Coloring up chips in tournaments

[RR]

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Every tournament I've played in AC has just rounded instead of doing a real "chip race". But the biggest tourney I've played in was $800. Maybe they do it more legit in the major leagues. I've always done the "chip race" in my home tournament, just because it's fun.

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A lot of people that work in poker rooms prefer rounding up because it makes it easier for them to steal a portion of the prize pool.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] ?

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When chips are raced off the players can verify that the correct amount of money is in the prize pool (they can verify the number of players). Rounding up the chips allows the people working there to steal a portion of the prize pool without it being obvious.

If you play in a casino that rounds up they are either stealing from you or are unwilling to take the steps to make sure nobody is stealing from you.

Edit to add: or it could just be that they don't understand how to protect their players from thieves.


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This seems seriously unlikely to me in a casino environment as tightly regulated as Atlantic City. It wouldn't be that hard to figure out eventually...rounding up odds low-denomination chips doesn't add that many total chips. Why would a casino risks its gaming license for a couple extra hundred dollars?

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The people that work there don't care about the casino's gaming license. I am not aware of a casino that rounds off that hasn't had a problem with employees pocketing money (I am sure they exist, but every casino that I am familiar with that rounds off has fired someone within the last 3 years for stealing from the tournaments). Oh and rounding adds plenty.

[NickMPK]

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The people that work there don't care about the casino's gaming license. I am not aware of a casino that rounds off that hasn't had a problem with employees pocketing money (I am sure they exist, but every casino that I am familiar with that rounds off has fired someone within the last 3 years for stealing from the tournaments). Oh and rounding adds plenty.

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How does a lone casino employee pocket this money? When you join a tournament at the cage, you get a computer print-out receipt with your seat number. I guess I always assumed this went into a computer system that was used to generate the pay-outs. And how would it physically be any easier for an employee to pocket this money than it would be for them to pocket the money that someone uses to buy cash-game chips?

[pig4bill]

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Edit: Also, a player may not be eliminated from a tournament due to racing off chips. So in this case, if a player has only either 1, 2 or 3 green chips left, he is automatically awarded a black chip.

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Ha, this came up in a PH tournament. This girl had just lost an all-in and was left with one black (T100). The break was starting and it was time to color up to T500 (yellows?). Ever since I magically lost money during a color-up, I stay to watch them. The girl was in the 1 seat, so got her race-off card dealt first, saw it was a deuce or something, said good-bye and left. This guy to my left got the lowest winning race-off card and picked up a yellow for his one black. Then the dealer realizes her mistake, explains the rule, which makes perfect sense to me, and awards the yellow to the girl. She's gone, but is officially still in the tournament and her chip sits at her seat.

The guy to my left starts bitching and moaning and doesn't want to give the yellow back. He was lowest card to get a chip and shouldn't have gotten it. The dealer keeps yelling for the floor, but it's break so they're not paying attention. Acoustics are horrible in the poker room and your voice only carries about 10 feet. The dealer says "Okay, I'm making a command decision" and gives whiney guy back his black. I go find the girl and tell her she's still in the tournament. Now there's been an extra T100 introduced into the tournament, and it's a comedy watching each new dealer's expression as they wonder why the hell this one black chip is still in play. Somehow it keeps ending up in the pot on all-ins and it gets passed from player to player like a bad penny.

[RR]

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The people that work there don't care about the casino's gaming license. I am not aware of a casino that rounds off that hasn't had a problem with employees pocketing money (I am sure they exist, but every casino that I am familiar with that rounds off has fired someone within the last 3 years for stealing from the tournaments). Oh and rounding adds plenty.

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How does a lone casino employee pocket this money? When you join a tournament at the cage, you get a computer print-out receipt with your seat number. I guess I always assumed this went into a computer system that was used to generate the pay-outs. And how would it physically be any easier for an employee to pocket this money than it would be for them to pocket the money that someone uses to buy cash-game chips?

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Void the seat out of the computer and pocket the money. The player still had their receipt to go sit down. As was noted above this is more likely to occur with a late entrant or something. Or it could be in a less modern casino where they still do it with paper and pencil (there was even a time when we kept the time on a timer that the TD carried in his pocket).

When someone buys into a cash game their money is exchanged for chips. The bank the chips are sold form is at a constant amount, so if there is less money in there than there is supposed to be it is clear that some is missing.