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A MAN cannot receive a massive $60,000 payout after a legal technicality robbed him of the payday.
Keith Hawkins attempted to cash in 389 poker chips he purchased from an online auction, but was unable to do so after an investigation revealed that the chips had been stolen.
A panel of members from the state Treasury Department’s Unclaimed Property Administration determined that the chips were ineligible for redemption because an employee was supposed to destroy them.
The poker chips originated from Hugh Hefner’s now-defunct casino, the Playboy Hotel and Casino, NJ.com reported.
The casino opened in 1981 and closed shortly after in 1984 before Donald Trump, then only a business owner and real estate mogul, bought the property.
Trump, who bought the property for $64 million, turned the space into a Trump Regency.
He then transformed it into Trump’s World Fair, which opened in 1996 and shut in 1999.
Hefner previously owned Playboy casinos in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, London and the Bahamas, all of which are now closed.
When his casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, closed, it transferred funds to the state’s UPA for redeeming outstanding chips.
After the closure, the remaining casino chips, which have a Playboy bunny in the center, were ordered to be destroyed.
Hawkins bought his chips in 2022, sparking an investigation from the New Jersey State Police.
The police discovered that a former casino employee “had pilfered several boxes of unused chips ‘sometime around 1990′ and put them in a bank deposit box.”
The bank where the chips were stored drilled open the box in 2010 and took the chips, which were sent to an auction house in 2022.
Two judges on the UPA referred to a 1991 court ruling that the panel is only authorized to redeem chips that were issued by the casino but were unredeemed before the casino closed.
“We are satisfied that the evidence in the record supports UPA’s conclusion that the chips presented by claimant were ‘unissued Playboy gaming chips that were to be destroyed’ and, therefore, ‘ineligible for redemption,‘” the judges wrote.
In 2008, thousands of Playboy casino chips were discovered hidden in Mississippi.
Workers building a community center found the chips under a concrete slab near the company’s former headquarters.
At the time, most of the chips ended up on eBay as souvenirs, not to be cashed in.
What is the Unclaimed Property Administration?
According to the UPA’s website:
The Unclaimed Property Administration (UPA) recovers and records abandoned or lost intangible and tangible property. The UPA’s goal is to return this property to the rightful owner and/or heirs.
To claim property, citizens need to follow the submission process on the UPA website.
The found Mississippi chips were not referenced during the UPA judge’s conclusion.
The committee officially denied Hawkins’ claim on June 29, 2023, based on the chips’ “illicit origin.”
Hawkins said he wasn’t aware of the chips’ illegal origins.
He later appealed the judges’ decision but was denied.