How to Collect Casino Chips
By Michael Knapp
Experienced chip and token collectors may find that they know what appears in the first few columns, but we hope that new collectors will learn how easy it is to become involved in the casino collectibles area. The subject matter of this column will become more sophisticated as more are published. Casino chip and token collecting is one of the fastest-growing hobbies around, and one of its major advantages is its accessibility: almost anyone can begin a collection, and can build it into an enviable collection rather quickly at much lower cost than is the case with stamps, coins, baseball cards, or other collectibles. For casino game players, chips have special meaning and attraction.
Many collectors of casino memorabilia (and most collectors of chips and tokens collect other forms of casino memorabilia as well: dice, slot cards, room key cards, post cards, playing cards, matchbooks, key chains, even cocktail napkins and swizzle sticks!) began simply: by keeping a chip or a token as a souvenir from each casino they played in the first time they traveled to a gaming jurisdiction. The rapid expansion of casino gaming in the United States (Indian casinos, riverboats, etc.) in recent years has brought gaming physically closer to most people than had previously been the case. Until the late 1980's, full casino gaming was available only in Nevada and in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The geographical proximity of riverboat and tribal casino gaming has attracted collectors who have never been to Nevada or New Jersey. For poker players, of course, California and the Pacific Northwest have had legal poker rooms for more years than any of us can remember.
Another factor that has stimulated the rapid expansion of the chip and token collecting hobby is the use of modern design and manufacturing technology to create more colorful, attractive chips and tokens for the casinos. In a sense, each chip is a small advertisement for the casino that issued it. Computerized design and production capabilities have vastly increased the possible variety and expanded the range of graphics that can be used for chips in today's casinos.
Why do people collect casino chips or tokens? That question is as difficult for some to understand as the question why some people would collect coins or stamps or baseball cards or china figurines or recipes or books. Some people are collectors, others aren't! But casino collectibles are an interesting subject for most of us for several reasons. They represent money, just as coins and stamps do. They're often more colorful and fanciful in their designs. They have been created for one purpose: gambling. Unlike coins, which can be used to purchase any number of different kinds of goods and services, casino chips and tokens exist for a much more limited purpose: playing casino games.
Casino chips and tokens have been used to win - and lose - hundreds of thousands of dollars, and have been used by famous people and ordinary people, movie stars and schoolteachers, high rollers and budget players. Each casino creates its own 'money,' making a chip or a token a souvenir of a very specific location. The design of a chip is part of what a player remembers as the 'ambiance' of the casino: it is an integral part of the gaming experience.
A glance at a particular casino chip in one's collection can call to mind a specific experience that may have occurred years ago. It can call to mind the history of the particular casino. It can serve as a reminder of a jackpot won (or lost), of a streak at a dice table, of a bad beat or an especially bold move at the poker table, or of a blackjack dealt to the collector in that casino.
One of the easiest and least expensive ways to begin a collection is to save chips or tokens purchased at face value in a casino. An extensive and varied collection can be built without ever purchasing a chip from a chip dealer, or trading with another collector. Consider the casinos currently operating in Atlantic City, for example. There are 12 casinos now, and each casino uses chips in different denominations, colors and designs: $1, $2.50, $5, $25, $100 and even higher. Just collecting the $5 and under denominations from each casino would produce a complete collection of current chips: 36 of them, at a cost of $102. In Las Vegas, which has many more operating casinos than does Atlantic City, such a collection would be much larger, and the cost would be proportionately higher.
Most chip collectors collect chips of $5 and lower denominations, although some limit their collections to $1 chips, $5 chips, or other limiting criteria, which we'll discuss later. Some collectors only collect chips from casinos they've played in.
That 36-chip collection would be an excellent base for a collection of Atlantic City chips. From there, one could attempt to obtain all the $5 and under chips used in the past by Atlantic City casinos, as well as $5 and under chips used by Atlantic City casinos which are now closed (Atlantis, Boardwalk Regency, Brighton, Golden Nugget, Harrah's Trump Plaza, the original Hilton, Playboy and Tropicana). In a way, however, that 36-chip collection is complete just as it is: it is a complete collection of all Atlantic City chips of $5 denominations and under, on the date that the collector picked them up from the tables.
What's the difference between chips and tokens? Some beginning collectors are confused by the terminology, and we will discuss common collecting terms and descriptors in upcoming columns. Chips are made of plastic or clay composition (although some have metal centers), and are produced essentially for playing table games. Tokens, on the other hand, are metal coin-like pieces created mainly for play in slot machines. Some casinos use tokens in lieu of $1 chips, but no casino uses chips in slot machines.
Speaking of terminology, have you ever heard chips referred to as 'checks'? In practice, the terms are used almost interchangeably, but there is a difference. A 'check,' theoretically, is exactly that: an I.O.U., just as a paper handwritten check is. It's a promise by the casino to pay a specific amount of money, and that amount, or denomination, appears on the check itself. A 'chip,' on the other hand, does not carry such a promise to pay. There is no denomination on a chip, and the value can change from time to time as the casino desires. The primary example of chips is the type used at roulette tables: no denomination appears on the chip, and their values change from day to day. Most often, however, the terms 'check' ('cheque' in Europe) and 'chip' are used to refer to both kinds of pieces.
We've discussed current chips and tokens, but what about obsolete pieces? First, you will find that casinos that have been in existence for some time have had a number of different styles, designs, and types of chips and tokens. There are several reasons. For one thing, chips and tokens eventually wear out and must be replaced. Sometimes marketing drives the decision to issue new chips or tokens: a casino changes its logo or its advertising campaign; perhaps it believes that new, more graphic chips will attract more attention and will be carried home by more visitors; and chips and tokens are almost always changed when the ownership of a casino changes.
Casino ownership changes more frequently than many imagine, even if the name of the casino does not change. The new owners will invariably order new chips and tokens to reflect the philosophy and marketing campaign of the new ownership, but also because there's no way of knowing how many of the previous casino's chips might be out and in circulation. Because each $100 chip issued by a casino is a marker - a promise to pay $100 in cash to the bearer - the new owners would have a tremendous and indefinable potential liability if they did not change chips.
In Nevada, chips may be 'demonetarized,' or rendered non-negotiable at any time. The casino is required to publish a notice in newspapers of general circulation, specifying a redemption period for all existing chips in public hands, and notifying the public of the date after which those chips will no longer be accepted. After the redemption period is over, the old chips are obsolete, and are of value only to collectors.