Several weeks ago, Christian Lusardi attempted to pull off one of the biggest cheating scandals in poker tournament history. He used 160 counterfeit chips worth $5k each in a $2m guaranteed Borgata Winter Open event. Lusardi was eventually caught when he tried to get rid of the evidence by flushing another 540 chips down a hotel toilet.
More recently, we have Chan Pelton who, after winning the Event 9: $1,125 NLHE tournament at the WSOP Circuit Palm Beach Kennel Club, removed a T25,000 chip from the tourney set. Pelton claims that he wanted a souvenir from his third career WSOP Circuit victory. However, skepticism is high among some in the poker community, with multiple TwoPlusTwo posters alleging that he wanted to use the T25,000 chip in the $1,675 Main Event at the Palm Beach Kennel Club.
Unlike Lusardi, who had only cashed in two tournaments prior to his cheating scandal, Pelton actually had a pretty good poker background. He’s won three WSOP Circuit rings (including the one in question) along with $305,717 in tourney winnings. So it’s not like Pelton is just some one-off cheater like Lusardi. But are we still to believe that he stole a chip as a souvenir? Furthermore, shouldn’t he know that stealing a chip just before entering the Main Event is questionable enough, even if it wasn’t his intent to use it?
Regardless of what the real answers to these questions are, Pelton’s incident is still generating bad publicity for poker. This is especially disheartening when you consider that the incident occurred in Florida, a state which is getting more serious about legalizing online poker. When a Florida politician who’s on the fence about the online poker issue sees Pelton’s chip-stealing incident, they’re probably going to think this is a case of cheating. And whether live or over the internet, it doesn’t reflect well on the game.
Going back to Lusardi, his cheating incident happened in New Jersey, where internet poker is already legalized and running. However, potential recreational players who are thinking about trying online poker may worry that the Borgata scandal is a larger reflection of the entire industry.
Luckily, it will take far more than two publicized chip incidents within close proximity to truly threaten poker. But we can only hope that this is the last we’ll see of any tournament scandals for a while.