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 ?

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.

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