Borgata Suspends Poker Event After Players Use Fake Chips

New Jersey casino regulators have cancelled the first event of the Borgata Winter Poker Open and ordered all prize money frozen after they found that players had used “a significant number of counterfeit chips”.

The Big Stack, No Limit Hold’Em event began last Tuesday and had a $560 buy-in, by the time the contest was suspended on Saturday there were just 27 players remaining. The casino’s senior vice president, Joe Lupo, said that suspicions were raised Thursday night but he would not say what caused them.

The Borgata’s President and COO, Tom Ballance, said, “Investigators have found that one or more tournament entrants improperly introduced a significant number of counterfeit chips into the tournament, gaining an unfair advantage and compromising the integrity of play for the event.”

Ballance went on to say that the casino has examined its remaining chips and been cleared by investigators to continue with the Poker Open’s other events. The New Jersey State Police have said that the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have yet been made. It is known that the poker tables are covered by multiple security cameras so it probably won’t be long before some progress is made in the investigation.