish to pursue legal action before DGE has even come to a resolution. I think it will cause this already lengthy investigation to be dragged out even longer.

I feel for the final 27 and think they definitely deserve more than a refund - how much, I don't know.

Having fired 5 bullets in this event I'm obviously on Team Refund; however, I am unable to articulate a better reason without bias.

A lot has been debated about the event being 'cancelled'. To me, cancelling the event illustrates a scenario where everyone should be issued refunds (including the final 27) and nothing more. Obviously, one of the issues that arises is having players who cashed return their winnings. This is clearly not attainable and probably can not even be considered; ergo, Borgata would have to eat that part of the prizepool.

+1

Agreeing 100% with the statement .

Hope the outcome is pleasing most of affected !!

Tough but can happen !

The only place that i know of where tournaments were canceled was in the world wide web. (5 - 10 years ago when server crashes happened)... I beleive the policy was before the tournament was in the money all buy ins refunded. After the money i beleive there was some sort of chop. Obviously, its not the same situation but nothing is perfect.

I think the reason the investigation is taking so long is they likely have to make sure no one else is involved.

I haven't really fully thought this through, so some restraint on the blood-letting would be appreciated.

A quick partial solution that would cut back on some of the potential areas where cheating could occur would be to do a chip count when leaving a table or when a table is broken and then issuing a chit or ticket with number of chips filled in as opposed to moving the actual chips. Then a new stack of chips equal to the number on the ticket is issued at the new table.

The count would have to verified by a competent floor person adding to the time required, but probably not to the point where it would be prohibitive.

This would assure that the same number of chips were put back into play at the new table.

At least adding to the stack would be impossible during the move.

And pocketing chips to add to another players stack or adding chips to a stack would have to be done during play, when the chance of being caught would be greater.

To help keeping track of stacks, maybe we all have to live with short stacks of very large denomination chips, like when a home tourney is done with a limited chip inventory. Sucks, I know, but we have all played like that. Making change and all that.

If a running tally was kept of chips in play on each table and a player questioned another players stack a count could be made and additional chips added or removed from play would be apparent.

All of this is a total pain in the ass, adds time, probably more floor people and/or better dealers and will add to the rake but I would put up with it to avoid the debacle we have now.

It's far from a perfect solution, but maybe a starting point.

You start with faulty assumptions and make up some solutions that are way too time consuming and expensive to ever implement. People are going to be very scared to try to take chips off a game after the severe punishments recent cheaters have gotten (and you probably make a false assumption by thinking there is a lot of it now). The status quo with minor upgrades is fine.

Tournaments have been basically run the same way for 10 years and i have never felt like there is rampant cheating or that i could not win. I am very fearful though of 20 percent rake which has creeped into the 300 dollar tourneys and the 15 plus percent creeping into the 500 range tourneys. That is very scary. Much more scary than cheaters who usually are not too sharp.

As I stated before, absolutely nothing is accomplished by counting one persons chips when they leave a table other than deterring adding chips when moving from table to table. Does anyone know at any given time how many chips any player should have? In order to determine if chips have been added or subtracted from a table, the entire table needs to be counted every time someone joins or leaves a table in order to establish the number of chips in play are correct at any given time.

Adding or removing chips from play to gain advantage is probably not as uncommon as one might believe. It probably occurred more often than most would believe. What occurred at Borgata is it finally could no longer be ignored.

Keep in mind that cheating in poker tournaments has no impact on the Casino thus they have no real incentive to act upon it until someone calls them down like happened at Borgata.

Here's a simpler and not particularly costly solution. When you move tables you need to put all the chips in a plastic bag (like the ones you use at the end of day 1). You have to close the bag at the original table (while dealer is watching) and then you have to open the bag at your new table (while the dealer at a new table is watching). Those bags only cost around 10 cents in all likelihood and these method is much less time consuming than verifying chip counts.