Using Vegas Chips for Home Games

[SirRaleigh]

I've been searching for a nice set of poker clay chips for use in my home games. I would like to have enough for at most 20 person tournaments. After looking on the internet and getting samples I found the chips I actually wanted costing .80 or more per chip. Then I had idea, if it is going to cost that much why not go the extra .20 and get circulated casino $1 chips from different casinos. This is what I plan on doing during my next trip to Las Vegas.

My question is
1) Say for a 800 chip set, what would be good ratio for say 20 person tournament, (200-1unit, 200-5unit, 200-10unit, 50-25-unit, etc.)
2) Is there any NV law prohibitting me from taking $800 worth of chips out of the state, say at the airport?
3) How often do major casinos change their low denomination chips, say after 1 year I want to exchange them.

Has anyone ever done this? I figure if I stop playing poker I could still return a large portion of them back to the casinos one of my frequent 3-4 per year trips to Las Vegas.

SirRaleigh

[StevieG]

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2) Is there any NV law prohibiting me from taking $800 worth of chips out of the state, say at the airport?


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Not exactly. But state and federal law prohibits their use outside the casino that issued them for any monetary purpose. Even inside the establishment, the casino cannot accept them as payment for anything other than gaming, or use them to make change. So everyone knows you tip the cocktail waitress with them, but you can't use them at the spa to pay for your spritz.

Taking home one as a souvenir is one thing. 800 is clearly not a collectible.

I have no idea if you would get grief at the airport.

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3) How often do major casinos change their low denomination chips, say after 1 year I want to exchange them.


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Looking at chip collectors' pages*, it looks to be no more than every five years.

In any case, at least in Nevada, the casino has to notify the gaming board 30 days before discontinuing them and accept the chips for 120 days after that. During this redemption period, the casino has to run public notices in at least two Nevada newspapers at least twice each week.**

As you know from shopping around, chips are not cheap. And the casinos need to have the new design approved and redeem the old ones. So the lower denomination chips are not as likely to

* for example, Mr. Chipper's Golden Nugget collection

** See the complete Nevada gaming code section 12 on chips and tokens

[neotope]

You could buy a nice large set of chips for around $200, why get a small set of Las Vegas chips for $800?

[SirRaleigh]

To me, 800 chip set is fairly large. All 800 chips would be $1 and I would assign them individual values. From doing research, any type of clay chips starts at .50 per chip. Also, I think it would be something I could have a lifetime. There is nothing better feeling and sounding then real casino clay chips.

[Slacker13]

I am not sure what casinos you are use to but I have yet to see a one dollar chip that wasn't dirty, faded, logo's scratched off etc..You going to ask them if you can sit in the vault and pick yourself out some nice ones?
Just go to http://5stardeal.com and get the 11.5 gram clays. They are not exactly like casino chips but they were close enough for me.

[megabit]

Why not just get the ChipCo Protechs from TheChipStore.com for $0.90 each plus $45 for custom artwork. Cost is about the same but you could have a great set of custom chips. If you get a bunch of $1 chips from different casions they will likely all be white. Could be confusing at a glance.

[neotope]

[ QUOTE ]
To me, 800 chip set is fairly large. All 800 chips would be $1 and I would assign them individual values. From doing research, any type of clay chips starts at .50 per chip. Also, I think it would be something I could have a lifetime. There is nothing better feeling and sounding then real casino clay chips.

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How are you going to assign them value if they are all the same color? I'm guessing you are just going to get seperate dollar chips from seperate casinos which to me sounds like a horrible idea. If you want to pay all that money for get customized chips online.

[Thunderfleas]

The home game I play in uses the $.80 chips for all denominations but $1. For those, we use $1 casino chips since the incremental cost is not so huge, and having the real deal is kind of novel.

To get clean chips, wait for a new casino to open or for a casino to issue new chips. We recently "cleaned" our chips by buying from the Borgata in their first few weeks of operation.

I agree with other posters that having a bunch of white chips acting as different denominations poses a huge usability issue. Next time you are in Vegas, grab a small set of whites from a few casinos and try playing with them as a variety of denominations in a small home game rather than your first 20 person tourney. I suspect you'll find it a pain to keep the denominations straight.

One other consideration could be how well you know the 20 tourney entrants. The $.80 chips are only worth $.80 to you. The $1 chips are worth $1 to everyone. If you are running a large buy-in tourney, who cares about stealing $20 in chips. But when the buy in is $20, maybe some of the early short stacks might choose to give up on placing and to recoup some of their entry fee. It seems to me that your chip collection has the potential to erode if they are all casino chips.

As for how many chips to get, a friend of mine who runs tourneys gave me some guidelines that I will try to find and post. For a 20 person tourney, it may become worthwhile to race off small denominations. That kind of flattens the disrtibution of denominations.

[smachalk]

Do any of the LasVegas casinos have lower denomination chips? Like $.25 or $.10? I would pick up some of those if they did but I can't imagine them doing that just because of what I want to do.
Thanks.

[Mangatang]

You know, that different casinos use different colors for the $1 chips. Most use white, but you can find a bunch that use blue, grey, or yellow. So, if you go to Vegas, you can get some sets of differnt colors for your home game. Much better than paying $1+ for other Paulson chips.