The 2014 Borgata Winter Poker Open is in full swing this week, but the excitement of the first major U.S. poker festival of the calendar year has been dampened by scandal. Last week, counterfeit chips were discovered during the Open’s first event, leading to a suspension of the tournament and eventually its cancellation.
When the problem was originally discovered on Friday, Borgata Senior Vice President of Operations Joe Lupo did not specifically say what was going on, only that he had “reason to believe the tournament was compromised.”
New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) spokeswoman Lisa Spengler, though, told the Associated Press that the DGE and police were “aware of a situation involving counterfeit chips.”
Event #1 of the Borgata Winter Poker Open, the $2 Million Guaranteed Big Stack Re-Entry, was suspended after Day 3 with just 27 players remaining. It was a gigantic tournament, with 4,812 total entries and prize pool that eclipsed $2.3 million. 423 players had already cashed for dollar amounts ranging from $1,082 to $6,338. The winner was slated to take home $372,123. Allard Broedelet was leading the tournament with 10.315 million chips, followed by Nick Guagenti with 9.745 million. At the time, the decision was made to pause the tournament for 24 hours while Borgata and DGE officials investigated.
On Saturday, the decision was made to cancel the tournament. Tom Ballance, president and chief operating officer of the Borgata, released the following statement:
Thus far, 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.
It is extremely unfortunate that the criminal actions of these individuals can have a detrimental impact on more than 4,000 other entrants. We fully understand and regret the disappointment this cancellation causes our valued customers, and we will work diligently with DGE investigators to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. The integrity of our games and the confidence of our players is of the utmost importance to us.
We thoroughly verified all remaining chips in our inventory, and are confident in moving forward with our tournament schedule as planned and approved by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
No official decision has been made as to what to do with the rest of the prize money. The prize money that has yet to be paid out to the 27 remaining players has been frozen until the investigation comes to a close. It does not appear that any buy-ins will be refunded.
In the meantime, as Balance said, the rest of the Borgata Winter Poker Open schedule is moving forward. The entire festival runs through the end of the month, highlighted by the $3 Million Guaranteed Championship Event, which begins Sunday, January 26th and goes until Friday, January 31st.