Fake Chip Counts Swell in Macau Casinos Thanks to Brisk Online Black Market

Authorities in Macau said the note value of phoney cassino chips found inward the play hub’s casinos inward Q1 2021 was greater than 2020s total haul.

According to a new published law-breaking statistics describe from the Office of the Secretary for Security, the sum up face value of imitation chips to Mar 31 was HKD2 zillion (US$257,582), against HKD1.51 jillion for the preceding 12 months.

In all, around 65 counterfeits were detected, 15 of which were high-denomination $100,000 chips, which suggests serious dupery had at to the lowest degree been attempted.

The account declines to advert which casinos were unnatural and whether the fraudsters had been successful when attempting to interchange the chips for cash.

Pandemic Skews Figures

It’s hard to assess the implication of statistics taken from a full stop when Macau’s gambling casino sphere was so deeply wedged past the pandemic. While the enclave is experiencing an economic rebound, it was below spartan travel restriction for practically of 2020 and visitation numbers were decimated.

But looking at statistics for previous years, it’s crystallize that incidents of false chips are on the rise, in spite of technological improvements that pee them to a greater extent hard to counterfeit.

The lastly twelvemonth altogether unaffected by the pandemic, 2019, witnessed the highest list of fakes inwards deuce-ace years, some 352, with a add up face note value of HKD18.5 million (US$ 2.4 million).

In recent years, it has get easier to buy realistic imitative chips online, often via the moody web.

Fake Chip Scammer Arrested

In January, Macau law reported that two scammers had successfully cashed out HKD190,000 (US$24,500), before an unnamed gambling casino in “the city’s central district” spotted the fakes.

According to police, the chips were high-quality forgeries and tire the logo of SJM Holdings. Owned past the Ho family, SJM is i of Macau’s hexad major licensees, or concessionaires, operating some 19 casinos the city.

One of the scammers was arrested. The detained suspect, a 51-year-old male from mainland China, admitted he and his accomplice had bought 150 imitative chips online for CNY60,000 (US$9,293). Each break away had a face value of HKD5,000 (US$644).

Police said the suspects gambled with the phony chips at several gaming tables inwards an try to interchange them for tangible ones, before heading to the cage in to cash in out. Four honorable gamblers unknowingly received fake chips from the suspects.

Modern cassino chips are embedded with RFID (radio-frequency identification) — chips within chips that spend a penny them harder to forge. They breathe signals that put up live show past RFID-reading equipment stationed at gaming tables and the cassino cage.

Counterfeiters make been known to read RFID emitters from low-toned denomination chips and embed them inward high denomination forgeries.