As witnessed by two recent events in the tournament poker world (January’s incident at the opening event of the Borgata Winter Poker Open and the “chip pocketing” case last month at the World Series of Poker Circuit event in Palm Beach, FL), there is a great concern over fake chips being introduced into a tournament. The newest casino on the East Coast, Maryland Live! Casino in Hanover, MD, has introduced a method that could squash this practice in one easy step.
According to J. Freedom Du Lac, writing for the Washington Post’s local section, officials with Maryland Live! are ready for any potential chip shenanigans that may show up. The casino is hosting its first major event, the $1 Million Live! Poker Classic, that is guaranteeing a million dollar in prize pools for its 10-day tournament schedule (the event ends on March 24). With such a prestigious tournament – and the potential for manipulation by unscrupulous players – the poker room (which Du Lac ranks as the second most active room behind the Commerce Casino in Bell Gardens, CA, “on most nights”) is ready for action.
Although Du Lac was unable to get many specifics out of Rob Norton, the president and general manager of Maryland Live!, he was able to glean some information from him. “The concern as it relates to poker chips is really minimized because of the procedures within our tournaments,” Norton is quoted by Du Lac. Following the Borgata incident earlier this year, Maryland Live! decided that, when a player moves from a busted table, they don’t carry their chips but an electronic card that indicates how many chips they are supposed to have. Casino officials also introduced new procedures for the “bag and tag” operations at the end of a tournament day.
The most impressive move by Maryland Live! in combating counterfeit chip operations is in the usage of multiple sets of tournament chips. Norton would not comment on how many different sets of tournament chips there are, but Du Lac found at least four different variations on Maryland Live! tournament chips pictured on Twitter. The variations between those four sets are quite stark and, since a player won’t know what set is in action, it would be highly improbable that they would be able to duplicate every one of them.
“We can add more sets,” Norton told Du Lac, “and for big tournaments, you may find more places doing that in the future.”
Recently there was a counterfeiting scandal on the Maryland Live! casino floor, but it did not involve the poker room or its players. In that case, two people have been charged with introducing counterfeit chips that were used in the pit games (roulette, blackjack and mini-baccarat) just last month. That case has not reached the Maryland courts at this time and Norton has stated that the casino will not only prosecute any potential cheaters but also ban them from the casino (probably the least of a cheater’s concerns when facing potential jail time). “I’m not going to tolerate that sort of behavior,” Norton stated.
The usage of multiple chip sets for tournaments is an outstanding step in combating what has become an issue in the tournament poker world. The major poker tours – the World Poker Tour, the World Series of Poker and the European Poker Tour – would find it quite easy to create several versions of their own chips (perhaps even taking it one step further and introducing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology into the mix) and use them for their different Championship Event tournaments on their schedules. The problem would come in the lower-level tournaments on the WSOP Circuit, the Heartland Poker Tour or others who don’t have the ability for expenditures of such an extravagance. Thus, it would be up to the individual casinos to implement the multiple set option that Maryland Live! has done.
From the looks of the operation, Maryland Live! has introduced some outstanding procedures in its poker room regarding its chip operations. Perhaps some other areas of the industry need to look at what they are doing and incorporate it into their businesses also.