blonde poker forum

An incident occured at my regular small stakes game on Saturday night, which I thought I would post about, as it poses a number of questions to which I dont really know the answers.

The game itself is a £1/£1 game, where all straddles are live, the buyin is capped at £100. The game is very fishey, most of the players are willing to call off a buyin with top pair and a medium kicker. The dealers are not the best in the world and often have issues working out split pots.

On the hand in question, the action went as follows

1. Player 1 - pushes all in for £38
2. Player 2 - raises all in for £56
3. Player 3 - calls £56
4. Player 4 (me) calls the £56

The flop is dealt out and the board is Q 7 J Rainbow.

I ask player 3 if he is all in and he says he his, this is witnessed by the dealer, I then turn my cards over and show Q A, player 3 then says my hand should be killed as i turned my cards whilst the betting action is on him, he then moved his hands and had £7 behind.

He then claims there is a rule in the cardroom that if a hand is turned faceup and the betting is not on you then your hand is dead. I then requested ruling and asked to see a copy of rules relating to the cardroom, and there was nothing in writing to this effect and the manager used is discretion and said that my hand is live, as it is clear that i was angleshooted and that as the other player only had a few chips left it would not be fair to kill my hand.

The turn and river were dealt and I had the winning hand.

Prior to the dealer shipping me the pot two of the players who are a father and son, picked up all the chips that were in the pot and left the casino. I was totally dumbfounded at this point and called over the manager.

After much debate, the casino made good my loss.

However this begs the following questions

1. Who owns the chips in the pot whilst the hand plays out? is it the casino or are they held on trust by the casino for the winning player?

2. If the dealer had shipped me the pot and the chips were stolen from my stack, who is responsible for the loss?

3. If the casino refused to make good my loss would it have the same legal ramifications of say the casino refusing to payout a valid bet on a pit game

How did actually happen? I'm not saying it didn't but I just can't picture it, I'd be more than dumbfounded. Surely this is theft, with the thieves identity known and lots of witnesses.

Adam G and his Dad moved to Stockport?

can't get my head round this either - presumably there were more than a couple of chips to be picked up so they didn't do it lightning fast and run off. did the dealer/other players not say anything as they were gathering up the chips or try to stop them leaving?

I'd class it as theft pure and simple. There are witnesses to what happened. Presumably the casino have a tape of what happened. If the casino sort the loss out for you then excellent. Otherwise I'm sure you could get the police involved.

As for the chips in the pot - i'd class them as property of the casino at that point. You wouldn't for example put a bet on blackjack and take your money back after the dealer gives you a 6 and him an A.

A father and son nicking a pot shy of £200 that they lost. That is probably the saddest thing I've ever read in my life.

I'm just wondering how it happened, if it was only 1 person you could almost see it - grab the chips and run. 2 people acting in concert though... Did they discuss it amongst themselves first or had they planned ahead and the dad only needed to shout "go to plan 47a!" before the son was out the door and starting the getaway car?

Father and Son at the same table.....avoid this table, collusion rules!

Fold pre, oops sorry wrong board.

Norrr i love trying to felt my pops.

cant get your head around it ? dont you remember the walsall apat a few years back....

lol, that was funny

trying to remember the details of this one...was it not an omaha cash game and the guy had 'acidentally' been dealt 5 cards, which he was unsuccessfully trying to represent as 4 cards at the showdown only to get caught and  proceed to scoop up the pot and bolt for the door ?

That's right Laz, and it was our very own RioRodent who was the rightful owner of the pot.

I don't think the 'scoop-and-run' merchant in that case was stopped until he left the casino and tried to drive off in his car whilst well above the legal limit.

Not sure what happened with the chips, or if the bloke actually cashed them in or not.

Has anyone ever involved the police in a pot theft?

Would love to know how that worked out for you.

the cops are clueless. a few years back when the raided the cincinnatti club in glasgow they bagged up all the tournament chips as evidence and wrote down the actual cash values beside them. i reckon they must have thought we were all high rollers and there was about 50 grand in cash on each table....

They stopped him in the car park and took the chips back but iirc they phoned the police informing what had happened and that he was trying to drive away drunk and they then stalled him with the intention of letting the police arrest him when he drove away. Which suggests he couldnt be arrested for what he did inside the casino. Dont know what happened after that.

Ive got him as a facebook buddy and he spams an online betting site regular. Not been tempted to signed up though ;-)

I can honestly say that I had never seen anything like it.  The Dealer was in total shock and just froze.  Adam the duty manager said, that this has never occurred in a poker game during his tenure, the funny thing was the casino just let them walk out with the chips after they were alerted of the issue.  At first he was very hesitant to make good the my loss but as soon as i mentioned the Gambling Commission and the police he had a change of heart, which been fair to him - he just did not know how to deal with the situation, so i dont hold this against him. 

I can only describe the father and son, as chav types with skinheads.

pretty sure that guy just took his own chips back out of the pot, which would have been easy enough to do quickly if they were still stacked right in front of him.  the casino called the police.  I think he then came back in and the situation was sorted, and then got nicked when he dried to drive away over the limit.

Correct

See you could understand that if someone took their own chips back the police would find it difficult because gambling debts are unenforceable (ianal) and the chips weren't someone else's yet (I doubt the pot is a legal entity with ownership rights), but when they took other people's chips from the pot then it sounds like a different matter to me.

Its all a bit confusing, Common sense would dicate that the pot is either the property of the casino until it is awarded to the winning player, or its held on trust by the casino for the winning player, it gets complicated i.e. if its the property of the casino, then they are in effect refusing to pay a winning bet, if its held on trust for the winning player then legally they are not under an obligation to pay the winning hand or so i think ????

Ill find out exactly next weekend.

Someone remind me if I dont post the answer.

Not any more, the law changed a few years ago.