I'd be pretty surprised if a group of guys walked in with shiny metallic chips and used those to cheat, but I suppose anything is possible.

Players have confirmed receiving these chips as part of their starting or re-entry stack. But, it's possible those "ARE" the fake chips from a Day 1A color up.

Can anyone confirm if they receiving the new shiny metallic chips as part of their Day 1A starting stack or re-entry stack for Day 1A?

This seems extremely unlikely. Why not give out real chips and don't report the entry? Why fake 5K and real 1K, 500, 100 and 25s? Plus they track what seat you're assigned to so a second player would be sent there if it were unreported.

Another theory:

The B just plain f'ed up, and incorrectly colored up 5k's to 25k's, and there WEREN'T any counterfeit chips. So far no information on proof of a counterfeit chip has been provided, other than people claiming there are new metallic chips, old grey chips, and potential fake metallic chips (no proof).

Maybe some idiot floor thought the 25k's were 10ks, and colored up 4 stacks of grey to 2 stacks of 25's. You insta add 800k to the chip pool. <---- This is very likely until we hear otherwise.

Let's think about this for one minute. This made national news that it was counterfeit chips. After 24 hours of investigation do you think they'd actually cancel it and get the dge involved if they didn't know for sure counterfeit chips. Very naive statement.

I played twice on 1a and remember having difficulty shuffling a stack of grays. I thought they were newer or just less used than the other denominations. I have no issues shuffling any of the other colors. They are very easy and didn't have as crisp of an edge as the 5k's. I put it off as being part of a newer set. They didn't seem brand new but you could tell they were less old than some. I made day 2 with a big stack and never noticed anything strange when it comes to some being different color. Maybe slightly less dirty or worn, but sometimes the other denominations are like that.

How do they know they are counterfeit chips, yet no players that were IN the tournament can verify other than a shiny metallic chip that was being given out in starting stacks.

Given that no additional information on the counterfeit chips is being given anywhere, we must assume this as a theory and "counterfeit" chips, really meant "too many chips in play".

This is what im thinking but it may be a stretch, im not sure how they do entries in their computers but i imagine there is some way to print duplicates receipts and make it appear like a new entry (at least to the customer and untrained dealers)
1,100,000 chips equates to 55 total entries at 20k chips a piece or 110 people with 10k fake (2 5kchips) and 10k real chips... or 560*55=30,800 or the amount of money the potential floor members could pocket, which doesn't seem like a lot but after thinking about it, it would only take maybe 6 people at most to pull this off which is about 5k each not bad for like an hours work. Thats also if this only happens 1 time.

They use fake chips because i assume there is some sort of chip inventory that has to correspond to the number of entries and if its off by too much then there's issues. So put fake chips into play and swap them out at the end before everything gets reinventoried.

As an alternate i was seated at a table that then played like 10 hands and we were then broken up and moved and spread across the room, essentially spreading out the chips

Im just brainstorming but this to me seems more feasible than a couple people just plopping 100k into there stack and having no one notice, someone please tell me im wrong so i can stop thinking about it

borgata fake chips abc news

"The Division of Gaming Enforcement and New Jersey State Police are aware of a situation involving counterfeit chips," said Lisa Spengler a spokeswoman for the gaming enforcement division. "The matter is currently under investigation." She declined further comment.'


what else do you need?

"a significant number of counterfeit chips"

Where's the theory in all this I see it's a fact borgata wouldn't cancel if it was just a theory they could figure out a color up problem fairly quickly with quick inventory.

You don't find it a bit odd that a floor person was able to find counterfeit chips at the "end" of day 2, but no players in the tournament found these chips other than new shiny chips which have yet to be confirmed the fakes.

The Borgata didn't force the cancellation of the tourney, the DGE did. Given that it's now 6 days and still no more information, about the cheaters or the fake chips, its possible there were no fake chips.

investigators confirm counterfeit chips

No one is canceling a tournament unless they are sure. Consequences are much worse by canceling and being wrong, all 27 would have a case for 1st place money. Come on man the writings on the wall your making no sense. Do you really think borgata and dge would cancel a tournament without being sure they would of just suspended it longer.

Investigations take time they want to make an arrest and be sure. There's a lot of footage 10 hours 150 tables starting at each start day. That's a lot of footage.

Chipkatcher all that doesn't mean part of the staff cant be involved.

FYI we had Matt Savage on the Pokercast this week to talk about lots of the issues surrounding the Borgata incident.

It compares because there were 1 million extra chips that were discovered near the end of a tournament. It affects the integrity of the game.

The WSOP incident is widely believed to have been an honest mistake. But I'm not aware of the extent of the investigation and if they pinpointed the table(s) that were colored up incorrectly. If the casino personnel involved were fully investigated, the players at each table involved fully investigated, and all found to be above board that's great. But were the chips distributed evenly to all participants or just a selection? Did someone who was short stacked get some extra chips that took them a few more rungs higher on the payout because of the mistake?

The NJDGE shut it down , not the Borgata. People complained early of fake looking chips, floor and dealers discredit complaint, tournament carried on. Some people didn't like that (rightfully so) and with no where else to turn, they filed a complaint with the NJDGE. NJDGE comes in, suspends play for 24 hours to investigate. After 24 hours investigation, tournament cancelled by NJDGE because chips were, in fact, counterfeit. I'm sure in that first 24-48 hours they found a lot of chip and camera evidence and a couple cheaters in the remaining 27. Now they must be working of filing charges and working out settlement/refund numbers.

If they still have no clue on what happened, why are they not asking/interviewing the players for any leads/information? This is something you would expect if they were legit clueless.

At this point, I bet they know exactly what happened, by who and maybe even when. Just crunching all this numbers/fines/charges

So, why is there no info from players about these counterfeits? Surely, someone from 2p2 must have been somewhere near someone that was close to someone part of the finding of a counterfeit chip. What made the floor say "this is a counterfeit chip, and we need to investigate".

I suppose all I'm really fishing for is more info of which no one has yet to provide. I provided a step by step for the investigators to likely find the culprits within a few hours searching 30-50 people instead of 4000.

I read somewhere the guy got knocked out by gold a few hands later? I think it was deep deep that it happened. Raises a question some people don't count their chips and you come back and have 3 million and play a hand as if you have 3 million lose a pot for a million they realize mistake they take their million back you played the hand before thinking you has 3 million could get complicated.

I've read most of this thread, but don't know if I saw this Q answered conclusively:

Has any NON-ALTERNATE player confirmed receiving any of the light-shiny-grey chips (those are the suspected fake ones, right?) in their STARTING stack?

b/c that obv goes directly to the issue of whether the chips were introduced IN THIS EVENT. (The start of the tourney is also, fwiw, the likeliest time that players would have noticed two different chip styles b/c it's pretty standard to count down your chip stack when you first sit down.) Given how different the chips look, it's just hard to imagine that a cheater would have introduced a fake chip when in 2-seconds it would have become apparent to him that the fake one he was trying to introduce looked absolutely nothing like the real deal. Cheaters are dumb, but that would be ridiculous...he'd prob try to re-pocket it the second he realized that it looked night-and-day different.

I don't know the structure of this tournament but if you're playing Day 1 C aren't you starting the tournament from the beginning? (Ie like in WSOPME)

If so who the hell puts counterfeit chips in a starting stack?

In fact as I write this I'm thinking this surely can't be the case. What is Day 1C?

Day 1c was a 7pm night start the same as day 1b. There were only 2 calendar days but 3 starting flights.

There were a lot of players and a lot of alternates. As FLATCALL said he didn't start until level 6 which was 10pm at least. Only 16 levels are played each flight. He wasn't even the last alternate.

A color up is the only logical reason the chips could be in a 1B or 1C starting stack but surely 5k chips aren't coloured up on day 1?

putting fake chips in random starting stacks on day 1A kinda doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

Ok thanks for clarifying.

So if chips were introduced say day 1c only would borgata not refund day 1a or 1b?

Who knows. Personally I think they will need to cause of how many people will feel "****ed over". Its not an easy situation that they will be able to nickle and dime and pick an exact entry point.

If what you said is correct than 100% staff was involved in this crime and not the players. Correct me if Im wrong but at no time would there have been a major color up of 5k chips so how would counterfeit chips get in hands of casino bank? All chips in play would still be in hands of players up to end of day 2 assuming multiple stacks(players taking their best stack playing multiple days) were not discarded. So basically the Tournament bank should have NEVER had counterfeit chips until Day 3 when the bags were reopened and put in Casino hands

Yeah then it turns into who made it to day 2 and got screwed do they record who makes it to day 2?