# Why don't criminals counterfeit casino chips -- or do they? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2005, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182 "2005-04-01T04:31:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182/23 "2005-04-06T22:48:31Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > Hm. I’ll bet that’s the one room that doesn’t have a camera in it. Heh, like that scene in Ocean’s 11. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182/24 "2005-04-06T22:55:23Z")
> [@Chairman Pow](#): > > Someone’s mentioned the Griffin detective agency, but do casinos still routinely cripple/injure people? Or is banning/prosecution the worst thing that could happen to a ne’er do well? I dunno, but is it worth risking being the subject of a “ripped from the headlines” episode of _CSI_? ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182/25 "2005-04-18T04:30:36Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > There’s a show on The History Channel tonight about a guy who counterfeited chips. Did anyone else happen to watch this show? A guy named Louis Colavecchio made such perfect copies of tokens that many of them are still in circulation because the casinos don’t have any way of weeding them all out. He only got caught because he got greedy and the casinos noticed they had more tokens in their inventory than they had produced. Fascinating show. [http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=72890](http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=72890) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_chao_goes_mu/32/3191_2.png) [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182/26 "2005-04-18T13:08:43Z")
> [@Berkut](#): > > Did anyone else happen to watch this show? A guy named Louis Colavecchio made such perfect copies of tokens that many of them are still in circulation because the casinos don’t have any way of weeding them all out. He only got caught because he got greedy and the casinos noticed they had more tokens in their inventory than they had produced. > > Fascinating show. > [http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=72890](http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=72890) I watched it. It was very fascinating. Colavecchio spent his life savings ($100,000) on perfecting a duplicate of a chip from an Atlantic City casino. IIRC it took about about 2 years. Once he had a metalurgist find out what metals and at what ratios were in the chip, he was able to perfect his counterfits within 1% of the authentic chips. After the success of his first chip he enlisted the help of a friend to help he and his wife manufacture large quantities of chips to various casinos in Atlantic City and Reno (I don’t recall if he hit Vegas or not) And as the other posters have said the casinos finally realized something was up when their chip inventories went up. Experts could not tell the difference between the counterfits and the authentic chips and the counterfits were so good that the chip manufacturer couldn’t tell either. Yadda yadda, he eventually got caught. Many of those chips are still in circulation today. BTW, he was counterfitting slot machine chips not the ones used at the tables. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182/27 "2005-04-18T14:48:59Z")
> [@Berkut](#): > > Did anyone else happen to watch this show? A guy named Louis Colavecchio made such perfect copies of tokens that many of them are still in circulation because the casinos don’t have any way of weeding them all out. He only got caught because he got greedy and the casinos noticed they had more tokens in their inventory than they had produced. > > Fascinating show. > [http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=72890](http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=72890) I watched it too. Like most scams, it wasn’t the technical aspects that screwed up. It was the human part of the system that failed. The guy was spotted because he lost three $10 tokens in a defective machine and didn’t report it. He thought it was his tokens that were bad instead of the machine. Once they had him on tape it was just a matter of time. A good show. ---
**Author:** ![wonderwench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/35a633/32.png) [@wonderwench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderwench)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182/28 "2005-04-18T14:54:12Z")
The amount of money spent by the gaming industry on IT, security and fraud prevention is enormous. They have incredibly hi-tech goodies. Plus, you really do not want to mess with these people. Really. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-criminals-counterfeit-casino-chips-or-do-they/297182.md?page=1)