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
ONTARIO: With the exception of Caesars
Windsor, the Ontario casinos are owned by the government and are operated as
“charity” casinos.
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 (The Chip Board) and
player club cards. Newcomers to The Chip
Board need to be aware though that a small minority of regulars on that Board
are impolite to new visitors, especially those who do not use their full names
in posts. With that advice, thicken your
skin and wade right in.
James N.
McNally