Casino Chip of the Day

Inspired by the Wizard's Spanish-Word-of-the-Day thread, I have been considering a similar-but-different thread topic, which I begin with this post. I think that like the Wizard's thread, this has the potential to generate a fairly large number of interesting and related posts over an extended period. I hope that "Off-Topic/General Discussion" is a suitable forum for this thread.

The concept is that on roughly a daily basis when I am not in travel status, I will post a photo of one of the $1 casino chips in my collection, along with some comment about the chip and/or the casino and/or some extraneous issue that the chip brings to my mind.

My hope is that this will provide the stimulus for other members to post their comments, anecdotes, whatever about that particular casino -- comments that perhaps have never warranted starting a thread on their own. Of course, comments about chips, chip manufacturing, chip collecting, etc. are also invited.

If you have different chips from the same casino, either a different denomination or a different chip series, please post a photo for us to see. I would prefer that, unless there is a particular justification, this not become a thread for people to gather and post images from eBay auctions, collectors' clubs, image libraries, etc. when no one here actually has the original chip.

I anticipate posting a small image in the thread (180x180 pixels has been suggested), with a medium image (600x600) available if you click on the posted image in the thread. If anyone has a use for a full-resolution image, let me know, and please let me know if you have ideas on how to make this a more interesting thread.

I have my collection sorted by states and categories, with the non-state categories being tribal casinos, cruise ship casinos, Canadian casinos, and casinos in the Bahamas and Caribbean islands. At this point, I do not have chips from international casinos other than from Canada and the islands, so we will look for others to post those images when my well has run dry. Within a state/category, I have the collection sorted mostly alphabetical.

I hope you enjoy this, and I hope very much that this thread can avoid the bickering that occurs on far too many threads here. If I can keep up with it, I may repeatedly revise this initial post to provide an index of links to the chip images that have been posted.

Since this forum is on the Wizard of Vegas site, I will begin my postings with Nevada casinos, which represent almost half of my present collection -- as I begin this thread, I have 285 casinos represented in my collection, and I hope to add a few more in the months before I get all of these posted.



Subsequent edits:

(1) As I suggested in the beginning, many folks have posted images of their own chips from the same casinos in response to mine. At times, forum member and chip collector rdw4potus has taken the lead in posting the Casino Chip of the Day. After my supply of chips was (temporarily) exhausted, rdw4potus took over the lead role for the thread on a "permanent" basis as of 5/21/13. Others have followed. I will continue to add to my collection and anticipate posting additional chips myself at the appropriate times.

(2) I have revised my categories of chips. I am no longer separating tribal casinos but including them within the geographic region surrounding the tribal land. Based on my own expanding collection, some gift chips, and chips posted here by others, I have also added a number of categories. The list now includes many U.S. states plus "Canada", "Mexico", "Central America", "Caribbean Islands", "Africa", "Asia", "Europe", "Oceania", "South America", "Chinese New Year Commemorative Chips", and "Cruise Ships." If I ever get chips from other areas, or others post such chips to this thread, I may create more categories. If this thread ever includes enough international chips to warrant it, I might categorize by country, as I have for Canada and Mexico.

(3) As of 2/24/13, the directory of chip postings was reconfigured. It no longer attempted to represent the chronological sequence of posts. The directory was arranged in an alphabetical listing of states, followed by the other categories, with the casinos within each category arranged (roughly) in alphabetical order. That was the way I originally attempted to post the chips in each category, but there were subsequent chip postings squeezed into the lists. For those who are interested in the chronological/posting sequence of the chips in this thread, well, I'm just not going to keep up with the details of that. Just have fun wading through the thread.

(4) As of 12/10/13, this initial post of the thread had been added onto so many times that it was too long to meet the restrictions of this forum. At that point, the directory of chips that had been posted was split into two parts, with Part 2 appearing (after some adjustments) in the following post. As of 2/14/17, the same problem was encountered with the "new" Part 2, and the index was split into three parts, all crammed into the first three posts in this discussion thread. By 2022, the three-part index had grown to the point that it could not meet restrictions of the forum. After considerable deliberations and with the assistance of higher-ups at this forum, a completely separate thread was created -- not for forum discussion but to maintain a viable index for this discussion thread.

The new thread index is located here.

(5) As of 12/17/2022, my own collection represents 547 casinos. I have occasionally posted photos of the way I have my collection on display on the desktop in my home office. The latest such photo posting is located here.

Deleted post, which was part of the now-obsolete, three-part index of CCotD posts, now replaced by the new index. See link in post #1 above.

For years, this thread has included a block of "Handy reference links" suggested by various members. These have long been hidden behind a spoiler button. Over time, many of the old links have broken, so I deleted them and placed what was still working in a more visible spot, since these might be of interest to some folks:


Museum Of Gaming History - Chip Guide

Article about Bud Jones Chip Molds

A short Casino Token History article

Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club Chipology - PDF

RouletteResearch.com - Primer on the Evolution and Fabrication Methods of Game Counters and Casino Chips - PDF

An alternative to Wikipedia: Online Nevada Encyclopedia

My 9/10/14 post in this thread about Top Hat and Cane chips.

PokerGrinder's thread with a list of "current" U.S. and Canadian casinos where chips may be collected.

Las Vegas Advisor QoD about counterfeiting chips, with comments about chip manufacturing

love the idea. Link and image work fine for me. Looking forward to seeing these.

Quote: Doc

I have eleven casinos only represented by the metal tokens, and two casinos for which I have both metal tokens and "clay" chips. Tim, if you have metal tokens/chips from some of the casinos for which I post photos of the clay chips, please post photos of your tokens as the thread gets to that casino. For most of the casinos, I have never seen their $1 tokens and would be interested in getting a look.

Be glad to...but like I said, many no longer exist...but ill follow this thread and post my corresponding ones...

Note 2/14/17: My comment in paragraph #1 of post #1 of this thread turned out to be true – this topic did generate a large number of related posts over an extended period. That created a problem when the index became too large for the forum’s limit on the size of a post. As noted in item #4 of the “Subsequent edits” section of post #1, the index was split into two parts as of December 2013 and into three parts in February 2017. This was made possible by moving my Aliante Station chip post (below) and combining it with my later posts, leaving space that had been emptied thereby for use as the expanded index.

Unfortunately, the following post is a blend of three posts and now appears later in the thread than multiple posts that comment about it. There has not really been a warp or fracture in the time/space continuum. Most of the following was originally posted higher in this thread and has just been moved here.




State: Nevada
City: North Las Vegas
Casino: Aliante Station

The first (alphabetically) chip is from Aliante Station. I plan to note in the heading of each day's post the city/town in which the casino is located. I will probably play that a little loose in the case of Las Vegas and won't bother designating "Paradise, NV" and such but only the well-known communities. I will try to stick with the city as shown on the chip, if there is one.

I have only been to Aliante Station one time, specifically to get this souvenir chip. That area of North Las Vegas is well off my normal path when visiting Sin City. I thought the casino was very nice, but I doubt I will make the trek out there again.

How many members of the forum have ever been out to play at Aliante Station?



By the way, I'm on Eastern time, so it's already Friday 3/16/12 here, in spite of the Las Vegas PDT times listed in the forum. I may or may not post a second chip-of-the-day before Saturday, as I get my feet wet on this stuff. Let me know whether this image (and the link) work for you.



Edit 3/28/12: I have just received from rdw4potus the links to some images of his chips from casinos that I have already passed in this thread. Thanks, rdw! I am editing my posts to include his images, such as this one:



Moderator's Edit 10/22/12: Word comes from this post on another board, posted by an Aliente employee, that on 11/1/12 Aliente Station will become Aliente Casino + Hotel. They are no longer part of the Stations family. No word on when or if new chips will be issued.

Edit 1/16/13: Although I was aware of Aliante (not "Aliente") no longer being part of the Station chain, I just noticed the above Moderator's Edit, which was added while I was out of the country. Tonight I checked the MOGH catalog and noted that new chips (without the "Station" designation) are indeed in circulation.

Quote: TIMSPEED (in a post that has now been deleted)

I have a buuunch of old Vegas $1 coins...

I have eleven casinos only represented by the metal tokens, and two casinos for which I have both metal tokens and "clay" chips. Tim, if you have metal tokens/chips from some of the casinos for which I post photos of the clay chips, please post photos of your tokens as the thread gets to that casino. For most of the casinos, I have never seen their $1 tokens and would be interested in getting a look.

Quote: TIMSPEED (in a post that really came after my comment above but appears above here in the thread)

Be glad to...but like I said, many no longer exist...but ill follow this thread and post my corresponding ones...

Oh, I have plenty of chips from casinos that no longer exist, and I will be posting those photos. My only constraint in collecting is that I must have been to the casino myself, and with extremely few exceptions, I have played in each of them to get the souvenir chip. I wish I could have chips that I obtained that way for the Sands, Dunes, Desert Inn, and a number of the other "classic" Vegas establishments.

It occurred to me that I should really try to say something about each casino other than, "I've been there." So here's a stab on the first one:

Aliante Station opened in 2008 as part of the Stations Casinos chain. Unfortunately, Stations declared bankruptcy the following year, and the casino now belongs to a group of the creditors, plus the original owners who "bought back in". I think the casino is still being operated by the former owners, who exited bankruptcy last year. I don't know details (hey! I'm not pacomartin), but I think I read some writeup that suggested the family/brothers who had owned Station made out like bandits (?) in the bankruptcy.

I hope to be able to give more positive comments on other casinos, and I should leave the business speculation to others. ;-)

Quote: Doc

State: Nevada
City: North Las Vegas
Casino: Aliante Station


How many members of the forum have ever been out to play at Aliante Station?

Holy cow....that's a filthy chip!! It should be bright white!

I used to go out to Aliante a couple years ago because they had the only bounty poker tournaments in town at the time. Nice new, fairly empty casino due to location, but Red Rock's still the best in the Station family.

That chip may be filthy but it's Tophat and Cane. It's a quality chip!

Quote: zippyboy

Holy cow....that's a filthy chip!! It should be bright white!

Well, yes and no.

Yes, the chip is kinda dirty. When I get some of them, they are so filthy I hate to put them in my pocket. Even when I wash them with a spray cleaner, I can't get them really clean.

But in this case, no, it should not be bright white. I must admit that my photography seems to have caused a bit of a color shift, but I'm not good enough nor dedicated enough to try to fix such things. The Aliante Station $1 chip (at least this one) is really a dark gray instead of white. While we may call the cheap chips "whites", there is quite a range of colors, particularly for the Nevada casinos.

Quote: s2dbaker

... but it's Tophat and Cane. It's a quality chip!

I think this Paulson mold design is the most common type in my collection. I have a bit of trouble taking a casino seriously if they don't use a quality chip. Perhaps as we get further into this thread, someone with better knowledge than mine can talk about the manufacturing processes.

This is a good thread idea and I look forward to following it.

The Aliante (note: corrected) Station I think is the only hotel/casino in Vegas I have not been to. There is zero reason to go to that part of Vegas. I've lived here 11 years and have never had the reason to go anywhere near the place.

A question that comes to my mind is what does aliante mean? Lots of things in Vegas have Spanish names, and that sounds Spanish, but I can't find that word exactly in my dictionaries. Here is my best theory. Liante means trouble maker or swindler. If you wanted to say "at the swindler" you would say "al liante." However, the two ls would come blend together, so it would sound like aliente. I wonder if this has a bearing on their Latino business. Sorry to turn this into another Spanish Word of the Day.