You thought Atlantic City had taken its lumps for January, but here comes an additional indignity. Borgata was forced to cancel part of its Winter Poker Open in mid-tourney. Casino surveillance detected the insinuation of fake chips into the tournament’s chip stacks. Prize money is being held in trust until more is known. Fortunately for players (yes, there is an upside), the scam was detected during the first event, minimizing the potential damage to players’ bankrolls. (Other events were allowed to proceed once the chip stacks had been vetted.)
Somehow, somebody (or a bunch of somebodies), secreted dummy chips into the 20,000-chip stacks they received with their $560 buy-in. “Thus far, investigators have found that one or more tournament entrants improperly introduced a significant number of counterfeit chips into the tournament, gaining an unfair advantage and compromising the integrity of play for the event,” said Borgata COO Tom Ballance. In the meantime, the miscreant remains at liberty, which suggests a less-than-airtight case. It sounds like this is going to take a while to — pardon the pun — play itself out.
Wall Street is making out its valentines for 2014 and they’re not entirely surprising. Among operators, if you’re not in Macao you’re not likely to get a billet-doux. Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands are favorites, with MGM 
Resorts International coming up along the shoulder, pending the opening of its Cotai offshoot in 2016. As far as manufacturers who feel the love, $1 billion-grossing Bally Technologies (now infused with 100% SHFL Entertainment) is getting most of the warm fuzzies. In a minority report, Janney Montgomery Scott gaming analyst Brian McGill argues that Multimedia Games is just coming into its own, having only cracked the Nevada market last year — and with many other markets opening. But, for the time being, McGill is bucking the tide.
