Local News in Brief : Bad Deal on Poker Chips
A Gardena card club lost $3,000 and another lost $100 when bogus poker chips that may have come from a gambling casino in Thailand were used at the clubs, police said.
Thirty of the $100 chips were discovered at the Horseshoe Club when a cashier sorting chips noticed “Thailand” written on several of them, Gardena Detective Rodney Tanaka said.
At the Normandie Casino, a player who received one of the chips alerted the management after comparing it with the slightly darker-hued chips the club uses, Tanaka said.
“They might be legitimate chips in Bangkok but over here they’re no good,” Tanaka said.
The card clubs require patrons to use chips rather than cash, and the clubs regularly change the color in an attempt to avoid such problems, Tanaka said.
“The colors were pretty close and the markings were good,” he said of the phony chips. “Unless you really examined each chip you probably wouldn’t have noticed them.”
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
