Chan Pelton Banned From All World Series of Poker Events and Properties After Taking Single Tournament ChipPelton Will File Lawsuit Against WSOP |
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On Feb. 16, during a World Series of Poker Circuit stop at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in South Florida, Chan Pelton took a single 25,000 denomination chip from his stack during heads-up play at the final table of event no. 9, a $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament.
Pelton, a tournament regular from College Station, Texas with over $300,000 in career earnings, then went on to win the tournament, the $47,061 first-place prize and a WSOP Circuit ring.
After video surveillance confirmed tournament staff suspicions that a chip had been taken, Pelton returned the chip, claiming he had taken it as a souvenir. However, PBKC staff believed that Pelton had taken the chip with the intention of adding it to a stack in a future tournament.
This week, the PBKC and the WSOP have taken swift action, banning Pelton from all PBKC events, as well as all Caesars Entertainment properties and WSOP events. That includes the summer series in Las Vegas.
Additionally, Pelton was forced to forfeit his prize money, his ring and points used to qualify him for the WSOP National Championship this summer. The event’s runner-up, Chris Bolek, was then awarded the first-place prize, with the second-place prize of $29,070 being distributed among the rest of the tournament players who finished in the money.
“I’m literally shell-shocked,” Pelton told SouthFlorida.com. “This is my livelihood, and this is the first time I’ve even been close to any sort of infraction.”
The PBKC made its decision based on the act of theft of poker room property.
“The integrity of our games is of upmost importance and regardless of the intent in question from this incident, we cannot sit idle and risk the stolen chips being re-introduced in the future,” said PBKC Card Room Director Noah Carbone. “We take great pride in providing a fair and secure environment for our valued patrons and this unfortunate incident, while discovered and handled swiftly, should serve as a reminder to players that tournament chips are the property of the poker room and must remain on the table at all times.”
The poker world appears to be split on whether Pelton knowingly broke the rules. On the one hand, Pelton is a tournament regular with years of experience. Surely he should know better. On the other hand, taking one high denomination chip is essentially worthless in future tournaments. The chip was too big to use early on in a tournament when it would be valuable and by the time it could be slipped into a stack, it would only represent a small fraction of the chips in play.
The incident on the WSOP Circuit comes just weeks after Christian Lusardi was accused of introducing counterfeit tournament chips into the World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open. Lusardi was later caught after 2.7 million in counterfeit chips were discovered flushed down an Atlantic City hotel room toilet. The Borgata is now facing a class action lawsuit over the frozen tournament funds.
Earlier this week, Rosa Nguyen and her husband Vuong Trong were arrested for their part in a counterfeit chip operation at the Maryland Live! casino.
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