PokerTDA

POKER TOURNAMENT RULES QUESTIONS & DISCUSSIONS => Poker TDA Rules & Procedures Questions, General => Topic started by: Motobaka72 on June 27, 2015, 12:17:35 PM

Title: Wrong amount of bagged chips signed by player
Post by: Motobaka72 on June 27, 2015, 12:17:35 PM
Hello,
I run a small Poker Room at a casino and yesterday we had the following situation.

Since we don’t have an extensive amount of tournament chips we require that after day 1A and 1B dealers write down the number of chips the players had at the end of the day and the players sign the piece of paper.  We can’t bag the chips because we need them. 

The dealer starts to count the chips in the presence of the player and a hostess or an aid writes down the amount and player signs it.

In Day 1B a player had 60K in chips. Dealer said 260K and the hostess wrote it down. Hostess says that she did notice player and dealer laughing a bit about it.  Player signed the piece of paper.

After day 1B was over players left the casino and since it is a small town some of them wanted to go and celebrate.  This includes the mentioned player.
Some 30 minutes passed and player returns, looks for dealer and they both approach me and let me know that they were joking.  Player says he only had 60K.  I look up the piece of paper and correct it with my signature instead of player’s signature.

I´ve known the dealer for a while and he has never showed any sign of cheating or collusion with other players.  We have worked together at another bigger casino.  He is a prankster in nature.

My initial intention was to disqualify the player, but since he was the one letting me know about it before anything irreversible happened I was then inclined to give him a three round penalty.  Doing that would basically mean that he losses half of his chips.  We come back today for day 2 and I’m probably just going to leave it at two or one round.

How would you have handled the situation?
Dealer will be dealt with by administration.
Title: Re: Wrong amount of bagged chips signed by player
Post by: Motobaka72 on June 27, 2015, 12:34:22 PM
After talking to other TDs about this and specially one I respect a lot, I have decided not to penalize the player.  He acted in time to correct the situation.  I would still like you guys input on the situation.  I also think my mistake was not to have a supervisor to be a third person checking the counting of the chips.
Title: Re: Wrong amount of bagged chips signed by player
Post by: Nick C on June 27, 2015, 01:24:50 PM
Motabaka72,

 I think you handled the situation well. Your familiarity with the dealer and player helped. The fact that the player confessed before any damage was done, also helps. You don't need players thinking that a mistake like that will ever happen again, so adding another floor to assist would be a good idea.

 I'm not working casino tournaments any more but, your situation was handled in the best interest of your game. No need to alarm others or get them thinking that some form of collusion has occurred, especially involving one of your dealers.
Title: Re: Wrong amount of bagged chips signed by player
Post by: Motobaka72 on June 27, 2015, 01:37:15 PM
Thanks for your fast response, I will do as advised.
Title: Re: Wrong amount of bagged chips signed by player
Post by: Luca P. on June 28, 2015, 09:21:59 AM
When we had the same problem (that we were unable to bag chips), we usually made a count with a floorman or at least another dealer.
After finished counting, and all player signed their chipstack, me and other floormen started counting them again and made the sum to see if it was ok with the total amount of chips. If we found a mistake in a count, we used to call the player at his phone, telling him that the count was wrong and, since we had a camera on top of every table, we could provide the player with a camera check.
Title: Re: Wrong amount of bagged chips signed by player
Post by: Brian Vickers on June 30, 2015, 10:38:56 AM
I have had a similar situation in my cardroom many years back where we wrote down the totals but the handwriting was poor and misread upon reconstructing the stacks on Day 2, resulting in a several thousand mistake that was luckily corrected by the player. 

Suggestion for future: I didn't have enough chips for multiday either, but what I began doing was coloring up players to the largest chip size available and bagging these.  Then on Day 2 colored them back down to usable denominations.  It is important when doing all the color-ups that you bring a set amount of chips to each table and make sure your new total equals the amount you brought over exactly. i.e. if you bring over a rack of 5k chips (500,000) that you have 500,000 after color ups.  Do the count before leaving table so you can make corrections if there is a mistake.  Having chips in bags is generally much safer than relying on a typo, poor handwriting, or lost chip count paperwork.
Title: Re: Wrong amount of bagged chips signed by player
Post by: Motobaka72 on July 04, 2015, 02:05:34 PM
[...] we could provide the player with a camera check.

This is something I wanted to do, but the casino I work for does not allow customers to see what is caught by the camera.

Suggestion for future: I didn't have enough chips for multiday either, but what I began doing was coloring up players to the largest chip size available and bagging these.  Then on Day 2 colored them back down to usable denominations.  It is important when doing all the color-ups that you bring a set amount of chips to each table and make sure your new total equals the amount you brought over exactly. i.e. if you bring over a rack of 5k chips (500,000) that you have 500,000 after color ups.  Do the count before leaving table so you can make corrections if there is a mistake.  Having chips in bags is generally much safer than relying on a typo, poor handwriting, or lost chip count paperwork.

This suggestion is very helpfull and I think I will start doing it.

Thanks.