Saturday, March 21, 2009

Fake money on the World Poker Tour

In November I spent an inordinate amount of time obsessing over what appeared to be phony money piled on a poker tournament table. See here.

Tonight I was catching up on this season's World Poker Tour events, and caught another instance of the same thing. This is from the Borgata Poker Open. The episode was actually the first half of the final table, and the screen shots below are from the previews to the finale, which is why they have credits rolling over them.









If you look closely, you can see that the obverse of the bills is not good ol' Ben Franklin on the hundred, nor is the reverse even close to a real C-note. However, they are both suspiciously similar to the images on the fake 100s seen about halfway down the page here, a site that was pointed out to me by an astute reader in the comments section of that November post. I am nearly certain that these fake bills are the ones being piled on the Borgata table.

I'm glad to know this, actually. Now I will never enter a WPT event because, unlike most of the participants, I know their dark secret: They pay the winners in counterfeit money!

I feel like I need to shout this discovery to the world, like Charlton Heston trying to warn everyone, "Soylent Green is people!"


Addendum

Now watching the end of the tournament rather than just the previews, there is this better shot of the front of one of the bills, making perfectly clear that it is not Ben Franklin:

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and the echo answered "Fraud!"

(Bonus points for knowing where that line comes from without Googling it.)

2 comments:

Short-Stacked Shamus said...

Even worse -- what if that WPT money is made of Soylent Green!!! (Shudder.)

Quote helper: yr more apt to hear this one during this time of year (i.e., spring training).

WSOP Floor Supe said...

Having been present at the "Money presentation" many times I can tell you that for the WPT all the dough is fake and worth nothing.