Report: Tournament rebuy money possibly being stolen at Golden Gates Casino in Colorado

[Dan Druff]

There might be a "theft of tournament rebuy money" scandal involving the Golden Gates Casino in Blackhawk, Colorado.

This is an unconfirmed report from a 2+2 post (which is buried in a subforum there and getting little attention). However, I do believe the poster's account. I wonder if this is intentional....

Maybe I'm overthinking the whole situation, but it seems very shady. My opinions of the floor at the Golden Gates were already VERY low but I think that I'm being objective and only giving the facts:

Played the $300 6-max CPC event yesterday at the Golden Gates. I late registered around 2pm and then busted rather quickly. I re-entered and went to my new seat which I had to sit out because I would have been in the SB. I then realized that I was not given a receipt for my second entry and went up to the desk to get it. He quickly printed it off and I went back to my seat. I then texted a picture to some friends that had action. It was then that I realized my second receipt was just a reprint of my first buy in.

On break, I went back to the desk and asked for the correct copy. The floor guy that sold me both seats was no longer there and the new guy looked in the computer and then stated that I had only purchased one seat.

He gets the other guy working the floor to take a look and they can not figure out the situation before the break is over.

I return to my table and explain the situation to the guy sitting next to me. Another player across the table was listening and stated that he also entered twice and did not receive a second receipt. He goes to the floor and inquires and it's the same situation.

Awhile later, they bring both of us new receipts.

Here's the thing, the receipt was numbered alternate 128, which is what the current number of entries at the time, so they obviously input a new entry.

The more that I think about it, when I paid for my second entry, I was quickly handed a seat card and pointed in the direction of my table. I do not remember him doing anything with the computer.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=2946

I bolded the most relevant parts of the post, and fixed some of the spacing so it's easier to read, but otherwise left it the same.

Perhaps Alvin Finklestein needs to call up this place on radio this week...

[Dan Druff]

This isn't a far-fetched situation, by the way.

It is rumored this was occurring in the "$1k with rebuys NL event" at the WSOP in 2007.

I played in that event. In fact, I finished 10th. This means I got shorted money from the prizepool if this was really happening.

I can verify that there was no accounting for when you would rebuy or add on. You would just hand the floorman cash, and he would give you more chips. No receipt. No verification it made it into the prize pool. I remember wondering this at the time.

Apparently there were strong suspicions that theft from the prize pool occurred in this fashion (or perhaps even proof), and I was told that several people were let go because of it. They also did away with those rebuy tournaments, and only brought them back later under a different format (where you can rebuy only through another starting flight, and must do so through the cashier cage).

[Reducto]

There have been more instances of theft of rebuy/re-entry money that didn't get attention from the media. Supervisors are fired or allowed to resign and nothing is said for fear of losing business.

It's very possible that this was simply sloppy accounting or a system glitch of some sort. The problem is, even if it is just a paperwork issue all it would take is one burned out or broke supervisor to notice that there is all this untracked cash flying around and it becomes actual theft.

Any time you hand a person a significant amount of cash and that same person hands you tournament chips I'd be wary. There is a reason you typically have to go to a cashier, get a receipt, then go somewhere else to get your chips. If it's just a 3 table $40 nightly tournament it's probably ok, but for real money I'd be worried.

The only way for players to know something is wrong is if they don't get a receipt, such as the poster reported, or if the number of chips in play don't match the number of registrations plus/minus any rounding errors from color-ups. This could be hard to track if they aren't actively publishing chip counts from the final table.

[DannyDeadWood]

I live in Colorado and have played at the Double G a few times. The whole place including the poker room can be summed up as shady, Kinda like the lowest end downtown Vegas casino shady. I played in a few tourney's at the double G and it's the typical local players and in some instances soft play or out right collusion is happening....I don't doubt the original poster for one second.

DDW