I think the lowest tech/ lowest cost/ highest benefit tactic is to have a few chip sets available. Delaware park has two different sets easily distinguishable from each other, but it's so they can run two tourneys overlapping. Borgata should invest in 5-10 chip sets. Doesn't solve all problems, but should be part of the solution.

There were 3 chips in play, light sparkly grey/silver, darker matte grey & apparently the counterfeits were a shiny almost chrome looking silver. Did you feel them? bc they also felt different and weighed less.

I am the one who overheard the floor and tweeted when play completed at the end of day2. One floorman from event1 walked over to the floorman of our event and whispered(tried to anyway) that they discovered a ton of counterfeit chips in play and they were going to the cameras. I probably shouldn't have included the comment about Men but it was what first came to mind since I knew/thought he was still alive and have heard some of the many stories. I even had to tell the floor about him since he apparently had no idea who he was. (Which is kindof unfortunate that cheaters not only don't get blackballed from poker period but that their antics don't even get shared from casino to casino.)

They have confirmed in a press release that one or more people used "a significant number of counterfeit chips"

Do you really think you are going to see hard evidence here?

bump?

Sounded like a juicy angle, but aside from some rumors, doesn't look like there's any evidence of this?

It's an easier problem to fix than that. Look at their cash value chips:



They are a lot more unique, and thus would be more difficult to forge.

With the very generic chips posted above, all a cheater would have to do is paint, and apply a graphic.

The more unique the chips, the harder they are to forge.

how much does it cost approx. for a brand new set of chips for a casino? as I stated earlier in this thread the Borgata has a beautiful set that they use approx. 6x a year right now for the biggest buyin main events of each series. Why they haven't already been used after this fiasco is beyond me!!! instead they are using the same set minus the 5k chip and have added a pink 10k chip

Mods can we please get a separate thread for all the RFID chip talk etc... Would be great to find a solution to this but not necessarily in this thread. This is about a specific event that's taken place and still hasn't come to a conclusion. It's making it really hard to read/follow

So there were 2 legit $5000 chips? and the fraud chips? Am I correct? And how the hell does a casino use 2 different 5k chips?

too many pages to go through. A few questions.

I understand they havent decided what to do with the remaining 27 players? They can't expect everyone to stay and/or fly back after such a long hiatus. People have schedules and lives to get back to.

Perps found yet? I guess not huh?

Any press release from borgata in this matteR?

Improved procedures for Live MTT organizers to avoid future cheating scandals

as we look for the culprit people have been throwing names about (I have no idea who Lusardi is) and i will join the rumor brigade by throwing out another possible suspect (without having the courage to actually give his name). i wandered around Atlantic City for 24 hours in a hazy funk after the cancellation of the tournament and learning that i was not going to get paid. naturally there was information/accusations flying around but the last name i heard before heading back home was a player who went deep in the event(might be still in it, hmmmm) and is supposedly a businessman who is a millionaire many times over. Seems ludicrous that someone without money problems would take such a risk and hire some accomplices to help him ship a tourney but hey, that Borgata trophy is kind of nifty
naturally if it is not him i will try to escape any responsibility for sullying his reputation and say i am merely giving the two plus two sleuths the opportunity to contemplate the matter

Borgata cancels tomorrow 150k guarantee tournament because there will be an overlay. The snowstorm in Nj is today, tomorrow no snow just really cold so they are not doing it for safety reasons...wp borgata

Just quoting this post to increase the number of eyes that see it. Lots of good info in here.

Part 1(1) is pretty much the root of this for me. Having plain tournament chips – e.g. no edge spots or inlay – seems to make this situation more possible than it should.

I guess it probably comes down to the buy-in. At major tournaments, I notice the chips are more intricate and thus harder to counterfeit. The daily tournament at Caesars uses very plain chips, too. They probably figure that no one will bother going through that much trouble to gain an advantage in a $100 small-field event. Perhaps that line of thinking came into play here. In the big picture, a $560 buy-in is a "smaller" event. But the prize money at stake is no small potatoes.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree that the authorities need to target the cheaters first, and worry about preventative measures at Borgata second. But hopefully, rooms of all sizes are using this situation to rethink they way they run tournaments.

Edit: this poster said it already... 'tis what I get for grunching, even if for a page

Part 3 of this series is particularly interesting, and I was surprised that this massive mistake was not more publicized at the time. It seems pretty clear to me that there is a good chance Jamie Gold got a lot of extra chips from this mistake ( as he had so many of the 5k chips, just look at the ESPN coverage).

Do you remember roughly what day it was and at what table you were playing you noticed this?

I alluded to this earlier in the thread – it would seem that the phony chips would have been concentrated at a few tables soon after being introduced, then later distributed throughout the field as the tourney progressed.

No matter what the Borgata's legal duty is I give you these questions:

If you were to cash in a tournament and they called you in a week later and said "Sorry somebody cheated, you'll have to sent your payout back and we will refund your entry money." Would you ever play there again?

If you made the final 3 tables in a massive tournament and they told you " Sorry, someone cheated so you all only get your entry back, even though we made large sums to the person who came in 28th." Would you ever play there again?

If you busted out of a large tournament and found out there was cheating going on and they told you " Sorry there was cheating, but when you pay your entry fee you accepted the risk that the game was gaffed, so you're out $560" would you ever play there again?

If they don't pay the players, and refund the entry money to the people who were out of the money, if they want to have another $2 Million prize pool, their gonna have to have a $2 Million entry fee.

This tournament was so poorly run.

Dealers that had no idea of the rules of NLHE.

2-3 People trying to register 2k people is a joke.

Tables were blinding off stacks that had not even bought in yet.

Place was a mess. No wonder AC is where it is.

My contemplations lead me to think that someone posting in the thread about this mess might have a reason to point fingers at others to divert unwanted attention on themselves.

This is all just speculation but I heard from a source that they have identified 3 individuals, two of whom are still in the final 27.

lol. touché. yeah, if i was guilty i'd probably be here expressing outrage over the machinations of the miscreants, but I'm not...but i guess until someone is caught "everyone is a suspect"

Not sure if you're being sarcastic but identifying different looking chips is one thing, knowing that they were illegally introduced is another. I've played tournaments with odd chips in them and just assumed (rightly or wrongly) they were just that.......ie odd chips.

As already has been pointed out the DGE works with the state police. However, the odds of the perpetrators still being in NJ are slim. So no matter what they will probably have to work with outside law enforcement to get arrests and eventually extradition.

.....and look closely at this guy too if he played the event. Kind of an over the top response to some pretty interesting points make about Lusardi.

On that- it wouldn't be hard to speak to some people who played with him on day 1 to get a feel for how he accumulated such a big stack

Not saying he's involved but I'm sure they'll look into him

The shiny metallic chips that felt a little lighter and sharper were new ones right, not fakes? I received these as a new stack on day 1c and i was alternate #81

This thread is getting a bit punchy at this point.

I would imagine State investigators are reading this thread on a daily basis and are looking for clues from players. Players that did play should use this thread to aid the investigation and post anything that can help no matter how trivial. Yes names like Christian Lusardi might be thrown into the mix but when there are coincidences the names should be put out there to aid the investigation.

The mods really need to start another thread about RFID chips so as to not derail this very important thread