Dear investigators,

Solution to easily solve your case:

The perps probably have played regularly in B tournies. As soon as the scandal hit, they most likely ditched town. 850 players made day 2. A good majority of these players probably have played in multiple previous events.

Take the list of 850 players and determine how many of those players did not enter events after the cheating was announced. Then look at the history of those players (probably 3-500), and determine how many events they played in previous series. We must assume these cheaters probably played lots and often. So the pattern is played lots of events in other series, but only 1 or 2 in this series. You'll probably have a small collection of about 30-50 players now.
This is a simple database query done in 15 minutes.

Let's assume 3-5 criminals, and 2 of them made day 2. You now have 2 players out of 30/50 potentials and you know their names, their starting seats, and can easily follow their path throughout the day to find 2 out of 30 that were adding new chips. This is a long process of reviewing camera footage that would take 10-20 hours.

This makes some assumptions, but very valid ones, and your criminals are most likely known within a day.

What the fake chips really looked like...

Am I wrong to think the fake chips probably looked exactly like the old style grey chips?

Nothing has been confirmed otherwise, and someone coming to this tourney to cheat it probably made an exact replica. There may have been tiny minute differences (patterns, weight, something else), that made the Borgata determine counterfeit chips were in play.

No one is going to walk in to cheat a tourney and bring chips that look completely different. Did anyone even know about these new metallic chips prior to this tourney? They weren't in play in the fall, and I don't see how cheaters could have known/counterfeited them when thinking from a logical sense.

Always possible that staff was part of the scam, which opens up a different element.

After reading every post in this thread with the intent of seeing the fakes and trying to determine how they did it, I can only go by the one photo that shows a supposed fake next to three "reals", a cell pic of some low denoms and a couple real 5Ks, and the pic from 2006 (I think) of stacks and stacks of reals.

Based on these pics: If the fake chips are actual 43mm Inverted Hat and Cane mold Paulson chips that have been spray painted, then mold pattern and weight would not necessarily have given them away. The label used to fake the inlay would not have the Paulson UV security feature on it, but that could have been counterfeited as well (but really, who would have checked that?). The colors of "reals" appear to be grey or showboat grey in the fake/real pic and metallic silver in the 2006 stacks pic. Even accounting for tricks of lighting, I cannot imagine what color from the Paulson palette could be represented by the fake. Also, the finish on the fake looks uneven, like it's been spray painted. As has been posted by several tourney players in this thread, when they receive a chip in a tourney that doesn't look like others of the same denom, they just go with it - a problem exacerbated by the use of legitimate multiple versions of the same denom in a tourney. I really believe that the fake chips simply look as awful as everyone refuses to believe that they looked. This was not perpetrated by the "Hole in the Wall Gang", more likely a band of morons.

Any predictions on when we will see some arrests? Good or bad publicity for Borgata if it happens when Winter Open Main Event is going on? I would think the sooner the better from their perspective

Im still confused, and must be ******ed. So in the picture in the thread of the three chips the one on the right, that's shiny metallic, is fake?

Flatcall - Yes it was the silvery one that looked spray painted.

I think he was referring to the WSOP's call when a similar thing happened back in 2006 (the Jamie Gold year as I recall) where there was found to be about 1m extra chips in play towards the end. The call was to play on and get the poker news outlets to bury the story 'in the best interest of the growth of the game'.

What your reasoning doesn't take into consideration CH is that if the chip dump happened at any time after the first player went out, the percentage that it affects the outcome changes. If the chips were dumped with 1000 players left that gives that group of players a larger boost of extra chips that the first 3000 players out did not have an opportunity to take advantage of, knowingly or not.

Not discounting your other points but to be fair some things may be out of their hands right now. The Commission and the State Police might need things done a certain way to make sure regulations are followed and cheaters can be found and successfully prosecuted.

This is also a complicated situation that doesn't come up frequently. It's not like a simple mistake at the table where the floor can through you a few chips to make up for it and comp your room. We're talking over a million dollars that needs to go out to thousands of people in an unplanned manner. In addition to gaming/cops, insurance and lawyers are going to be involved.

On top of all that they're probably spending time being extra vigilant during the other tournaments (hopefully) and it's going to cost them money to help prevent this in the future. Hopefully that includes new tournament chips which aren't cheap. Talking 100's of thousands of chips probably. Not sure what bulk pricing for that many chips are with security measures but probably somewhere around $1 a chip. Just some things to consider.

A single player may think "They have millions of dollars why can't they just pay me my $560 already?" but when there are thousands of people it's not that simple.

anybody feeling sorry for borgata really needs to stop,

a) they make millions daily
b) besides poker , the only skilled game there where you don't play against the house, everything else is basically robbing the degenerates and the ignorant.
c) just think about what kind of business they are in, they have hard working people come to their house they build to flip coins with them and they have an edge for millions daily, not someone we should feel sorry for

What a cluster this is. Wonder why it went down to 27 before it was stopped? Is it because that's the number they were at when Day 2 play ended, and they needed some downtime to investigate and discuss what to do? And yes, I realize this was primarily a gaming commission decision.

Anyway, my point is that somebody who finished in the 30's or 40's (or higher) could ask why it wasn't stopped sooner. That way, they'd still have chips and would be getting a much bigger payout based on a chop of some kind... assuming that's what ultimately happens for the final 27.

i read a few posts about people that cashed but due to long lines did not go cash out the night of day 2 and when they came the next day with proper paperwork the Borgata would not pay them. I find that ridiculous, they got their paperwork and CASHED before the tournament was stoopped/cancelled . Not right

For those of you saying this situation will prevent you from goin back to Borgata I completely understand and would do the same if I were in your shoes. That said, do not think for one minute by takin your business elsewhere impacts the Borgata one second. We as poker players are a minority when it comes to the world of casinos. If poker rooms were removed from all casinos their bottom line would not change enough to matter.

if your statement was true, there wouldn't be poker rooms in casinos

Casinos do in fact take hits from time to time in many of their games and in the sports book...and I've seen casinos that are more than a bit paranoid when you jump your bet up a bit at the blackjack table. Although rooms may lose money in general on poker, they never ever lose on the game itself. Never...until probably now.

Totally off base with this post imo. If Borgara did not have seasonal poker events, their net revenue would be impacted quite a bit.

I'm not sure if my post was one of the ones you think sounded like I was feeling sorry for borgata but I wasn't.

To put it a different, simpler way.... By many accounts this tournament in the series was poorly implemented and it sounds like some pretty basic things could have made the tournament better.

If they couldn't run the tournament to the satisfaction of many people in this thread, something that is their regular job to do.... why would people expect them to handle this complicated situation any better/faster when it's not something they have to deal with regularly?

For many reasons they're obligated to make things right. This includes legal reasons as well as PR. I'm sure they will make things right as best they can, it will just take some time.

Obviously I do not have access to financial records of casinos but my understand to talking to a few TDs, casino higher ups, and other people who woul have an idea is that poker rooms barely make enough revenue to keep the lights on. Why don't we just see huge poker rooms in Vegas not attached to casinos or do not have affiliation with casinos? Poker rooms are used to get people in the door,yes, but are not used as a revenue builder. They want poker players to hit the table games and slots. Eat and spend winnings in the shoppes and nice resturants.

I played in this tournament. I flew into NJ. Does anyone know if they will be giving refunds to out of staters. Flight alone was $400 round trip wouldn't be worth it for me to fly back to NJ for refund.

This. I can't tell you how many times during tourney week I sit with people at 1/2 who came in for the tournaments, and they have lost a couple thousand playing blackjack or roulette, and their wife is pumping money into the slots... And that's at 1/2. A lot of them are also paying for rooms, and food, because they haven't racked up any comps.

Borgata has extremely low rake and they make 100 per hr in rake per table. Its down to 90 after comps. Than you have the overhead which is not that high. Any reasonable person would want to own a poker room over basically any kind of retail business.

Granted the way they do the accounting maybe they can make some argument they are not making money on poker (depending on how they shift costs) but its not a reasonable argument.

Of course this refers to a successful room. Some places that have tried to open rooms or have taken a big hit business wise may end up losing money on poker. But the big rooms like Venetian, Aria, Bellaggio with steady business make really good money every day without the variance in the other gaming areas.

If they do have plans to issue refunds if would have been nice if they could have done it before the series was over because they could have played more events and it would have been better pr wise but i don't think its under their control fully.

My biggest concern is they jack up rake to pay for more costs which would suck kind of bad.

I think it would take a lot more than 2 minutes. More like 6-9 minutes.

Simple logic...

Hold an event with 4500+ entries. Thats approximately 4k people in the door degening slots and table games, rake from cash game, and spending money on food and hotels. Spread that out for two weeks and do it every series.

Now take that out of the equation. Just a drop in the bucket, huh?

Plus, even with the increased amount of visitors they're apparently not spending a significant amount more money on hot water, little bars of soap or towels.

See: Commerce, Bicycle, any other California poker room

Exactly. This could have easily been made a non-story if they didn't stop play.

There may have been some grumblings but it easily could have been covered up and just say they are looking into it.