USEFUL
INFO FOR NEW COLLECTORS
Opinions are my own.
HOW TO OBTAIN
CHIPS AT CASINOS
I like to collect, but I don’t like to gamble. You do not have to gamble to obtain
chips. In some casinos, you can go
straight to the casino cashier’s cage and buy chips from a cashier.
Some casinos and some states do not permit sales at
the cage. There, you can go to the table
game area and buy chips from a dealer.
You lay your money on the table (dealers are not allowed to take money
from a customer’s hand) and tell the dealer what denominations you want. Sometimes they want to give you a particular
denomination (such as all $5 chips), but if you politely ask for the
denomination you want they are generally willing to please.
It’s okay to tell them you are buying chips for a
collection, and not playing the game.
CAVEAT: when new casinos open and the dealers are rookies, they
sometimes balk at selling to collectors because they don’t know if it’s
alright. If that happens, pretend like
you’re going to play, and then just “change your mind.”
If you play a table game and want to redeem your
chips, you go to the cashier to redeem.
The dealers do not buy your chips back.
If you want to keep some chips as a souvenir, feel free to do so. That’s
how the whole hobby got started.
I commonly get a stack of $1 chips from one dealer
and then go and search for tables (usually blackjack or poker tables) with
“fractional” chips (e.g., 25 cents and 50 cents). I ask the dealer if he or she can change a
few $1 chips for smaller ones; they have never balked at this request.
Don’t interrupt a game to ask a dealer for chips or
change. Wait until the hand is complete.
Watch for different types of chips. For example, a limited edition commemorative
might circulate with standard chips, or there might be some old chips that are
being phased out in favor of a new design.
Feel free to ask the dealer if you see anything different; they are
generally willing to give you the different ones if you ask. Casinos actually want you to keep the $5 and
$25 limited edition chips, since they make a lot of money from those. They don’t make much from $1 chips, and they
may lose money from fractional chips you keep.
In fact, you’ll find that fractional chips don’t last very long at
casinos, and those that have been open for years often find they have no fractionals left and have to start using coins for small
amounts.
Roulette chips are supposed to stay at the
table. You can get in trouble if you
take them, but lots of collectors have figured out ways to smuggle them into
their collections.
THE CURSE OF COINLESS SLOTS
I collect slot tokens from casinos I have
visited. It used to be that all casinos
used either government-issued coins or privately-minted tokens in their slot
machines. These tokens were a great
collectible, too. Unfortunately, the
casinos are rapidly switching to coinless slot
machines that print tickets instead of pouring tokens into a bin.
A great side-benefit from slot machines that used real
coins instead of tickets or tokens: If you loaded a few bucks into a 50 cent
machine and cashed out right away, there was a good chance you would get a
silver half dollar or two. Gamblers
would put silver in the machine because they figured they had a better payoff
if the coin hit a jackpot than if they took the silver home and resold it to a
coin dealer.
NOTES ABOUT
VARIOUS CASINOS/STATES/COUNTRIES
NEW JERSEY: All the casinos are in
THE CHIP GUIDE
Best on-line source for chip info: www.chipguide.com At The Chip Guide, you will find a U.S. map
that allows you to select individual states, see a list of casinos in that
state, and click to see all known chips from that casino. It includes closed and open casinos, as well
as obsolete chips and current chips.
The map does not include
In addition, The Chip Guide contains links to the
best chat boards for collectors of chips and player club cards.
James N. McNally