Please no. We fought the WSOP on this when they had dealers counting stacks on breaks for the live update software, where you could track stack sizes online and in real time. The concern here is that how do I know I can trust the dealers, and why should ANYBODY be allowed to touch my stack when I'm not there?

It's one thing if they are going to color up the 25s, and I leave them mingled in my stack and head off to break. I know they need to get those chips, and I could have separated them from the rest of my stack, and stayed there for the color-up and race. But if I'm not informed of anything, and I come back and my stack has been touched, I believe that is a problem. Would be super easy for even a dealer who hasn't put in the practice to palm a big chip or 2, and move it next door to another stack. Maybe that other guy is his buddy, or has bribed him to do so.

And even if the dealer is a saint, and completely trustworty, what if he accidentally knocks my stack over, and it splashes into the neighboring stack? He hasn't finished counting, so now nobody knows for sure how much we each should have. If I knock over my own stack, we likewise don't know for sure, but since the error was mine, it would be proper for the floor to err on the side of making sure the other guy isn't getting shorted. My mistake, my risk.

If it becomes standard practice somewhere for the dealers and/or other employees to touch my stack during breaks, in my absence, I know I'll be playing elsewhere.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

The club where I play occasionally has a radical approach to running MTT . They introduce only one color chip and instead of increasing the blinds every 30 minutes , they reduce everyone's stack by 20% . This was a little hard to get use to at first but it works really well and makes the logistics of running a tournament much simpler.

Of course it can lead to players palming chips off their stack before the round ends , but with players policing the game as well as floor staff this doesn't seem to be a problem

OK, Greg. We know what you would not suggest, what would you suggest?

Just leave as is?

I'm not convinced that "as is" will be an option available to MTT organizers over the next 6-18 months. But that will depend on which State they organize the events.

Poker players are going to want nothing to change while simultaneously blaming the venues for not doing something.

Venues are going to want to be able to say, "our tournaments are safe".

Vendors are going to want to provide solutions to let the venues do that.

Regulators are going to say, "You will do THIS to ensure your games are safe."

Guess which people the regulators will actually listen to?

Sticky this please. wish I had that logic in OP.

As to who regulators are going to listen to... they will listen to anyone but at the end of that they will put regs in that they feel best protect the players and casinos. That is their purpose.

Just for fun I scanned NJ regs. Full disclosure I dedicated 5 mins to this as each states regs are lengthy and different. In that 5 mins I could not find any regs dictating how MTTs are to be operated, not saying they are not there, just that in five mins I could not find them

I did find the regs on "non-gaming chips" as they are referred to and apply to poker tournament chips. Each state probably has something similar.


SOURCE: http://www.nj.gov/oag/ge/docs/Regulations/CHAPTER69E.pdf

Ban the backpacks/purses/man bags/fanny packs, unless they are transparent. It would be hard to smuggle 160+ chips in your pants pockets.

Some properties in Vegas do this now with employees. I a person wants to bring their purse to their bar/ workstation/ pit, it has to be see through.

They will NEVER use electronic based solutions for massive fields so it's not even worth discussing. Too expensive. Not going to happen.

The main reason this happened is the Borg had those idiot solid grey chips. Edge mark 101. Anyhoo, the Poo Poo Bandit is an anomie. There are some sketchy folks out there but it has more to do with the men the master type moving chips amongst friend scams. Bottom line is there will ALWAYS be a few bad apples.

I think some of the chip count verifying and tighter room security ideas ITT are the best things casinos can do without hurting their bottom line. I'm with Greg, keep your grubs off my stack when I'm not in the room.

You seem to be under the impression that it's up to the venues...

I agree with this, and don't know why tournaments don't make it a rule for players. I'm thinking about all the tournaments I've played and wondering how many actually had a correct chip count at the end.

Poker police are going to force nation wide RFID cuz of Poo Poo Bandit? Lol, no.

State and Federal Regulators are going to insist that venues come up with ways to prevent this from happening again. If you think that Government doesn't work like this (problem occurs, they get all up in it to prevent it in future) then you are absurdly naive about how politics and business work.

Sticking your head in the sand like nothing's going to change is going to result with you getting your ass kicked while you're heads down in the dirt.

What the vendors, venues and service providers need to do is get ahead of this, so they can meet with regulators and say, 'Ok we looked at what happened, here's where we think it went wrong, and here's an economical solution we've come up with to prevent it from happening again.

Otherwise, they're going to be following the regulators tunes.

Son,

FYI economical solutions do not include electronics. We have been over this.

Yeah cause the "argument from age" is a credible position.

Yeah? And your economic basis for this is what? (Like regulators care : see Sarbanes-Oxley legislation for proof of just what they're willing to insist upon, or the ACA for that matter.)

Do you think the venues own all the equipment they use in these big tournaments? Do you think the venues run the actual gig?

Of course they don't. They hire it out - because that's the economical model. So it's not a bunch of casinos that need to invest in rfid scanner with built in scales, its a couple of vendors, who make a capital investment (which they can then depreciate), and charge their clients (aka: the venues) a slightly higher rate due to compliance issues.

There are a ton of other benefits that come along with adding some computerization to the security model too - like data mining opportunities for current tournament standings.

But you go on trying to throw your weight around without any actual , you know, supporting arguments on your side. Or did I miss where you actually presented one beyond "too expensive won't happen"?

I'm not a pro debater like yourself all I know is RFID is not happening until it is cheap. If you don't think so ask any reputable tourney director they will say the same thing, son. Did you ask them? Didn't think so.

I am not anti-tourney security. Tighten up the rooms, more bodies on staff, better chip stocks and keep day counts tight are all great ideas.

RFID is cool, I'm with you in that, it's just not going to happen.

Anyway, I'm out. I'm right, your wrong. That's how it is son. Don't be sad. I win the thread.

FALCON 2016!

If they are forced to up the rake to 25 to 30 percent it just kills poker long term. If the rake reaches a point where people know its unbeatable you lose a huge group of pros/people who think are pros.

Just something to think about. The model they have used the last 10 years since the start of the poker boom is pretty good.

Rake is the biggest enemy to all players and it definitely creeps up every year. The most knowledgeable TDs understand there is a certain rake point that probably just stops people from showing up. Others just look at the bottom line i suppose.

People just overreact to some story. The bottom line is this guy was a huge failure and he's going away a long time. This should let regulators know massive change does not have to happen. Trying to cheat is not profitable.

Translation - you don't need to read or think about what I'm saying - you're just right. The world will mold itself to your way of thinking despite all prior evidence to the contrary on the part of Government officials everywhere. And that ace will come up for you if you shout 'one time!' loud enough.

Rock on mate.

No disagreement whatsoever!

But these large scale events like the Borgata open - events that attract not a few hundred players but thousands - events that attract the scum to come try something new - these events are going to be under higher scrutiny now. The industry people need to keep the regulatory people's changes focused on larger scale events and make sure it's understood that at smaller scales these measures aren't needed.

And where the changes may be needed, these large scale events all have something in common that will help keep the cost down. The venues that host the events don't buy all the equipment, don't hire the staff - they lease it.

You've got a couple of firms that run these big tournaments. They're pros at it. They bring the equipment and the dealers - and that's where this becomes economical. Because instead of each venue spending a TON to pay for lots of new technology, the couple of suppliers will buy the equipment and the venues will end up spreading the cost of the new technology around the country (or globe even).

On top of that, those supplies will be able to minimize the cost increase to the venues because they will be investing in capital assets which means they get to depreciate the investment over several years, and that in turn means they can spread the cost increase out to the venues over several years. So while the overall cost of adding this equipment won't be small - it will be a lot cheaper on a per-venue basis, because of how the big tournaments *already* work.

Final point - Maybe the regulators will look at everything that happened and decide that yeah, the changes aren't really necessary. If so, great - we get off easy. But Government officials generally don't think like that - they have to be able to prove to their bosses that they're doing something (and their bosses have campaign promises to keep).

I'm not sure you understand how casinos are regulated and operated. These "poker police" as you call them go by a different name in each state

NV - NGCB Nevada Gaming Control Board
NJ - DGE Division of Gaming Enforcement
MS- MGC Mississippi Gaming Commission
MI- MGCB Michigan Gaming Control Board

etc... etc.... etc....

And "police" is exactly what they do for all casino operations including Tournaments. Though most with even passing knowledge of the industry refer to it as "regulate" not "police"

all you say is true. The model used for the last 10 years has worked fine for all we know. And if it was up to us and the MTT organizers then no reason to change.

The reality is that decision probably wont be ours but will come in the form of various state by state "enhanced" rules for poker tournaments that will start as new regs and then be enforced in the form of new Internal Controls dictated by Compliance Dept of each casino.

In some states those could be no big deal. In some states they could be draconian form an economic standpoint. Some states maybe do nothing.

I predict that most states will do something. If left with no other choices or solutions, I suspect new rules would be a mix of very expensive cameras and very expensive chips that are not so easy to counterfeit (similar to what is used inside casino).

I love tournament poker

the above would be horrible tournament poker

Lets come up with better processes and any other ideas before that so its not horrible for tournament poker

I don't understand how RFID solves the problem: From the description in this thread, it appears that RFID only allows you to know that fake chips have been introduced to the game after they are already on the table... and current techniques (ie, knowing how many chips should be in play, and how many are actually in play) seem to already solve that problem. In the Borgata example, they knew that there were fake chips in play because there were a whole lot extra, what does RFID add to this?

As for Borgata, I don't know the details but I believe the situation blew up on Day 2 27-handed, down from about 2500 players, and only after the plumber in Harrahs found the flushed fake chips in the toilet and called Borgata.

Its alleged that close to 200 fake 5K chips were introduced in the tournament and many believe some were introduced on day one and some on day 2. I have no idea

I'm not saying RFID is the only or best solution, but, Evil has proposed something like this..

1) assume for a moment a less expensive RFID tournament chip were available that added 15 -25 cents (.15 - .25 $US dollar) to a chip costs

2) at the end of night as staff is collecting the bags, they are each put on a RFID scale (commercially available for $1000). The scale would weigh the bag, the RFID reader in the scale would ID the chips and know what it should weigh.... any discrepancy in weight and counterfeit chips are in that bag. Thus no fake chips could move from day one to another. whole process maybe take 5 secs per bag.

3) Perhaps spot checks of chip stacks during breaks or as players move as major deterrent during game play. Akin to spot checks at airport security wont catch all bad guys but is deterrent.

#3 needs a little more work. Evil's #2 idea is pretty good imo

#2 also has a lot of other benefits for staff as recording chip stack sizes becomes at end of day becomes much easier and automated.

If #3 was improved upon a bit, would also have a lot of advantages for players and live reporting of events

all tournament venues / poker rooms should have a # you can text and an email address you can email to report suspicious behavior.

these texts and emails should be monitored in real-time by game security.

this will also aid in finding appropriate video to review.

PTLou,

RFID doesn't appear to add much to #2 because it is already apparent if there's a discrepancy in the number of chips by simply knowing how many there should be.

then how did fake chips make it from day 1 to day 2 of Borgata? which I believe is the common understanding of those close to the issue?

that is a great idea and costs nothing. I see that at Football stadium now "Report Fan Abuse, Text seat and section number to XXXXX"

If what you say is true, then there obviously there wasn't an accurate count of chips done at the end of Day 1.... which doesn't require RFID.

But you don't know how many there should be until the end of the day when the bag count happens.

RFID introduces a very fast method for being able to count the chips as tables experience player changes. Break time stack scans (where the dealers are basically just sitting there anyway) allow for :
1) Confirmation that the current table balance is correct
2) Confirmation that no funky chips have been introduced (ie: chips that don't match the proper signature --- oooh daily digital signatures on the chips... there's a thought...)
3) Bonus: Instant centralized update on current stack sizes. Know who the chip leader is not at the end of the day - but at the end of each break.