COUNTERFEIT CHIPS Certainly, cheating and thefts at casinos is nothing
new. But because the game is played not against the house, but against other casino patrons – a reputation of not hosting a fair game can have far- reaching implications. From 2010-13, reports began surfacing about collusion among players in Deadwood, S.D., and the gaming commission began investigating these reports in 2013.
Douglas Florence, a security consultant and senior vice president of strategic operations of eConnect Global in Las Vegas, says poker wagering in Deadwood dropped significantly and led the gaming commission to pass security measures in an attempt to bring players back to the tables. The new rules ban communicating with electronic devices at the table and speaking languages other than English at the table.
Counterfeiting has always been a problem for
casinos, Florence says, and can be particularly problematic because casinos and tours use separate chips so much for tournament play. Slipping a few high-value chips out of play to copy and work back into in a future tournament for possibly a bigger score is not too difficult. While Florence believes team play and collusion are more of a concern to casinos regarding poker, he believes the only way to prevent these types of counterfeit crimes is by using technology including RFID and bar codes. The high- tech tracking ability allows casino officials to easily identify phony chips.
“The only way to make sure they can keep track of all the chips is use RFID and other technology,” Florence says. “The casinos are going to tell you it’s going to cost a lot of money. Well I say bullshit. This is ultimately about the integrity of the game.”
AFTERMATH
Criminal types will always look for an edge or a way to beat any game in which a large amount of cash is awarded. And casino security will never be foolproof. Lusardi had a previous run-in with the law in 2008 when he was one of several men charged with running an illegal gambling operation in Fayetteville, N.C., and one poker site probably spoke for many by labeling the accused criminal as a “miscreant.” Some have argued that if he had not flushed the fake chips, Lusardi may have gotten away with the entire scheme.
In the days after the events at the Borgata, bad
news continued in Atlantic City as Atlantic Club, Revel, Trump Plaza, and Showboat casinos all closed their doors. The Trump Taj Mahal was also in danger of closing as of September. Thousands of employees have lost jobs as casino revenue has continued to fall in recent years with increased competition.
In late-February, several players filed a lawsuit against the Borgata alleging fraud and financial negligence. Guagenti believes this is a pointless endeavor and that poker security will always be a challenge. And despite the events at the Borgata, progress has been made in recent decades.
“I believe that security in the poker world is very
hard to enforce. I think that for a tournament director the best thing you can do is try as many preventative measures as possible, but realize that people will always be looking for ways to cheat the system,” he says. “We don’t have a governing body or a disciplinary system. So if someone is caught cheating they can just walk right into another casino and do the same thing. I haven’t been around forever, but I would tend to guess that it’s a lot better than it was 20 to 40 years ago.”
Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall,
Texas. His new book is Raising the Stakes: True Tales of Gambling, Wagering & Poker Faces, available at his blog
PokerTraditions.com,
Amazon.com, and
BarnesandNoble.com. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions.
36 OCTOBER 2014
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