Chips down as fake $1000 token found at Aussie casino

Fake $1000 chips have been discovered circulating at Melbourne's Crown Casino. Photo / Greg Bowker

MELBOURNE - Counterfeit gambling chips have been discovered at Melbourne's Crown Casino.

The audacious fraud has forced Crown to recall and change the colour of $13.7 million ($24.74 million) worth of $1,000 chips, the Herald Sun newspaper reports.

A gaming floor worker raised the alarm as she handled one of the chips in the high-security counting room yesterday, the newspaper said.

A search so far has revealed A$36,000 worth of "near perfect" fake chips in the casino, but officials concede they have no idea how long and how widely the fakes have circulated.

"While doing routine checks, one of the officers detected what appeared to be fake $1,000 chips. As a consequence of that, we recalled all of the $1,000 chips from all of the tables," casino spokesman Gary O'Neill told the Herald Sun.

"We don't know how long they have been in circulation on the floor."

Police and the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation have been notified.

- AAP