Fake chips alert in Australian casinos
Posted by Epiphany Solutions on Mon Apr 27 15:24:00 BST 2009 at Mon Apr 27 15:24:00 BST 2009
Australia's casino industry is on high alert after officials at one venue discovered they had been tricked by $36,000 (£17,600) worth of fake gambling chips.
Sky News said fraudsters have struck Melbourne's Crown Casino, which discovered the extent of the problem when they checked 13.7 million in $1000 (£488) chips. $36,000 worth of them were found to be forgeries.
As a result the Crown altered the colour of $1000 chips in an effort to prevent a repeat of the problem.
Bosses are now trying to work out how the scam was pulled off, and have said they do not know how much has been lost overall.
The chip count started after a member of staff noticed fakes in a counting room in the casino.
According to Sky News, casino spokesman Gary O'Neil was quoted by the Herald Sun as saying: "While doing routine checks, one of the officers detected what appeared to be fake $1,000 chips.
"As a consequence of that, we recalled all of the $1,000 chips from all of the tables."
He also added the company did not know how long the fakes have been going round the casino floor for.
He also said the fakes were of "reasonably good quality" and that other casinos in the country had been informed.
