Live game cheating problem. Advice needed.

Strange one this, and I've been asked to come up with a cost effective solution.

Situation is I play a small live MTT on Friday evenings organised and run by a local hotel group, the guy that organises it is pretty inexperienced, but over the last year or so he is getting there. There is custom chips for the game and he has enough chips to cater for groups of 200, even though he only has around 4 games per year that has that number. The buy-in starts at $50 and for the bigger tourneys up as far as $250. Starting stack is 12K

Usually we only have 2 dealers, so the game is self dealt on all other table apart from the 2 "Main" tables.

The problem was that last night at the break before the final table, the dealer mistook one players stack for (dunno really) and broke it down, and put it back into the chip cases, the player in question was outside smoking. Not a major problem as there was only 30 players, so the tourney director called for a chip count, to deduce how many chips was missing from play, only one colour had been chiped up so far (25's). He discovered that there was 50K more chips in play than there should be, ie someone had introduced well over 4 stacks into play.

Replacing the chips is not an option due to the cost involved.
The game is full of bad "regs", and its a cash cow for me, so I will continue to play it.
We cannot legally "search", anyone in ireland.

Problems that I see. The TD lets ppl that are knocked out play sit and go's using the tourney chips in a side room. Obv this has to stop, but it does not help with any chips that are currently missing, he told me he has no way of knowing just how many chips were purchased initially.

Thoughts ?

I agree with what you see as a problem of the chips leaving the room, better security of the chips is needed, and the problem of extra chips has to be policed by all players, as it is the players that are being cheated it is in their best interest to be vigil of anyone introducing chips on the sly to their stacks.
Apart from that I don't know what else can be done, your already chipping up.
Good luck in catching the cheating scum TB.

Well in the casino I play in once a player removed all hes chips when we were on a break... He got removed from the Tournament and there shared out his chips between all the remaining players....

I just re read the last line in your thread TB, if the TD can't tell how many chips are missing then I think they must replace the chips with a different type and cop the loss on the chin.

Hire better dealers would or at least some one who can catch the person or persons putting extra chips on the table.But for right now he must start over with new style of chips since the game is tainded.

How hard would it really be to go back to the chip supplier and find out how many chips were originally purchased? I too think that he needs to figure out where he stands as far as outstanding chips before continuing with those same chips. Obviously he needs to stop allowing the main chips to be used outside of the tourney.

Is it possible that the starting stacks were incorrect at the start of the tournament and that no outside chips were introduced?

No he has custom racks for the chips that take an exact starting stack, and the large demon chips are very visible and not introduced until later on.

I just called him up there, and he told me that his boss ordered the chips directly from china, and has told him that he has no intention of chasing up the supplier....

The problem is that there is at least 4/5 players in the game that I know are capable of pulling a stunt like this.

You need a different set of chips for the non tournament games.

Possibly you might be able to chip up so that the lower value chips are taken out of the tournament and then used solely for the side games.

So what you are saying is that someone had added counterfeit chips to the game.

NO cheap solution available here.. you need new chips.

Are the large denom chips used in the side game SnGs?

He needs to get 2 sets of chips now, one set for the mtt and one for the sngs. The old chips cannot be used if counterfeits are in circulation. I'm not sure how one would ensure someone doesn't counterfeit the new chips, tough situation but there will not be any cheap fixes.

WVHillbilly said:

Are the large denom chips used in the side game SnGs?

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Nope, but they have access to them, they are being given a large 1,000 chip set. So similar situation.

marginal said:

He needs to get 2 sets of chips now, one set for the mtt and one for the sngs. The old chips cannot be used if counterfeits are in circulation. I'm not sure how one would ensure someone doesn't counterfeit the new chips, tough situation but there will not be any cheap fixes.

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He dosnt mind at all buying a cheaper chipset for the sit and go's. Hell $100 will sort that out. Its the custom sets that he has for the larger 200 person MTT's that he cannot afford to change.

Looks like ye are correct on this though , there will likely be no quick fix.

tenbob said:

Nope, but they have access to them, they are being given a large 1,000 chip set. So similar situation.




He dosnt mind at all buying a cheaper chipset for the sit and go's. Hell $100 will sort that out. Its the custom sets that he has for the larger 200 person MTT's that he cannot afford to change.

Looks like ye are correct on this though , there will likely be no quick fix.

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If they have been counterfeited (and I am assuming that's what you were saying) then he has no choice.

One interesting point I though of is this.

You counted the chips and there were more in circulation than you owned! What is the likelihood of the first time you count the chips during play being the first time counterfeit chips were introduced?

So how have they been getting the extra chips out of circulation after the tournament? Inside-man?

Nah Stu, they are definately not counterfeited. There is enough chips there to run a 200 person rebuy MTT (in other-words shit loads), we had 30 last night. It is likely that chips were stolen by a sit and go player in a previous week and re-introduced.

Put stickers on one side of the chips? lol, only thing I can think of.

Seems like a good CHEAP fix to me, whoever is doing this would then need to know the sticker going to be used each time you run a tournament, so use a differnt sticker each time..

tenbob said:

Nah Stu, they are definately not counterfeited. There is enough chips there to run a 200 person rebuy MTT (in other-words shit loads), we had 30 last night. It is likely that chips were stolen by a sit and go player in a previous week and re-introduced.

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Oh I see.

Well in that case its not going to be easy or cheap.

The problem is you have lots of players and cant watch them all at all times.

Just look at casino security.. its not cheap!

Personally I would just keep a very close eye on those you suspect, maybe even install a hidden camera, just focusing on those you suspect. Catch them in the act, ban them and then claim you have more surveillance gear than you do to deter others.

Zorba said:

I agree with what you see as a problem of the chips leaving the room, better security of the chips is needed, and the problem of extra chips has to be policed by all players, as it is the players that are being cheated it is in their best interest to be vigil of anyone introducing chips on the sly to their stacks.

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I would think this is the best solution. I don't really understand why replacing the chips would help, or be desirable. Obviously, the cheater has a solution to this problem, either stealing chips or buying identical ones. Wouldn't he just steal or buy more?

Since you have a known problem, how about making an announcement before every tournament that this has happened, and as a result, you will:

Ask all players to be vigilant.
No chips leave the table, ever.
When players move, the TD moves the chips.

If it's feasable, keep a count of chips at the table. It only changes when people move or when you chip up (and that's easy to figure out). When you find a table with more chips than there should be you have a list of suspects. Keep those names. Turning up on that list more than once or twice should be looked at very closely. Maybe even do something drastic like announce that everyone at a table found to have too many chips will be refunded their buy in and dq'd. I don't think you should just flat dq them since most of the players at the table aren't cheating, and you can run it by the players to see if they find that acceptable. If not, don't do it. They're ultimately the ones being cheated, after all, and maybe like the OP, they'd rather keep the game going in spite of the cheating. The players might think it's sufficient for them just to be on the lookout. If so, run with that.

The fact that you're taking it seriously might be sufficient deterrent to stop it.

RF

I would agree with the need to switch the chips. I will say it would nice to catch the person bring extra chips. Someone must know something.

I see the problem right away, this is so easy, stop frickin using the same chips in MTT as the sng tables, it obvious that players from the sng tables are saving their chips and bringing them back with the next week, also tell him to spend 40 bucks and buy some camera surveillance signs and post them around the room.

Madness_does said:

I see the problem right away, this is so easy, stop frickin using the same chips in MTT as the sng tables, it obvious that players from the sng tables are saving their chips and bringing them back with the next week, also tell him to spend 40 bucks and buy some camera surveillance signs and post them around the room.

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Getting a different set of chips for the sit and go tables is a given. Ill suggest the idea of the video surveillance signs.

I agree with all said. My initial thoughts while reading this were that you needed to mark the chips in some way that could be done differently each time.

I like the sticker idea. Get those little colored circles people use for garage sales and such. Easy to change colors and to apply and remove.

This actually happens at the wsop a lot (Men Nygen and his students do this supposedly) and I dont know how much you can do to stop it. People will always find a way too cheat and it is very easy to just shave a 1k chip off your stack for the next tourney or something.

Maybe something that could be put on the chips (a sticker of some sort) is distinguishable that will be changed from tourney to tourney, but that will probably cause a lot of work for management and the people running the game.

tenbob said:

Getting a different set of chips for the sit and go tables is a given. Ill suggest the idea of the video surveillance signs.

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Damn shame, but all you can do, I guess, is to keep taking their money to a good home.

My first question would be how are the chips stored when not in use? Chip trays, in a case, or what. If he gets chip trays and has every chip tray filled then at the end of the night it would be apparently obvious if any chips were missing.

I used to play in a game and it was discovered that the person whos place we played at and ran the tournament was refilling his stack when he would lose some. H was discovered due to stupidity and keen eyes of other players, he was asked for a chip count on his chips and like 7-8 hands later he had not won a hand and had $4000 more chips. Needless to say there were some pissed of people he appoligized and ended up having a game that was free to get in but he put up 10k for a prize pool.
The game usually had about 50-60 players was a $40 buyin with 2 rebuys or a rebuy and a add on.

The guy didn't need the money he owned a landscaping business and had money I guess he just wanted to look like a better player than he was.