I concur. This is exactly what I think before I condense my posts into 25 words or less.

LOL if you think getting it in vs someone as a 98% favorite is being 'penalized'.

Do you think they should have stopped the 2006 Main Event when they had the color up mistake, putting over a million extra chips on the table? Should Jamie Gold be stripped of his bracelet because he knocked out a guy who had way more chips than he should have? What if that guy had sucked out on Jamie, and then Jamie busted, should they give him the bracelet once they learned he lost to unfair chips?

The impact on the tournament is not to the level to come CLOSE to justifying completely throwing it out. If this was a 100 person field with a group of 9 confederates, maybe. But this had a miniscule impact on the playing out of this tournament.

LOL some of the payouts were probably already gambled away by degens in the pit who will cry poor if required to return the payout.

The fairest thing to do would be to return all the buy ins, except to those who received payouts already.

so 28th place pays $7k and 27th-1st pay $560, and that's the fairest thing to do? jesus christ on a cracker.

LOL Of course many of the payouts have been used. So what?

"Yeah I received that stolen TV, but I've been watching it. I can't give it back!!"

Uhhh. Not sure if serious...

That poster was not implying the 27 just get their buy-ins back. No one in their right mind would make this awful argument.

prizes 450-29 were already paid out and borgata says that they are not going to ask players for the payouts back,they told me that everyone will get a refund. as for the remaining 27, myself included, they wouldnt say what they were going to do.

Yeah but good luck collecting $ from someone who you voluntarily gave it to (per the terms of your own tournament rules). A lot of people would say they don't have it (whether they do or not) and there would be no legal means for recouping that money. I doubt borgata would step up and take the loss by making up the difference between the yet to be paid out prize $ and the money they are still holding (since pretty much every AC casino has been hurting financially for quite some time).

It should also be noted that the tournament ticket says on it that in the event of a cancellation, there will be a refund. The sentence before it references before the tournament, but each sentence COULD be argued to stand alone.

Bottom line, IMO, if they don't refund everyone, there will be a lawsuit. If they don't pay out those who cashed and the final 27 with some sort of chip chop, there will be a lawsuit.

Doesn't make it right/wrong or anything, but the bottom line is that in either case, some people will feel wronged and sue, because it's America and that's what people do.

FWIW, I busted early on Day 1A and don't feel like I must get a refund and I haven't asked for or demanded one. I obviously won't turn it down if that's the outcome, though. I could make the argument for or against one for myself if I were in a debate either way.

Ultimately, I just don't think the Borgata will want to deal with a lawsuit and all the related expenses (some concrete, some estimated) that would go along with it. That's why I still think they suck it up and deal with it and refund everyone who busted and payout everyone who already cashed and chop/chip chop the final 27.

I feel the same way as you do. If the refund comes, great. If not, I'm not going to lawyer up and sue. I will write a complaint letter and send to DGE and Borgata. It will include not only the cheating, but also all of the other really bad things I saw that A) Ruined my customer experience B) Put numerous players at disadvantages vs the field.

Well it obviously had enough of an impact in their opinion for them to decide the tournament should be cancelled.

Mrdadio, they haven't paid all but the 27. They had a couple stragglers not get paid yet. Small stuff. What's your source on the refund if you don't mind me asking?

I wouldn't lawyer up and sue, but if I was contacted about a class action I'd probably sign on just because it's -EV not to if I'm not going to sue personally.

I've thought about posting on here to try to come up with a set of demands for not just the Borg, but the TDA or something of reasonable tournament reforms to prevent this in the future, then setting it up as a petition to be signed by as many players as possible. That's about all I'd really consider doing. I don't see writing NJDGE or the Borg individually as doing much good, but that's just my opinion.

I don't think Borgata will be calling the shots here.

Also, there are all kinds of legal means for getting the money back.

Not because of any fault of the players receiving the money, but some finishing places might have been different had there not been counterfeit chips in the game.

Criminal activity=return the ill-gotten gains.

Sucks. But I think that's what will happen.

What Borgata does afterwards is a whole 'nother matter, based on marketing/PR concerns.

Meh, payouts were earned by 99.9% of people who got them playing poker. In the actual hypothetical where fake chips were never introduced, I don't see how 400th place becoming 20th place is much more likely than 400th place remaining 400th place or going to 395th or 405th. There is some minuscule chance that, if not for the fake chips, he would have gone a lot deeper.

The key word there is minuscule. Everybody, on average, will see an increase to their average earnings far lower than the buy-in if there were no fake chips. If all players who busted are refunded, they are not being "made whole." They are, on average, getting much more money than the fake chips cost them. In other words, a refund would mean you were on a retroactive freeroll.

My first response was also wholesale refunds, but it just doesn't make sense and I'm afraid the large cost would have a chilling effect on casinos hosting MTT's. To be fair, Bogata is a pretty crappy spot as anything less than a full refund will hurt their image tremendously with the large number of tournament players who don't understand math and wouldn't come back for more MTT's.

Same argument goes for 1-27 as goes for keeping payouts. They played real poker to get their current stacks (probably) and the remaining prize pool should be chopped up. It had to be canceled because it wasn't known whether one of the 27 was the cheater and therefore any play afterwards would further taint the tournament's outcome.

That's basically what I said, though. NJDGE may only make them do a little, but I expect them to go above and beyond to preserve their brand cause of the PR.

Also, when discussing how much this hurts them and the future cost to running MTTs, people need to keep in mind that they very well may be insured against this sort of thing. Also, keep in mind that the poker room probably makes like 1-1.5M per month. So while 1.5-2M is a big number, it's less than the annual cost of even a 10% drop off in revenue from losing players.

I'm too lazy to look it all up but does anyone have a rough estimate on how much the Borgata is making in rake this series throughout all the events?

Despite some people's differing viewpoints, i would argue that the tournament was only cancelled for the remaining 27 players, all of the other players participated in a completed tournament, whether they were knocked out or were paid their prize money.

No magic language or terms applied retroactively change the fact that the majority of the players completed this tournament. They could try to vacate the results (like the ncaa did to PSU) but i don't see that giving them the right to claw back the payouts.

how can you cancel part of a tournament?

Casinos have the best business models for keeping customers happy and coming back.

Borgata will make this mess as right as they can, but first will have to follow the gaming commissions requirements.

And the commission's primary focus is the integrity of the games.

How "unfair" it is that someone played their heart out honestly and now sees it all going away because someone else cheated is not their main concern.

Their focus is on the cheating.

Especially the most important part

.

Because the event, unlike a bb game or baseball game, has different players completing the tournament at different intervals. Games can be cancelled because the intermediate score has no value. In a poker event, intermediate results do have value for the players.

Only players who did not complete the tournament had it cancelled.

Is it possible to cancel the Boston Marathon after 95 percent of the participants cross the finish line?

But, i throw the question back at you, if i was knocked out of the tournament (or made the $), how does the stopping of the tournament the next day cancel my tournament?

One final note, then I have to sack out.

How many of you have gone broke in a cash playing against some idiot with deep pockets who keeps chasing and beating you up and then giving your chips to other players? The idiot re buys and keeps hammering on you and now the other players have the chips to push you around as well.

Time to find another table.

Unless, of course you are in a tournament.

This why the game was tainted.

The rightful winner of this tournament may have gone home broke because of the bogus chips. How fair is that?

Lol to anyone who thinks that people who were paid will have to return the money. If Joe schmoe is paid 5k and loses it in the pits before the story breaks he is now in the hole for playing. Seems fair and legit.

Apparently someone would:

Clear front-runner for worst solution proposed.