I thank everyone for their reply, and matter of fact I just finished a discussion with the accused player to see if there is any proof he can give me. (He cannot, except for being very upset with the situation)
As far as legal advice, a notable gaming attorney is the founding member of this particular charity tournament, and a good friend. His advice was in lieu of tangible proof, this player needs to be disqualified. The rationale is that it is the same as possession of drugs, even if they aren't yours, or you were slipped the drugs without notice, then you are still guilty of possession (not trafficking) and are guilty of that. In this case, possession of counterfeit chips is equivalent and are subject to DQ in my mind.
The truth is I was suspicious of chips being removed from my last tournament, so this year I used new chips. I was aware of my inventory, knew I had a problem and that is why I changed the chips. These chips are from the last tournament and were slipped into the bottom of his stack (they are the same color orange but with a different print and edge print)
I wish my dealers would have noticed and brought it to my attention, but they didn't. These were found in his stack once the top 20 was confirmed and we started to remove the stacks from the table, that is when it was brought to my attention.
I cannot hide this, it is known that this is an issue, and I wouldn't want to hide it from the public. I want to run as clean of an event as possible and yes, we will invest in cameras in the future.
Orange chips are the largest chips in play ($25,000) so this is a major infraction.
I will let you all know my decision, I guess based on the replies I can go either way...... sigh why did I get into tournament direction?
