wait, how much was the rake for this tourney?? 300k in rake??

No protocol in place hmm. Well I guess we players must now be on highest gaurd, and play by our own protocol. You spotted a problem acted on it but were disarmed by the looking into line. Coming back with a reply of the sort, you have knowledge there are more of these chips in play and the clock is not stopping for an inventory of all stacks in play? Listen up players!! There is a problem and we are not stopping!! Check your stacks. That must have been the only one at your table. Which again, given the numbers, is unusual. Deep slow structure thats quite a bit of time from 80 to 27 yes?
So we wait for a positive best case outcome thats fine.
Hopefully the commisions involved will evaluate these massive field (money pool) events and put in some minimum protections against theft. These lowest cost tourney chips commonly in play are obviously the easiest to take a dummies shot at fouling. Minimum camera coverage, rfid chips, higher quality harder to foul chip sets, and the highest defeat would be a one and done chip set for the biggest events. Dont give me the cost bull we pay millions in rake.

You're right in the sense that cheating is always going to be something that is possible. But think about it this way: how many people in the field had the means and capability of pulling off this con? Pretty much every single player there? The overhead is sensationally low and it doesn't require you have any discernible skills or social connections to pull off.

Now, how many people have the means and capabilities to infiltrate an electronic system like ePoker or RFID and pull off a scam? You're talking about paring down the amount of people who could possibly pull it off by well over 99%.

48+ hours and no new reports?

Wonder if this was/is a one-timer or a continuation or a dry run for a bigger tournament payout? DGE will have to get to the bottom. This may be the surface? Hope not.

The perpetrators must have had a long range plan on what result they expected. What was/is the end game?

This is a great idea. The easiest way to cheat isn't what happened in this event, it's stealing real chips from one event and adding them to another - or to another stack. Preventing chips from leaving the room makes that way more difficult. Add in a security guard standing outside the bathrooms making sure nobody walks in with a rack from a broken table, and that's another area covered. Escort anyone going from one room to another (not table to table within a room, that's something the cameras should be able to roll back on later if extra chips are found). Count chips when bagging and unbagging before the start of play.

Are there ways around all of those safeguards? Yes, but they are cheap, efficient ways of making it a lot harder to cheat. Increase the risk cheaters are taking, decrease their chances of success.

The cheaters probably thought it would be likely that the counterfeit chips would be discovered. It just seems crazy to expect that nobody would look at the total chips in play at some point in the tournament and realize there was an issue. I think their end game was to record a high finish and don't get caught in the act.

It's kind of a difficult scam to pull off and have nobody even realize because the final chip count will never match.

I completely agree with the RFID chip solution. What I was referring to is the electronic betting at the table. Not only could that be exploited (although by far less people than today's methods), but I feel it takes away from the game as well.

The technology exists already. The rest is programming and training.

$288,840 to be exact. Not counting the 3% taken out for dealer tips.

Seems like for that kind of money there could have been a little more oversight than what apparently happened.

500+60. pretty standard live rake.

For those of you awaiting a ruling on refunds or what they'll do with the final 27....don't hold your breath.

The Commissioner of Gaming Control is an appointed position by the Governor, Chris Christie. This is a State Government Agency filled with attorneys.

Expect a resolution sometime late in 2014 or early 2015.

Sir:

I am not posting anonymously. I use my actual real life name - and have ever since 2+2 was hacked several years ago. The reason I'm "bitching" about this is because these operators have ignored the cheating problem for years. In some cases, (such as the incident PSUMike noted where Ken Lambert actually refunded a cheaters buy-in!), operators have coddled and excused these cheats - which only encourages them to believe that they can get away with it - and actually makes the problem worse. When B&M operators adopt the attitude: "We can't stop it, it will cost us money and slow the game down, so why even bother? We'll just hope it doesn't get too out of hand and we aren't embarrassed." (And these are the same B&M operators who are trying to convince Congress and the states to let them operate "safe and secure" internet poker sites.) If that's the predominant attitude that has taken hold among the operators (including the Borgata) then they deserve whatever punishment the NJGCB hands out.

Coddling and appeasing cheaters does not work. Appeasing Adolph Hitler didn't work either. Appeasing cheaters and criminals only produces more cheating and crime.

I had a similar idea that involved a tourney specific card issued at sign-up and RFID chips. But being completely ignorant about the technology I have no idea if it would work.
Swipe the card and scan the stack before leaving a table and when arriving at new table. Totals don't agree there is a problem.
Might not completely prevent the introduction of fake chips but if you left a table with 3 rows in a rack and show up at new table with 4 it should be noticed.
Maybe someone with knowledge of the technology can weigh in and shoot holes in my idea.

Does anyone know or has it been mentioned in the thread if there is a difference legally between counterfeiting a "no value" tournament chip and a regular casino chip?

I know in Las Vegas counterfeiting a regular chip will get you put in prison pretty much the same as counterfeiting US Currency, but I have no clue if counterfeiting a tournament chip would fall under the same statute

RFID Tags would not be a good solution. The tags can and do go bad. With that many chips in play, when one goes bad, are you planning on stopping the tournament while it is xrayed then cut up to verify if it a bad tag or a bogus chip?

My guess is they were verifying during day 2 that the chips in play were bogus and not manufacturing defects.

I know they have procedures in place for counterfeit chips. The problem may more lie in that they are geared to player to house game, and not a tournament where the butterfly effect come into play.

As far as the lack of announcements, I'm not to worried. I'm sure thay want to have all of the cheats identified and round them all up at once, rather than give one a chance to get away.

By my reading there is no difference in Nevada. There are a few less stringent requirements on NCV token and chips, but the felony statute customer says chips and tokens. I'm not a lawyer, so YMMV.

If they took it to the extreme, and you introduces the fakes 1 at a time, based on 220 counterfeits, and looking at the cheating statues, it is possible if they wanted to make an example of you you would be looking at 440 felony counts.

If they gave you the max on each and no parole, you would get out of jail in about 4494.

It will be interesting to see exactly how many counterfeits are found, but I'm not sure Brogata/NJGC will ever release that info. It wouldn't surprise me if the end game for the scammers was to swap out real chips for fake ones and they just ran out of time to swap the last million before they busted or were caught.

FWIW i was playing with men the master, the 28th place finisher, in the 100k gtd i think 2 days after this scandal broke and he said that when he showed up to get paid on what would have been day3, they didnt pay him since by this time they already knew something shady went down and id assume hes the number one suspect-- being a lifelong cheater and all.

An excuse to to raise the rake, you watch

Sent from my SGH-T999L using 2+2 Forums

I wonder if any counterfeits made their way into the day1 chip leader bonus stacks

They are already not worth traveling to play.

Actually they didn't provide proper security and won't be able to show when all the chips were put into play. Good job defending them. They messed up couldn't handle the player field when I buy in and pay the rake I expect security to be there to some extent there was none. If you think borgata has no responsibility your very naive. Many people said things to floors from what I've read and it took them to get to 27 to say something. Your very wrong in not putting any blame on borgata. If I own a car shop and you drop your car off the next day we see someone vandalized it while it's on my property am I just gonna say oh well my security cameras aren't very good and couldn't see anything sucks for you. Borgata is a business who needs to make it right.

hmmmm. troubling thought

Many people won't make it for the tournament. Do you think borgatas responsible?

I would guess we are about 75 years away from every seeing this in a Poker Room. The Obv. problem is, Casino's invest very little in Poker.