Casino Chip of the Day
January 16th, 2019 at 8:05:13 PM
permalink
Is Leo walking a new thing, or is he posed like that all the time?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
January 16th, 2019 at 8:06:16 PM
permalink
These chips are kind of neat. If Vegas takes another step and allows pot smoking in casinos areas they could have a rave room party pit--black light glow chips, table layouts, cards--like cosmic bowling for gamblers.
Have you tried 22 tonight? I said 22.
January 16th, 2019 at 9:30:11 PM
permalink
I think the answer might be "Neither of the above."Quote: AyecarumbaIs Leo walking a new thing, or is he posed like that all the time?
Check out the post here by rdw4potus. Five and a half years ago, he posted that chip from the MGM Grand in Detroit with a similar Leo-walking logo but with different colors. Just over two years ago, Konbu posted the chip from MGM National Harbor with the same logo. More than six years ago, I posted this one from Connecticut with that logo.
So, no it really isn't a new thing.
On the other hand, the chips posted in this thread from the MGM casinos in Macau and in Las Vegas use a different logo, although some (not all) of the Las Vegas MGM Grand Chinese New Year Commemorative chips do show Leo walking.
They're just trying to keep us on our toes!
January 17th, 2019 at 9:18:47 PM
permalink
State: New Jersey
City: Atlantic City
Casino: Ocean Resort
The Revel opened right on the waterfront (well, just shoreside of the boardwalk) in Atlantic City in March 2012 and had problems immediately. Maybe I should have said they had problems even before they opened. I visited that casino in July of that year and presented my CCotD the following February.
While the place was beautiful, the problems continued through two bankruptcies, an eventual closing in September 2014, multiple failed sales of the closed establishment, a closed sale that didn't result in a re-opening, another sale, and an eventual reopening as Ocean Resort Casino in June 2018. There have been a fair number of threads in this forum discussing both Revel and Ocean Resort, and there is currently an active thread discussing why this still-beautiful place isn't the #1 Atlantic City destination.
I managed to visit Atlantic City for a few hours one Friday last October and spent a short amount of time at Ocean Resort, including about 40 minutes at a $10-minimum craps table. I managed to win $175, which is not my customary outcome. As for that 40 minutes at the table, I should note that it took me longer than that just wandering around the casino trying to find the craps pit. It is a rather large space -- according to casinocity.com, it has 138,000 square feet of gaming space with 2,000 machines and 100 table games. I think it's almost as easy to get disoriented on that casino floor as at the Borgata. The place would likely be even more disorienting if there were a lot of players in the casino.
My souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip with three triangular, purple, edge inserts. The center inlay is white with a narrow purple ring around the perimeter and an even narrower light-blue ring just inside that. The text inside the rings begins with "OCEAN", in dark purple except for the "E", which is a light blue striped flag logo. Next comes "RESORT CASINO Atlantic City" in black, followed by the denomination in dark purple. UV light reveals a hidden Paulson logo near the center.
City: Atlantic City
Casino: Ocean Resort
The Revel opened right on the waterfront (well, just shoreside of the boardwalk) in Atlantic City in March 2012 and had problems immediately. Maybe I should have said they had problems even before they opened. I visited that casino in July of that year and presented my CCotD the following February.
While the place was beautiful, the problems continued through two bankruptcies, an eventual closing in September 2014, multiple failed sales of the closed establishment, a closed sale that didn't result in a re-opening, another sale, and an eventual reopening as Ocean Resort Casino in June 2018. There have been a fair number of threads in this forum discussing both Revel and Ocean Resort, and there is currently an active thread discussing why this still-beautiful place isn't the #1 Atlantic City destination.
I managed to visit Atlantic City for a few hours one Friday last October and spent a short amount of time at Ocean Resort, including about 40 minutes at a $10-minimum craps table. I managed to win $175, which is not my customary outcome. As for that 40 minutes at the table, I should note that it took me longer than that just wandering around the casino trying to find the craps pit. It is a rather large space -- according to casinocity.com, it has 138,000 square feet of gaming space with 2,000 machines and 100 table games. I think it's almost as easy to get disoriented on that casino floor as at the Borgata. The place would likely be even more disorienting if there were a lot of players in the casino.
My souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip with three triangular, purple, edge inserts. The center inlay is white with a narrow purple ring around the perimeter and an even narrower light-blue ring just inside that. The text inside the rings begins with "OCEAN", in dark purple except for the "E", which is a light blue striped flag logo. Next comes "RESORT CASINO Atlantic City" in black, followed by the denomination in dark purple. UV light reveals a hidden Paulson logo near the center.
January 17th, 2019 at 11:30:24 PM
permalink
I can't quite make out what the bump on top of the "E" in OCEAN is supposed to be. Is it a finial?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
January 18th, 2019 at 6:12:45 AM
permalink
It looks like a crescent moon to me (where the rest of the moon circle is visible in a pale color).Quote: AyecarumbaI can't quite make out what the bump on top of the "E" in OCEAN is supposed to be. Is it a finial?
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.
January 18th, 2019 at 6:34:48 AM
permalink
I think it's a stylized representation of the hotel tower. The hotel has a ball on top of it, because reasons...
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
January 18th, 2019 at 7:17:13 AM
permalink
I think rdw4potus must have come up with the correct explanation, even though I had not picked up on that myself. When I called the "E" a "striped flag logo", I was genuinely thinking of it as some kind of banner.
If you "can't quite make out" what the bump is, that's not because the posted image is too small. While I post a "small" image in the thread and allow you to click on that to see the "medium" image, I do have what I call a "full-size" image that is (in this case) 2917 x 2917 pixels for a 1.8MB file. And that image doesn't let you see anything more about that bump, because there just isn't more info printed on the inlay.
Well, maybe there is one thing you couldn't detect in the smaller images. That bump is roughly half light blue and half gold/yellow, providing a tiny speck that is the only thing on the inlay in that gold/yellow color. Unless you count that spot at the 4:30 position on the chip, just to the right of the denomination. Looks a bit like a crumb that was stuck there when I took the photo. Can you even see that? It's gone from the chip now. ;-)
If you "can't quite make out" what the bump is, that's not because the posted image is too small. While I post a "small" image in the thread and allow you to click on that to see the "medium" image, I do have what I call a "full-size" image that is (in this case) 2917 x 2917 pixels for a 1.8MB file. And that image doesn't let you see anything more about that bump, because there just isn't more info printed on the inlay.
Well, maybe there is one thing you couldn't detect in the smaller images. That bump is roughly half light blue and half gold/yellow, providing a tiny speck that is the only thing on the inlay in that gold/yellow color. Unless you count that spot at the 4:30 position on the chip, just to the right of the denomination. Looks a bit like a crumb that was stuck there when I took the photo. Can you even see that? It's gone from the chip now. ;-)
January 18th, 2019 at 6:16:03 PM
permalink
State: New Jersey
City: Atlantic City
Casino: Hard Rock
After leaving the Ocean Resort Casino that Friday afternoon last October, with my wallet a little bit fatter from my entertainment in a 40-minute session at a $10 craps table, I wandered down the boardwalk to the Hard Rock, where I gave $30 back to the gaming industry in another 40-minute session at a different $10 craps table. Easy come, easy go, though the latter outcome is much more common for me.
This Hard Rock used to be the Trump Taj Mahal and operated under that name from 1990, struggling through a bankruptcy and near closure in 2014, followed by sale and legal problems, shutting down in August 2016.
Those legal problems are described by the ever-reliable Wikipedia in this way:
The property was purchased in 2017 by the Seminole Tribe of Florida and re-opened under the Hard Rock name in June 2018.
My Hard Rock $1 souvenir is a white clay chip with eight narrow edge inserts, four in very-dark blue alternating with four in a color I will call olive. The center inlay is multi-toned purple with a pattern I can’t quite distinguish – could be fish tails or aquarium plants or psychedelic fantasies, for all I can tell. The text says “Love All. Serve All.”, followed by the Hard Rock logo, “Atlantic City”, and the denomination, though I haven’t faithfully reproduced the upper/lower case of everything.
I think this chip is from Paulson, though there are no hats and canes anywhere to be found on it. On the perimeter of the chip, where often there are eight of those little logos, this chip is instead customized with the casino name (twice) and the denomination (twice) molded into the clay. There is a bit of inconsistency from casino to casino as to how such molded-in customization is arranged, in the somewhat rare instance that it even exists.
(Here comes the nerdy, chip-collector trivia.)
On this particular chip, all of the molded-in text is readable from outside the chip perimeter; i.e., bottom of the text toward the chip edge. I have only eight other chips from Atlantic City that have the casino name molded into the clay, and none of them have the text in that orientation. Some are readable from the center of the chip (top of the text toward the edge), while others are mixed so that the text is readable from a single direction. (Yes, the text curves, but there is a clear “top” and “bottom” position for the perimeter text.)
Here’s your chance to use this thread’s index on page 1 to look up a bunch of other CCotD posts to see whether/where I am telling the truth -- I have lied about one of the following 35 chips. For my Atlantic City chips, the Bally's (molded-in name is Park Place, with a Bally's sticker over it), Caesars, Hilton, Showboat, Tropicana, and Trump Taj Mahal chips have the perimeter text readable from the center, while the Trump Marina and Trump Plaza chips have perimeter text readable from one direction.
I wondered how common this trait was, so I looked at my Las Vegas chips with the molded-in casino name. The following chips in my collection have perimeter text readable from the center: Cosmopolitan, Gold Coast, Harrah’s, Mandalay Bay, Mirage, O’Sheas, Silverton, Tropicana, Westgate, and Wynn.
These Las Vegas casino chips have perimeter text that is readable from one direction: Excalibur, Four Queens, Golden Nugget, Hooters, Imperial Palace, Luxor, M Resort, MGM Grand, Orleans, Palace Station, Park MGM, Planet Hollywood, Quad, Riviera, SLS, South Point, and Suncoast.
So... did you look at all those CCotD posts to find the one spot where I lied about the text orientation? Either way, not a single one of my souvenir chips from Atlantic City or Las Vegas has such molded-in text readable exclusively from outside the perimeter except for this one from Hard Rock Atlantic City. (Of course I can’t be certain, but if you become a chip collector, you might start obsessing on such trivia, too!)
Under UV light, we can see the hidden-but-repeated name “Hard Rock Atlantic City”, and yes, the typo that we have come to expect on such chips is here once again. Can you find it?
City: Atlantic City
Casino: Hard Rock
After leaving the Ocean Resort Casino that Friday afternoon last October, with my wallet a little bit fatter from my entertainment in a 40-minute session at a $10 craps table, I wandered down the boardwalk to the Hard Rock, where I gave $30 back to the gaming industry in another 40-minute session at a different $10 craps table. Easy come, easy go, though the latter outcome is much more common for me.
This Hard Rock used to be the Trump Taj Mahal and operated under that name from 1990, struggling through a bankruptcy and near closure in 2014, followed by sale and legal problems, shutting down in August 2016.
Those legal problems are described by the ever-reliable Wikipedia in this way:
Quote: WikipediaIn 2015, The Taj Mahal admitted to having “willfully violated” anti-money-laundering regulations for years and was fined $10 million. It was the highest penalty ever levied by the U.S. federal government against a casino.
The property was purchased in 2017 by the Seminole Tribe of Florida and re-opened under the Hard Rock name in June 2018.
My Hard Rock $1 souvenir is a white clay chip with eight narrow edge inserts, four in very-dark blue alternating with four in a color I will call olive. The center inlay is multi-toned purple with a pattern I can’t quite distinguish – could be fish tails or aquarium plants or psychedelic fantasies, for all I can tell. The text says “Love All. Serve All.”, followed by the Hard Rock logo, “Atlantic City”, and the denomination, though I haven’t faithfully reproduced the upper/lower case of everything.
I think this chip is from Paulson, though there are no hats and canes anywhere to be found on it. On the perimeter of the chip, where often there are eight of those little logos, this chip is instead customized with the casino name (twice) and the denomination (twice) molded into the clay. There is a bit of inconsistency from casino to casino as to how such molded-in customization is arranged, in the somewhat rare instance that it even exists.
(Here comes the nerdy, chip-collector trivia.)
On this particular chip, all of the molded-in text is readable from outside the chip perimeter; i.e., bottom of the text toward the chip edge. I have only eight other chips from Atlantic City that have the casino name molded into the clay, and none of them have the text in that orientation. Some are readable from the center of the chip (top of the text toward the edge), while others are mixed so that the text is readable from a single direction. (Yes, the text curves, but there is a clear “top” and “bottom” position for the perimeter text.)
Here’s your chance to use this thread’s index on page 1 to look up a bunch of other CCotD posts to see whether/where I am telling the truth -- I have lied about one of the following 35 chips. For my Atlantic City chips, the Bally's (molded-in name is Park Place, with a Bally's sticker over it), Caesars, Hilton, Showboat, Tropicana, and Trump Taj Mahal chips have the perimeter text readable from the center, while the Trump Marina and Trump Plaza chips have perimeter text readable from one direction.
I wondered how common this trait was, so I looked at my Las Vegas chips with the molded-in casino name. The following chips in my collection have perimeter text readable from the center: Cosmopolitan, Gold Coast, Harrah’s, Mandalay Bay, Mirage, O’Sheas, Silverton, Tropicana, Westgate, and Wynn.
These Las Vegas casino chips have perimeter text that is readable from one direction: Excalibur, Four Queens, Golden Nugget, Hooters, Imperial Palace, Luxor, M Resort, MGM Grand, Orleans, Palace Station, Park MGM, Planet Hollywood, Quad, Riviera, SLS, South Point, and Suncoast.
So... did you look at all those CCotD posts to find the one spot where I lied about the text orientation? Either way, not a single one of my souvenir chips from Atlantic City or Las Vegas has such molded-in text readable exclusively from outside the perimeter except for this one from Hard Rock Atlantic City. (Of course I can’t be certain, but if you become a chip collector, you might start obsessing on such trivia, too!)
Under UV light, we can see the hidden-but-repeated name “Hard Rock Atlantic City”, and yes, the typo that we have come to expect on such chips is here once again. Can you find it?
January 18th, 2019 at 9:05:16 PM
permalink
Do you think it's on purpose? Counterfeit protection?
There's one Atlnatic (spellchecker is fighting me on spelling it that way) and the rest appear to be Atlantic.
There's one Atlnatic (spellchecker is fighting me on spelling it that way) and the rest appear to be Atlantic.
If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.
January 19th, 2019 at 7:33:24 AM
permalink
Yes, I feel certain that it is on purpose -- there is just too much evidence for it to be accidental.Quote: beachbumbabsDo you think it's on purpose? Counterfeit protection?
There has been discussion in this thread for years speculating on the reason. Yes, I believe that in most cases the hidden images are related to counterfeit protection. When I have cashed in larger chips ($100 or above, anyway), I have seen the cashier hold the chip under a UV light, so they are at least looking to see whether there is something fluorescing on the chip where it is supposed to. However, if a counterfeiter is aware of the hidden images and is going to produce his/her own chips with similar hidden images, then surely they are paying enough attention to notice the "typos" and insert those also.
In addition, I have difficulty believing that there is much justification to take any significant steps to prevent counterfeiting of $1 chips. In the small quantities that a counterfeiter would likely introduce them, they probably cost more than $1 to manufacture, and the criminal efforts would be directed at higher-value chips. My guess is that (at least for the $1 chips and maybe all of them) this introduction of typos just strikes someone's sense of humor. It is unfortunate that this forum doesn't have a participant from a chip manufacturer who might be able to reveal the truth.
January 19th, 2019 at 5:36:27 PM
permalink
State: Nevada
City: Jean
Casino: Terrible’s
There is plenty of conflicting information available from my usual sources. It’s almost as if you can’t trust everything that you read on the internet these days.
In September 2016, the Wizard posted a review of the Gold Strike in Jean, NV. In that review, he noted that the Gold Strike had opened in 1990 and that he took a bus junket from LA to there in 1993.
In contrast, the MoGH Chip Guide says that the Gold Strike opened in 1987 and lists several of its chips as having been issued in 1987. That same page of the Chip Guide says that the Gold Strike was sold in October 2014 “to Jerry Herbst, JETT Gaming. In the process of rebranding, should be completed by the end of 2015.” The rebranding was to be as Terrible’s Road House Casino, and that page also says that the Gold Strike closed 7/6/18. A separate page in the Guide says that the Terrible’s Road House Casino opened that same date.
In further contrast, the remnants of the Gold Strike web site say that the casino had been purchased by JETT Gaming NOT on that October 2014 date but “April 30th", although the year is not stated. Let’s just say that I am not completely confident as to the dates that things changed.
I don’t even remember when I first visited the Gold Strike, but I posted my souvenir chip to this thread way back on May 19, 2012. In that post, I mentioned a lot of other conflicting information I had encountered back then.
Now, I have no idea what really took place there in July 2018, but I know the casino was operating under the Terrible’s name for years before that. They were still using Gold Strike chips at their table games but had players’ club cards and slot machine tickets that used the Terrible’s name. Just to add to the confusion, in some cases they said “Roadhouse” and in some cases “Road House.” I stopped by the place several times hoping to pick up a Terrible’s Road House or Roadhouse chip as a souvenir, but did not find anything but Gold Strike chips.
Some time this past year, and I can’t find the post now, DRich let us know that new chips had finally been ordered and would be coming in with the Terrible’s name. On October 31, he posted that the new chips would be in play the following day, so I made plans to pick one up five weeks later.
I did make it to the casino for a souvenir on 12/6/18 and discovered a few more things. The new “Largest Chevron in the World”, located just across the highway, is now bearing the name of Terrible’s Road House. I have found other sites that report that there is a Terrible’s Road House restaurant and casino in Searchlight, NV, and I think I have been there, too, but it’s just a slot parlor.
The casino in Jean is now using the name “Terrible’s Hotel & Casino”, which is pretty much the same name as is on my souvenir chip from the former casino on Paradise Road in Las Vegas. The casino’s slot tickets still say “Terrible’s Roadhouse”, but the cashier said they were working to change that and to get the new signs up on the outside of the building. I am just listing this chip as “Terrible’s”.
The table gaming area of the casino has two blackjack tables, one roulette table (didn't check the number of zeros), one Baccarat table, and one electronic blackjack table. A blackjack at the live table pays 6:5, and it was operating at the $5-minimum level when I was there about 4:00 PM on a Thursday. I was the only player in the entire table games area, staffed by one dealer and a supervisor. In fifteen minutes of play, I came out $10 ahead after toking the dealer and pocketing a $1 souvenir.
My souvenir is a white ceramic chip from the manufacturer ICON, whose logo may be seen at the 3:00 position on the chip, just below the “O” of “Casino”. The chip shows the full Terrible’s Hotel & Casino name, the mustachioed, cross-eyed cowboy logo, the denomination, and the location in Jean, Nevada. All of the printing is in black outline around white, except the denomination, which is black outline around a gold fill. Both faces of the chip are identical, and the edge of the chip has four pinkish marks (imitation edge inserts, I suppose), very slightly visible in the photo exactly at the top, bottom, and sides of the face image. The Chip Guide refers to this as “medal aligned.” UV light reveals that the casino name and location fluoresce.
City: Jean
Casino: Terrible’s
There is plenty of conflicting information available from my usual sources. It’s almost as if you can’t trust everything that you read on the internet these days.
In September 2016, the Wizard posted a review of the Gold Strike in Jean, NV. In that review, he noted that the Gold Strike had opened in 1990 and that he took a bus junket from LA to there in 1993.
In contrast, the MoGH Chip Guide says that the Gold Strike opened in 1987 and lists several of its chips as having been issued in 1987. That same page of the Chip Guide says that the Gold Strike was sold in October 2014 “to Jerry Herbst, JETT Gaming. In the process of rebranding, should be completed by the end of 2015.” The rebranding was to be as Terrible’s Road House Casino, and that page also says that the Gold Strike closed 7/6/18. A separate page in the Guide says that the Terrible’s Road House Casino opened that same date.
In further contrast, the remnants of the Gold Strike web site say that the casino had been purchased by JETT Gaming NOT on that October 2014 date but “April 30th", although the year is not stated. Let’s just say that I am not completely confident as to the dates that things changed.
I don’t even remember when I first visited the Gold Strike, but I posted my souvenir chip to this thread way back on May 19, 2012. In that post, I mentioned a lot of other conflicting information I had encountered back then.
Now, I have no idea what really took place there in July 2018, but I know the casino was operating under the Terrible’s name for years before that. They were still using Gold Strike chips at their table games but had players’ club cards and slot machine tickets that used the Terrible’s name. Just to add to the confusion, in some cases they said “Roadhouse” and in some cases “Road House.” I stopped by the place several times hoping to pick up a Terrible’s Road House or Roadhouse chip as a souvenir, but did not find anything but Gold Strike chips.
Some time this past year, and I can’t find the post now, DRich let us know that new chips had finally been ordered and would be coming in with the Terrible’s name. On October 31, he posted that the new chips would be in play the following day, so I made plans to pick one up five weeks later.
I did make it to the casino for a souvenir on 12/6/18 and discovered a few more things. The new “Largest Chevron in the World”, located just across the highway, is now bearing the name of Terrible’s Road House. I have found other sites that report that there is a Terrible’s Road House restaurant and casino in Searchlight, NV, and I think I have been there, too, but it’s just a slot parlor.
The casino in Jean is now using the name “Terrible’s Hotel & Casino”, which is pretty much the same name as is on my souvenir chip from the former casino on Paradise Road in Las Vegas. The casino’s slot tickets still say “Terrible’s Roadhouse”, but the cashier said they were working to change that and to get the new signs up on the outside of the building. I am just listing this chip as “Terrible’s”.
The table gaming area of the casino has two blackjack tables, one roulette table (didn't check the number of zeros), one Baccarat table, and one electronic blackjack table. A blackjack at the live table pays 6:5, and it was operating at the $5-minimum level when I was there about 4:00 PM on a Thursday. I was the only player in the entire table games area, staffed by one dealer and a supervisor. In fifteen minutes of play, I came out $10 ahead after toking the dealer and pocketing a $1 souvenir.
My souvenir is a white ceramic chip from the manufacturer ICON, whose logo may be seen at the 3:00 position on the chip, just below the “O” of “Casino”. The chip shows the full Terrible’s Hotel & Casino name, the mustachioed, cross-eyed cowboy logo, the denomination, and the location in Jean, Nevada. All of the printing is in black outline around white, except the denomination, which is black outline around a gold fill. Both faces of the chip are identical, and the edge of the chip has four pinkish marks (imitation edge inserts, I suppose), very slightly visible in the photo exactly at the top, bottom, and sides of the face image. The Chip Guide refers to this as “medal aligned.” UV light reveals that the casino name and location fluoresce.
Last edited by: Doc on Jan 22, 2019
January 19th, 2019 at 5:51:08 PM
permalink
BTW, that post represents chip/casino number 1,200 for this thread.
January 20th, 2019 at 10:45:33 PM
permalink
Category: Canada
City: Brantford, Ontario
Casino: Elements
I think this casino originally was opened as Brantford Charity Casino in 1999. Some time after that, they changed its name to OLG Casino Brantford, probably as Ontario Lottery Gaming was working toward unified names for all of their casinos. The name had gone through that revision before rdw4potus first covered this casino for this thread in his CCotD post in June 2013, showing his souvenir $5 chip.
It wasn’t until June of the following year that I was able to visit the casino myself, and my notes say that I came out CA$85 ahead at a CA$5-minimum craps table. Nine days after my visit, I posted my own souvenir $1 chip here, along with a number of others that I collected on that same trip.
The property was sold by OLG and opened as Elements Casino Brantford on May 1, 2018. Elements is a chain of Canadian casinos, and PokerGrinder has already shown us an Elements chip from the casino in Surrey, British Columbia. My wife and I visited Ontario again last October, spending two nights in Niagara Falls, and on the afternoon we arrived, we took the little excursion over to Brantford once again for me to pick up a new souvenir.
My gaming adventure was financially acceptable once again, even though they had doubled the minimum wager at the craps table to CA$10. In fact, it was the currency exchange fees that annoyed me the most. I admit that it’s always nice to get more CA$ than the US$ that I turn in, but I don’t like the service charges from the casinos. I changed US$200 to CA$252 at the casino cashier, while the app on my phone told me that without fees I should have received CA$262 at that time. That rake seemed a little high to me. At today’s rates, it is telling me I should get just shy of CA$265, less fees. I guess the casinos have to make their money on the exchange – how would they ever make any money at the gaming tables?
Turns out that this particular casino really wouldn’t have made much off my play on that particular day, even at the higher minimum wager. I bought in for CA$200 and cashed out for CA$400 after a 45-minute session, for a gain of about US$153, ignoring exchange fees. Not too bad for a flea. At least I had some local currency to use for cash purchases the rest of my time in Ontario.
My souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip with two triangular, dark-blue, edge inserts. The white center inlay has “ELEMENTSCASINO”, the denomination, and “BRANTFORD” in a black font, plus a logo that is made up of eight red dots configured to look a bit like an “E”. Both sides of the chip are alike, and UV light reveals not a hat and cane logo but the all-caps name “PAULSON”. No, there is no hidden typo there this time. ;-)
City: Brantford, Ontario
Casino: Elements
I think this casino originally was opened as Brantford Charity Casino in 1999. Some time after that, they changed its name to OLG Casino Brantford, probably as Ontario Lottery Gaming was working toward unified names for all of their casinos. The name had gone through that revision before rdw4potus first covered this casino for this thread in his CCotD post in June 2013, showing his souvenir $5 chip.
It wasn’t until June of the following year that I was able to visit the casino myself, and my notes say that I came out CA$85 ahead at a CA$5-minimum craps table. Nine days after my visit, I posted my own souvenir $1 chip here, along with a number of others that I collected on that same trip.
The property was sold by OLG and opened as Elements Casino Brantford on May 1, 2018. Elements is a chain of Canadian casinos, and PokerGrinder has already shown us an Elements chip from the casino in Surrey, British Columbia. My wife and I visited Ontario again last October, spending two nights in Niagara Falls, and on the afternoon we arrived, we took the little excursion over to Brantford once again for me to pick up a new souvenir.
My gaming adventure was financially acceptable once again, even though they had doubled the minimum wager at the craps table to CA$10. In fact, it was the currency exchange fees that annoyed me the most. I admit that it’s always nice to get more CA$ than the US$ that I turn in, but I don’t like the service charges from the casinos. I changed US$200 to CA$252 at the casino cashier, while the app on my phone told me that without fees I should have received CA$262 at that time. That rake seemed a little high to me. At today’s rates, it is telling me I should get just shy of CA$265, less fees. I guess the casinos have to make their money on the exchange – how would they ever make any money at the gaming tables?
Turns out that this particular casino really wouldn’t have made much off my play on that particular day, even at the higher minimum wager. I bought in for CA$200 and cashed out for CA$400 after a 45-minute session, for a gain of about US$153, ignoring exchange fees. Not too bad for a flea. At least I had some local currency to use for cash purchases the rest of my time in Ontario.
My souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip with two triangular, dark-blue, edge inserts. The white center inlay has “ELEMENTSCASINO”, the denomination, and “BRANTFORD” in a black font, plus a logo that is made up of eight red dots configured to look a bit like an “E”. Both sides of the chip are alike, and UV light reveals not a hat and cane logo but the all-caps name “PAULSON”. No, there is no hidden typo there this time. ;-)
Last edited by: Doc on Jan 20, 2019
January 21st, 2019 at 7:38:55 PM
permalink
Category: Canada
City: Belleville, Ontario
Casino: Shorelines
On January 15th, when PokerGrinder said it was my turn to take over posting the Chip of the Day again, I expressed my shock and said that I remembered having a plan for 11 new souvenirs from a trip in October and one from a trip in December. To that point, I had only posted just one of those, my Woodbine chip from Toronto, which I posted in response to PokerGrinder’s chip from there.
Based on that thinking/memory, I figured I must have 11 more chips to post now. I still haven’t gotten around to arranging those chips on my office desktop under the glass, so I looked for them. I did indeed find 12 new souvenirs in a desk drawer (one already posted) and started this new series of my chip posts for the other 11. Through late last night (1:45 AM Eastern time), I have posted six of them.
Then this evening something didn’t seem quite right. I remembered that my plan for gathering 11 chips when I left home for that October trip didn’t include Woodbine on my list of chips to get. I learned about it and added it to the list along the way. Was there another chip around somewhere?
I checked my itinerary map that I had posted here on 10/13 and verified I must have overlooked one. I dug a little deeper around that drawer and found the 13th chip, so I decided to make it the one to post tonight. Then, after several more mental stumbles, I realized that Woodbine wasn’t the only casino that I had added to my list while on the road. I dug even deeper into that drawer and found a 14th chip! (If I have jumbled the count around too much, here’s where I think it stands: after tonight’s post, there will be six more before I run out of chips.)
What had originally been the 1000 Islands Charity Casino in Gananoque, Ontario had been renamed OLG Casino Thousand Islands by the time I visited in September 2015, but chips with both names were in play, and I kept one of each. While I was there, a dealer said that they had been told that the casino was to be sold by Ontario Lottery Gaming, but the employees hadn’t yet been informed as to the buyer. Turned out to be Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, and the Casino was renamed Shorelines Casino Thousand Islands. I dropped by again in August 2016 to pick up a souvenir with the new name and posted it here also.
Since then, Great Canadian Gaming Corporation has added more casinos with the Shorelines name, and tonight’s post and tomorrow’s represent two of them.
The Shorelines Casino Belleville opened in January 2017 and is described by casinocity.com as having 450 gaming machines and 18 table games. After already admitting in this post to multiple mental blips tonight, I’m not going to be so outrageous as to try to describe my personal memories of the place. My notes say that I played $15-min blackjack and won $10. Both of those figures are in Canadian dollars.
My $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip with six narrow, orange, edge inserts. The center inlay is a whiter white than the clay and has a central ring that I guess might be called a pink-and-orange sunburst pattern. The denomination is in red in the center of that ring, and the name is presented on the perimeter of the inlay, with SHORELINES in bold blue at the top and •CASINO BELLEVILLE• in a finer orange font on the bottom. UV light reveals the hidden PAULSON name just above center.
City: Belleville, Ontario
Casino: Shorelines
On January 15th, when PokerGrinder said it was my turn to take over posting the Chip of the Day again, I expressed my shock and said that I remembered having a plan for 11 new souvenirs from a trip in October and one from a trip in December. To that point, I had only posted just one of those, my Woodbine chip from Toronto, which I posted in response to PokerGrinder’s chip from there.
Based on that thinking/memory, I figured I must have 11 more chips to post now. I still haven’t gotten around to arranging those chips on my office desktop under the glass, so I looked for them. I did indeed find 12 new souvenirs in a desk drawer (one already posted) and started this new series of my chip posts for the other 11. Through late last night (1:45 AM Eastern time), I have posted six of them.
Then this evening something didn’t seem quite right. I remembered that my plan for gathering 11 chips when I left home for that October trip didn’t include Woodbine on my list of chips to get. I learned about it and added it to the list along the way. Was there another chip around somewhere?
I checked my itinerary map that I had posted here on 10/13 and verified I must have overlooked one. I dug a little deeper around that drawer and found the 13th chip, so I decided to make it the one to post tonight. Then, after several more mental stumbles, I realized that Woodbine wasn’t the only casino that I had added to my list while on the road. I dug even deeper into that drawer and found a 14th chip! (If I have jumbled the count around too much, here’s where I think it stands: after tonight’s post, there will be six more before I run out of chips.)
What had originally been the 1000 Islands Charity Casino in Gananoque, Ontario had been renamed OLG Casino Thousand Islands by the time I visited in September 2015, but chips with both names were in play, and I kept one of each. While I was there, a dealer said that they had been told that the casino was to be sold by Ontario Lottery Gaming, but the employees hadn’t yet been informed as to the buyer. Turned out to be Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, and the Casino was renamed Shorelines Casino Thousand Islands. I dropped by again in August 2016 to pick up a souvenir with the new name and posted it here also.
Since then, Great Canadian Gaming Corporation has added more casinos with the Shorelines name, and tonight’s post and tomorrow’s represent two of them.
The Shorelines Casino Belleville opened in January 2017 and is described by casinocity.com as having 450 gaming machines and 18 table games. After already admitting in this post to multiple mental blips tonight, I’m not going to be so outrageous as to try to describe my personal memories of the place. My notes say that I played $15-min blackjack and won $10. Both of those figures are in Canadian dollars.
My $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip with six narrow, orange, edge inserts. The center inlay is a whiter white than the clay and has a central ring that I guess might be called a pink-and-orange sunburst pattern. The denomination is in red in the center of that ring, and the name is presented on the perimeter of the inlay, with SHORELINES in bold blue at the top and •CASINO BELLEVILLE• in a finer orange font on the bottom. UV light reveals the hidden PAULSON name just above center.
Last edited by: Doc on Jan 22, 2019
January 21st, 2019 at 8:42:31 PM
permalink
Well I’m finding that what you’ve all said about South American casinos is true. Casinos close without notice, casinos that shouldn’t exist do and they use random chips. This is driving my OCD crazy.
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
January 21st, 2019 at 9:12:31 PM
permalink
That is mostly a characteristic I have reported finding in the Caribbean Islands. I haven't been to enough casinos directly in South America to know what to expect there. My problem on that continent is that I have only visited by cruise ship, and many casinos do not operate during the hours that the ships are in port.
January 21st, 2019 at 9:44:27 PM
permalink
A casino that I visited a few days ago has one name on google maps, a different name on the door and uses chips from its sister casino that closed its table games and moved them there.
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
January 22nd, 2019 at 9:40:16 AM
permalink
Category: Canada
City: Peterborough, Ontario
Casino: Shorelines
In last night’s CCotD post, I reported not just my mental glitches in keeping up with what chips I had collected on my trip last October but also some of the history of the Shorelines casinos of the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation. Today’s chip is from one more of their casinos that is located roughly just 100km by the highways (or 74km by the straight line that a Canadian goose might fly) from the Belleville casino.
The MoGH Chip Guide has a note describing the Shorelines Casino Peterborough as being a 50,000 square foot, full-service casino. The place opened on October 15, 2018 making it perhaps a little too new to be indexed at casinocity.com for the number of machines and tables. The casino’s own web site claims “500 of the newest slot machines – and some old favourites, too!” Yes, they used the Canadian spelling that seems awkward to me and which my computer marks as a typo. They don’t seem to mention the number of table games but say those are open from noon to 4 AM, offering Blackjack, Spanish 21, Free Bet Blackjack, Blackjack Switch, Three Card Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Mississippi Stud, (Squeeze) Mini Baccarat, and Roulette.
I visited on October 23rd, just eight days after the opening. Since they didn’t offer craps, I chose (on a whim) to spend my time at a CA$10-minimum roulette table and managed to lose CA$32 in about fifteen minutes.
My $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip that is almost identical to the one I posted yesterday, except it has three, medium-width, dark-green, edge inserts instead of the six narrow orange ones we saw before. The center inlay is identical to the one from yesterday except with “Belleville” replaced by “Peterborough.” UV light reveals the hidden PAULSON name on this chip, too.
City: Peterborough, Ontario
Casino: Shorelines
In last night’s CCotD post, I reported not just my mental glitches in keeping up with what chips I had collected on my trip last October but also some of the history of the Shorelines casinos of the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation. Today’s chip is from one more of their casinos that is located roughly just 100km by the highways (or 74km by the straight line that a Canadian goose might fly) from the Belleville casino.
The MoGH Chip Guide has a note describing the Shorelines Casino Peterborough as being a 50,000 square foot, full-service casino. The place opened on October 15, 2018 making it perhaps a little too new to be indexed at casinocity.com for the number of machines and tables. The casino’s own web site claims “500 of the newest slot machines – and some old favourites, too!” Yes, they used the Canadian spelling that seems awkward to me and which my computer marks as a typo. They don’t seem to mention the number of table games but say those are open from noon to 4 AM, offering Blackjack, Spanish 21, Free Bet Blackjack, Blackjack Switch, Three Card Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Mississippi Stud, (Squeeze) Mini Baccarat, and Roulette.
I visited on October 23rd, just eight days after the opening. Since they didn’t offer craps, I chose (on a whim) to spend my time at a CA$10-minimum roulette table and managed to lose CA$32 in about fifteen minutes.
My $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip that is almost identical to the one I posted yesterday, except it has three, medium-width, dark-green, edge inserts instead of the six narrow orange ones we saw before. The center inlay is identical to the one from yesterday except with “Belleville” replaced by “Peterborough.” UV light reveals the hidden PAULSON name on this chip, too.
January 22nd, 2019 at 9:54:51 AM
permalink
Any info about why the name is plural? It seems odd to me. Why would the casino company be related to a place where there is more than one shoreline? Or... is there an apostrophe missing? Maybe it's a Canadian thing.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
January 22nd, 2019 at 9:59:38 AM
permalink
Quote: AyecarumbaAny info about why the name is plural? It seems odd to me. Why would the casino company be related to a place where there is more than one shoreline? Or... is there an apostrophe missing? Maybe it's a Canadian thing.
Just a theory. They have 3 Shorelines in Ontario, each bordering a different body of water, so the name is all-inclusive.
https://www.google.com/search?q=shorelines+casino+ontario&oq=shorelines+ontario&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.9548j0j7&client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#istate=lrl:mlt
If the House lost every hand, they wouldn't deal the game.
January 22nd, 2019 at 10:32:57 AM
permalink
Seems like a reasonable theory. Ontario borders four of the five Great Lakes plus Lake St. Clair, Hudson Bay, and a few border rivers. The province completely contains Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, Lake Nipissing, and numerous smaller lakes. They have plenty of shorelines. But there might be other complications.Quote: beachbumbabsJust a theory. They have 3 Shorelines in Ontario, each bordering a different body of water, so the name is all-inclusive.
If you check the corporate homepage of Great Canadian Gaming, you can see that in addition to Ontario, they also have casinos in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and even three locations in Washington state. They have 13 casino and track properties in Ontario, with only four of them bearing the Shorelines name. They even own the Elements casino in Brantford that I covered just two days ago in this thread.
Brief summary: I have no idea why the casinos at Belleville, Peterborough, and Thousand Islands (Gananoque) and the slot parlor at Kawartha Downs are now covered under the "Shorelines" banner.
January 22nd, 2019 at 11:20:34 AM
permalink
I have told my wife how awful my drive around lake Ontario went (long story short: 3 days of horizontally-delivered sleet). Now, it looks like I need to do it again. How can I trick her into joining me? Is hypnotism a valid option?
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
January 22nd, 2019 at 12:06:22 PM
permalink
Quote: rdw4potusI have told my wife how awful my drive around lake Ontario went (long story short: 3 days of horizontally-delivered sleet). Now, it looks like I need to do it again. How can I trick her into joining me? Is hypnotism a valid option?
Hehe... some Ambien would be better. Then she can do the driving...
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
January 22nd, 2019 at 12:59:49 PM
permalink
Even for folks who choose to make their homes in Minnesota, I recommend making that trip some time between late May and early September. Have no idea why I would have made such a trip in October.Quote: rdw4potusHow can I trick her into joining me? Is hypnotism a valid option?
January 22nd, 2019 at 1:06:16 PM
permalink
Ambien? heheQuote: Doc... Have no idea why I would have made such a trip in October.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
January 23rd, 2019 at 11:38:02 AM
permalink
State: New York
City: Nichols
Casino: Tioga Downs
Thus far in my current string of CCotD posts, I have presented one casino/chip from Maryland, one from Massachusetts, two from New Jersey, one from Nevada, and three from Canada. The five that I have remaining are all from New York, and my current plan is to present them in the order that I visited the establishments.
Driving northward from our home in North Carolina, we encountered darkness as we got into north-central Pennsylvania. We got off the interstate looking for a restroom, after which our GPS sent us not back to the main highway but onto an obscure route on narrow, rainy roads through small towns, supposedly on the best route to Tioga Downs in Nichols, NY. The plan was to visit the casino for dinner and a little gaming before finding a hotel for the night. It turned out to be after 10:00 PM by the time we got to the casino.
Dinner was fine at a bar/restaurant combination, then I went in search of gaming. I found a $10 craps table and came out $100 ahead in a 45-minute session. Some consolation, I suppose, for an unpleasant drive. Leaving the casino, we followed the advice of a gaming supervisor and headed back southwest to Sayre, PA to spend the night.
Because of the late hour while we were there, I didn’t get to see much of anything about the outside of the facility or the racetrack. I expect they have a web site that could tell you a whole lot more than I could. Table games were added to the Racino in December 2016.
My $1 souvenir appears to be a plastic injection molded chip, with customized molding of the casino name twice around the perimeter (readable from the chip center). When viewing either face, there are four gray/purple tick marks (a little too small to be imitation edge inserts, I think), while on the chip edge there are eight more such marks, with four narrow marks aligned with the ones on the faces and slightly wider marks half way between those.
The center inlays are quite colorful and are surrounded by a gray ring. On the first side shown below, the denomination is in white outlined in black, followed by “TIOGA DOWNS” in a font with fancy shapes and a combination of green, yellow, and red. The word “CASINO” is next in red, and finally the city and state in black. I don't know whether the green swirl in the background is supposed to be a script "T" or what.
The inlay on the second side shows what I think is a carousel white horse with a fancy green bridle and a green/orange/yellow decorative collar or harness, with what looks a bit like a blue pyramid (or maybe a circus tent?) in the background. The text is limited to the casino name in black outline around pink fill and the denomination presented the same as on the first side.
Nothing on this chip fluoresces under UV light.
I have not been able to identify the manufacturer of this chip. I did find this September 2016 article (three months prior to the table games opening) describing the significant contract win by Scientific Games Corporation “to provide a host of games, systems and table products” for the Tioga Downs expansion, including chip sorters, but it doesn’t mention who would be providing the chips themselves.
Looking closely at the colorful center inlays, I can see four faint impressions at roughly the 2, 4, 7, and 10 o’clock positions on each side, just inside the gray perimeter ring. Those impressions might be manufacturer’s logos, but I can’t quite make them out. In some cases it looks a bit like a “12”, and others it looks like an overlapping “Lp”, but they seem to differ in orientation. I don’t know how well those will show up in this post, but a somewhat similar shape appears at the 9 o’clock position on the second side, on the face of the “pyramid”, just above the carousel fence.
Anybody know who made this chip?
City: Nichols
Casino: Tioga Downs
Thus far in my current string of CCotD posts, I have presented one casino/chip from Maryland, one from Massachusetts, two from New Jersey, one from Nevada, and three from Canada. The five that I have remaining are all from New York, and my current plan is to present them in the order that I visited the establishments.
Driving northward from our home in North Carolina, we encountered darkness as we got into north-central Pennsylvania. We got off the interstate looking for a restroom, after which our GPS sent us not back to the main highway but onto an obscure route on narrow, rainy roads through small towns, supposedly on the best route to Tioga Downs in Nichols, NY. The plan was to visit the casino for dinner and a little gaming before finding a hotel for the night. It turned out to be after 10:00 PM by the time we got to the casino.
Dinner was fine at a bar/restaurant combination, then I went in search of gaming. I found a $10 craps table and came out $100 ahead in a 45-minute session. Some consolation, I suppose, for an unpleasant drive. Leaving the casino, we followed the advice of a gaming supervisor and headed back southwest to Sayre, PA to spend the night.
Because of the late hour while we were there, I didn’t get to see much of anything about the outside of the facility or the racetrack. I expect they have a web site that could tell you a whole lot more than I could. Table games were added to the Racino in December 2016.
My $1 souvenir appears to be a plastic injection molded chip, with customized molding of the casino name twice around the perimeter (readable from the chip center). When viewing either face, there are four gray/purple tick marks (a little too small to be imitation edge inserts, I think), while on the chip edge there are eight more such marks, with four narrow marks aligned with the ones on the faces and slightly wider marks half way between those.
The center inlays are quite colorful and are surrounded by a gray ring. On the first side shown below, the denomination is in white outlined in black, followed by “TIOGA DOWNS” in a font with fancy shapes and a combination of green, yellow, and red. The word “CASINO” is next in red, and finally the city and state in black. I don't know whether the green swirl in the background is supposed to be a script "T" or what.
The inlay on the second side shows what I think is a carousel white horse with a fancy green bridle and a green/orange/yellow decorative collar or harness, with what looks a bit like a blue pyramid (or maybe a circus tent?) in the background. The text is limited to the casino name in black outline around pink fill and the denomination presented the same as on the first side.
Nothing on this chip fluoresces under UV light.
I have not been able to identify the manufacturer of this chip. I did find this September 2016 article (three months prior to the table games opening) describing the significant contract win by Scientific Games Corporation “to provide a host of games, systems and table products” for the Tioga Downs expansion, including chip sorters, but it doesn’t mention who would be providing the chips themselves.
Looking closely at the colorful center inlays, I can see four faint impressions at roughly the 2, 4, 7, and 10 o’clock positions on each side, just inside the gray perimeter ring. Those impressions might be manufacturer’s logos, but I can’t quite make them out. In some cases it looks a bit like a “12”, and others it looks like an overlapping “Lp”, but they seem to differ in orientation. I don’t know how well those will show up in this post, but a somewhat similar shape appears at the 9 o’clock position on the second side, on the face of the “pyramid”, just above the carousel fence.
Anybody know who made this chip?
January 24th, 2019 at 10:47:29 AM
permalink
State: New York
City: Waterloo
Casino: del Lago
OK, so no input yet as to a possible manufacturer of the Tioga Downs chip. Still looking for suggestions and preferably facts/evidence.
After leaving our late-evening visit to that casino and spending the night back in Pennsylvania, we headed out toward the north the following morning, entering the Finger Lakes region of central New York. I think this was the first time we had driven through this beautiful area (other than perhaps skirting it on the New York State Thruway) since our now-late son was completing a couple of his graduate degrees at Cornell.
The ever-reliable Wikipedia informs me that the Finger Lakes of New York are “classic overdeepened, glacial, finger lakes” and that two of them – Cayuga and Seneca – are among the deepest in the United States, with bottoms well below sea level. We drove northward in the band of land between those two lakes. Not being an aficionado, I had not known/remembered that this was wine country. We saw establishments representing more wineries than I could keep count of.
Between the northern tips of Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake lies the village of Waterloo, population 4,171 as of 2010, named after the Waterloo in Belgium, where Napoleon was defeated. About five miles to the north of village central and adjacent to the Thruway lies the del Lago Resort & Casino, which opened in February 2017.
GoogleTranslate suggests to me that “del Lago” means “from the lake” in Spanish and/or “of the lake” in Italian. I think I’ll go with the Italian on this one. According to casinocity.com, this establishment’s “94,000 square foot gaming space features 1,980 gaming machines and 113 table and poker games.” I didn’t count them myself. I did, however, find a $15-minimum craps table where I managed to lose just $10 in a 25-minute session in the early afternoon while collecting my souvenir.
The $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip, with four, narrow, evenly-spaced, olive, edge inserts with pink edge inserts of the same size abutting two of those olive ones across from each other. This is similar geometry to the six edge inserts we recently saw on the Live! chip from Maryland.
The white center inlay has a near-perimeter double ring of narrow red lines with what looks like a red flower blossom securing them at each of the main compass points. Inside the inner ring, there is a faint gray background image that looks like a decorative geometric floral pattern. Everything on the center inlay except for that background pattern is in red. From top to bottom, first there is a similar (not really identical) small geometric floral pattern with an “L” in the center of that smaller pattern, next the name “del LAGO”, followed by “RESORT • CASINO” in a very small font, then the denomination, and finally the city and state, in all caps. UV light reveals the hidden Paulson hat and cane logo in the center.
Guesses as to the next casino stop? (No fair checking back with the map that I posted!)
City: Waterloo
Casino: del Lago
OK, so no input yet as to a possible manufacturer of the Tioga Downs chip. Still looking for suggestions and preferably facts/evidence.
After leaving our late-evening visit to that casino and spending the night back in Pennsylvania, we headed out toward the north the following morning, entering the Finger Lakes region of central New York. I think this was the first time we had driven through this beautiful area (other than perhaps skirting it on the New York State Thruway) since our now-late son was completing a couple of his graduate degrees at Cornell.
The ever-reliable Wikipedia informs me that the Finger Lakes of New York are “classic overdeepened, glacial, finger lakes” and that two of them – Cayuga and Seneca – are among the deepest in the United States, with bottoms well below sea level. We drove northward in the band of land between those two lakes. Not being an aficionado, I had not known/remembered that this was wine country. We saw establishments representing more wineries than I could keep count of.
Between the northern tips of Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake lies the village of Waterloo, population 4,171 as of 2010, named after the Waterloo in Belgium, where Napoleon was defeated. About five miles to the north of village central and adjacent to the Thruway lies the del Lago Resort & Casino, which opened in February 2017.
GoogleTranslate suggests to me that “del Lago” means “from the lake” in Spanish and/or “of the lake” in Italian. I think I’ll go with the Italian on this one. According to casinocity.com, this establishment’s “94,000 square foot gaming space features 1,980 gaming machines and 113 table and poker games.” I didn’t count them myself. I did, however, find a $15-minimum craps table where I managed to lose just $10 in a 25-minute session in the early afternoon while collecting my souvenir.
The $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip, with four, narrow, evenly-spaced, olive, edge inserts with pink edge inserts of the same size abutting two of those olive ones across from each other. This is similar geometry to the six edge inserts we recently saw on the Live! chip from Maryland.
The white center inlay has a near-perimeter double ring of narrow red lines with what looks like a red flower blossom securing them at each of the main compass points. Inside the inner ring, there is a faint gray background image that looks like a decorative geometric floral pattern. Everything on the center inlay except for that background pattern is in red. From top to bottom, first there is a similar (not really identical) small geometric floral pattern with an “L” in the center of that smaller pattern, next the name “del LAGO”, followed by “RESORT • CASINO” in a very small font, then the denomination, and finally the city and state, in all caps. UV light reveals the hidden Paulson hat and cane logo in the center.
Guesses as to the next casino stop? (No fair checking back with the map that I posted!)
January 25th, 2019 at 11:22:11 AM
permalink
State: New York
City: Bridgeport
Casino: Point Place
OK, so my rambling prose is boring the crud out of folks. I can’t even generate responses by asking for suggestions about who manufactured a chip (two days ago) or by posing a trick question asking (yesterday) for “Guesses as to the next casino stop?” (Well, you’re still stuck with my rambling, boring prose for a couple more days!)
That topic about “next casino stop” was a trick question because of the wording. The next casino in which we stopped on that trip was in Canada. We headed west from del Lago on the Thruway then a bit north to cross the border over Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls. We then visited the Elements Casino in Brantford before heading back to check into our hotel in Niagara Falls. However, that is not the next casino “stop” for this thread. I have already said that I am now posting chips that are all from New York. OK, so maybe it wasn’t a very clever or entertaining trick question.
After visiting five Canadian casinos and collecting four souvenir chips as part of a clockwise loop around Lake Ontario (minus the “horizontally-delivered sleet” reported by rdw4potus), we re-entered the U.S., crossing the St. Lawrence River via Hill Island and Wellesley Island at the extreme northern end of I-81. This remote, thousand-islands setting just has to be the easiest, no-congestion, border crossing point into the U.S. that I have ever encountered – a real breeze to go through.
Except this time. No, there was no traffic backup, but as we entered the checkpoint, we presented our Global Entry cards to make us eligible for the very shortest line; i.e., just our car. Unfortunately, my wife’s card had expired on her birthday the day before. We had no idea that this was the year that our Global Entry cards expired – hadn’t even looked – and our passports are good for quite a while longer. The guard noted that there really was no problem, but we did have to go inside the building while they checked everything out. We both submitted applications for new cards when we got home.
So on that morning we had left Niagara Falls and stopped at Casino Woodbine in Toronto, at Shorlelines Casino Peterborough, and at Shorelines Casino Belleville before being challenged at the border. By the time we had driven another eighty-some miles south to Cicero where we planned to spend the night, my wife had had enough casinos and enough riding for one day. I, however, had one more chip I wanted to collect.
The Point Place casino opened in Bridgeport, NY on 3/1/18, and their web site says, “Our state-of-the-art casino is home to the best gaming in New York. With 20 classic table games and 500 slot machines, there are loads of ways to win.”
It also says that their table games don’t open until 10 AM. We had places to go on down the road the next day, so I didn’t want to wait around in the morning for them to get going. Solution: We got dinner in Cicero, checked into our hotel, and I let her relax there while I drove the eight miles over to Point Place casino to pick up my souvenir.
Maybe I would have been happier if I had waited until the next day. One of their “classic table games” was a $5-minimum craps table where in just half an hour I managed to throw away $200.
The $1 souvenir that cost $200 is a white RHC Paulson chip that seems to seek the minimalist motif. It has four narrow edge inserts, two each in blue and black. The center inlays on each side have a white segment of the circle that contains just the denomination in blue, and a blue segment of the circle with content in white. On the first side, that content is limited to the name of the casino – no city, no state, nothing else. On the other side, I’m not even sure what the white scribble pattern is supposed to be. If it is supposed to represent an evergreen tree (disregarding the color), then either the tree or the denomination must be laying on its side. I only suggest that “tree” possibility, because their web site has similar graphics in red/brown with the point facing upward. I just dunno.
UV light reveals a hidden Paulson hat and cane logo at the center of each side, with the blue edge inserts fluorescing also. Yes, the hidden logo on the second side is oriented to suggest that maybe the “tree” is supposed to be upgright and the denomination laying on its side. Not the way I took the photos.
City: Bridgeport
Casino: Point Place
OK, so my rambling prose is boring the crud out of folks. I can’t even generate responses by asking for suggestions about who manufactured a chip (two days ago) or by posing a trick question asking (yesterday) for “Guesses as to the next casino stop?” (Well, you’re still stuck with my rambling, boring prose for a couple more days!)
That topic about “next casino stop” was a trick question because of the wording. The next casino in which we stopped on that trip was in Canada. We headed west from del Lago on the Thruway then a bit north to cross the border over Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls. We then visited the Elements Casino in Brantford before heading back to check into our hotel in Niagara Falls. However, that is not the next casino “stop” for this thread. I have already said that I am now posting chips that are all from New York. OK, so maybe it wasn’t a very clever or entertaining trick question.
After visiting five Canadian casinos and collecting four souvenir chips as part of a clockwise loop around Lake Ontario (minus the “horizontally-delivered sleet” reported by rdw4potus), we re-entered the U.S., crossing the St. Lawrence River via Hill Island and Wellesley Island at the extreme northern end of I-81. This remote, thousand-islands setting just has to be the easiest, no-congestion, border crossing point into the U.S. that I have ever encountered – a real breeze to go through.
Except this time. No, there was no traffic backup, but as we entered the checkpoint, we presented our Global Entry cards to make us eligible for the very shortest line; i.e., just our car. Unfortunately, my wife’s card had expired on her birthday the day before. We had no idea that this was the year that our Global Entry cards expired – hadn’t even looked – and our passports are good for quite a while longer. The guard noted that there really was no problem, but we did have to go inside the building while they checked everything out. We both submitted applications for new cards when we got home.
So on that morning we had left Niagara Falls and stopped at Casino Woodbine in Toronto, at Shorlelines Casino Peterborough, and at Shorelines Casino Belleville before being challenged at the border. By the time we had driven another eighty-some miles south to Cicero where we planned to spend the night, my wife had had enough casinos and enough riding for one day. I, however, had one more chip I wanted to collect.
The Point Place casino opened in Bridgeport, NY on 3/1/18, and their web site says, “Our state-of-the-art casino is home to the best gaming in New York. With 20 classic table games and 500 slot machines, there are loads of ways to win.”
It also says that their table games don’t open until 10 AM. We had places to go on down the road the next day, so I didn’t want to wait around in the morning for them to get going. Solution: We got dinner in Cicero, checked into our hotel, and I let her relax there while I drove the eight miles over to Point Place casino to pick up my souvenir.
Maybe I would have been happier if I had waited until the next day. One of their “classic table games” was a $5-minimum craps table where in just half an hour I managed to throw away $200.
The $1 souvenir that cost $200 is a white RHC Paulson chip that seems to seek the minimalist motif. It has four narrow edge inserts, two each in blue and black. The center inlays on each side have a white segment of the circle that contains just the denomination in blue, and a blue segment of the circle with content in white. On the first side, that content is limited to the name of the casino – no city, no state, nothing else. On the other side, I’m not even sure what the white scribble pattern is supposed to be. If it is supposed to represent an evergreen tree (disregarding the color), then either the tree or the denomination must be laying on its side. I only suggest that “tree” possibility, because their web site has similar graphics in red/brown with the point facing upward. I just dunno.
UV light reveals a hidden Paulson hat and cane logo at the center of each side, with the blue edge inserts fluorescing also. Yes, the hidden logo on the second side is oriented to suggest that maybe the “tree” is supposed to be upgright and the denomination laying on its side. Not the way I took the photos.
January 25th, 2019 at 11:52:38 AM
permalink
What's a global entry card? Is it issued by the U.S. Government to be used in lieu of a passport? Is it different than an international driver's license?
The scribble looks like a seismograph recording of a 3.4 magnitude earthquake. Do you recall it as a motif in the casino?
The scribble looks like a seismograph recording of a 3.4 magnitude earthquake. Do you recall it as a motif in the casino?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
January 25th, 2019 at 12:09:22 PM
permalink
Global Entry is one of the Trusted Traveler Programs of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. The others are NEXUS (don't know what it stands for but it is specifically for two-way entry between the U.S. and Canada), SENTRI (Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection -- a similar program for the Mexican border), and FAST (Free and Secure Trade -- for commercial carriers at both the Mexican and Canadian borders).Quote: AyecarumbaWhat's a global entry card?
Read about them here.
My wife and I got Global Entry cards because it was a fairly simple way to get access to the TSA PreCheck lanes at airports.
January 25th, 2019 at 2:36:42 PM
permalink
I was in Monte Carlo and got a chip from the Casino of Monte Carlo, where James Bond plays. I won a quick bet and didn't cash out. The chip is now on my desk
The best things in life are not free.
January 25th, 2019 at 5:04:02 PM
permalink
Doc it looks like an arrowhead to me, is this an Indian casino?
Also my lack of participation in this thread is due to me currently being abroad.
Also my lack of participation in this thread is due to me currently being abroad.
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
January 25th, 2019 at 8:52:50 PM
permalink
Good eye; I completely missed that possibility. Yes, this is owned by the Oneida Indian Nation, just like the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, which I visited in September 2015.Quote: PokerGrinderDoc it looks like an arrowhead to me, is this an Indian casino?
Guess it's fine to have an arrowhead pointing horizontally.
And gee, best not to let AxelWolf see that last phrase of your post.
;-)
January 25th, 2019 at 8:59:49 PM
permalink
Yep, I've got one from there on my desk, too, along with the rest of my collection. I picked up my Monte-Carlo chip in the "American salon" section of the casino, or at least what was called the American salon when I was there -- they were doing some remodeling.Quote: LovecompsI was in Monte Carlo and got a chip from the Casino of Monte Carlo, where James Bond plays. I won a quick bet and didn't cash out. The chip is now on my desk
Last edited by: Doc on Jan 25, 2019
January 26th, 2019 at 1:22:25 PM
permalink
State: New York
City: Schenectady
Casino: Rivers
That loss at the Point Place craps table was not a one-time-on-the-trip experience. Leaving there, I did not have another winning session until I made it to Atlantic City three days later.
After spending the night in Cicero -- hearing that name, I can only think of that "Cell Block Tango" sung by the female inmates in the musical play & movie “Chicago”. You know the one: “Pop. Six. Squish. Uh uh. Cicero” etc. Yeah, I know – that song refers to a different city by the same name. Anyway, after spending the night there, we dropped a little to the south and headed eastbound on I-90 – yes, that same New York State Thruway that took us westward from del Lago toward Niagara Falls a few days earlier. We were headed toward the state capital of Albany but stopped off a little earlier than that in Schenectady. Maybe it’s because I’m a southerner, but I always have trouble remembering how to spell that city’s name.
There, on the shore of the Mohawk River lies the aptly-named Rivers Casino, which opened in February 2017. The MoGH Chip Guide, which I frequently reference, includes on its page for this casino the comment, “Rivers Casino & Resort at Mohawk Harbor in Schenectady, New York, is an integral part of a $450 million private investment in a mixed-use development being built on one of the oldest brownfields in the United States.”
I took a quick look at this location on GoogleMaps on my computer and selected the satellite view option. What’s showing there right now is an out-of-date satellite record of the way the property looked before the casino was built. Just in case someone ever reads this post after Google updates their images, I decided to save a copy of what’s showing now.
My first reaction was that this might have been a coal-ash field from a power plant or something. It looked awful, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I tried a search on “site history of Rivers casino property” and thought I had found something at this page, but then I realized that was the property for the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh.
I did notice, in that satellite image above, that there is an STS Steel Inc. location shown there, so I figured this might have been a steel mill site, not much different from the one in Pittsburgh. I finally came up with an article from the Albany Business Review from the time that the site was chosen for a New York casino license. It includes these comments:
I haven’t dug into it enough to explain the discrepancy between the “$450 million private investment” reference a few paragraphs above and this reference to a $150 million development. Maybe the casino itself is the difference.
We had lunch at the Dukes Chophouse at Rivers Casino. Then I played $10-minimum craps for an hour and lost $75, which I think might be a better life experience than having to spend the same amount of time in the dumping grounds of a dead steel mill.
The $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip – how many times have I posted that in the past couple of weeks? It has two very-wide edge inserts in yellow and green. The center inlay is white for the top ~55%, with a script half-R logo in a more dull-gold tone than it appears in the photo, with the RIVERS CASINO & RESORT name in black and a gold underline below that. The lower portion of the inlay is that same dull-gold tone with the denomination, city and state in white.
UV light reveals the repeating “RIVERS CASINO”, including the typo that we would be surprised not to find, even though we can’t really explain it. The green edge insert also fluoresces.
City: Schenectady
Casino: Rivers
That loss at the Point Place craps table was not a one-time-on-the-trip experience. Leaving there, I did not have another winning session until I made it to Atlantic City three days later.
After spending the night in Cicero -- hearing that name, I can only think of that "Cell Block Tango" sung by the female inmates in the musical play & movie “Chicago”. You know the one: “Pop. Six. Squish. Uh uh. Cicero” etc. Yeah, I know – that song refers to a different city by the same name. Anyway, after spending the night there, we dropped a little to the south and headed eastbound on I-90 – yes, that same New York State Thruway that took us westward from del Lago toward Niagara Falls a few days earlier. We were headed toward the state capital of Albany but stopped off a little earlier than that in Schenectady. Maybe it’s because I’m a southerner, but I always have trouble remembering how to spell that city’s name.
There, on the shore of the Mohawk River lies the aptly-named Rivers Casino, which opened in February 2017. The MoGH Chip Guide, which I frequently reference, includes on its page for this casino the comment, “Rivers Casino & Resort at Mohawk Harbor in Schenectady, New York, is an integral part of a $450 million private investment in a mixed-use development being built on one of the oldest brownfields in the United States.”
I took a quick look at this location on GoogleMaps on my computer and selected the satellite view option. What’s showing there right now is an out-of-date satellite record of the way the property looked before the casino was built. Just in case someone ever reads this post after Google updates their images, I decided to save a copy of what’s showing now.
My first reaction was that this might have been a coal-ash field from a power plant or something. It looked awful, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I tried a search on “site history of Rivers casino property” and thought I had found something at this page, but then I realized that was the property for the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh.
I did notice, in that satellite image above, that there is an STS Steel Inc. location shown there, so I figured this might have been a steel mill site, not much different from the one in Pittsburgh. I finally came up with an article from the Albany Business Review from the time that the site was chosen for a New York casino license. It includes these comments:
Quote: Albany Business ReviewThe Schenectady site is off Erie Boulevard along the Mohawk River, land that was once polluted from the time when Schnectady was an industrial powerhouse. The property has since been cleaned by the Galesi Group of Rotterdam as part of a $150 million development being built next to the casino called Mohawk Harbor that will have a hotel, apartments, stores and a newly-dug harbor.
I haven’t dug into it enough to explain the discrepancy between the “$450 million private investment” reference a few paragraphs above and this reference to a $150 million development. Maybe the casino itself is the difference.
We had lunch at the Dukes Chophouse at Rivers Casino. Then I played $10-minimum craps for an hour and lost $75, which I think might be a better life experience than having to spend the same amount of time in the dumping grounds of a dead steel mill.
The $1 souvenir is a white RHC Paulson chip – how many times have I posted that in the past couple of weeks? It has two very-wide edge inserts in yellow and green. The center inlay is white for the top ~55%, with a script half-R logo in a more dull-gold tone than it appears in the photo, with the RIVERS CASINO & RESORT name in black and a gold underline below that. The lower portion of the inlay is that same dull-gold tone with the denomination, city and state in white.
UV light reveals the repeating “RIVERS CASINO”, including the typo that we would be surprised not to find, even though we can’t really explain it. The green edge insert also fluoresces.
January 27th, 2019 at 10:37:10 AM
permalink
State: New York
City: Monticello
Casino: Resorts World Catskills
After having presented that post header in bold, including the casino location, I should note that I have seen some references that say Resorts World Catskills is located in Monticello, NY and others that claim that it is in Kiamesha Lake, NY. According to GoogleMaps, those two places are 2.9 miles apart by the most direct road between them, with the casino being (by the direct roads once again) 4.2 miles from the former and 2.9 miles from the latter.
Yes, the Catskills are mountains, and both the locations and direct routes can involve some uncertainty, even for things in reasonably close proximity. “Yes”, I used my GPS to find the place, and “No”, I don’t have any idea by what route I got through those last half-dozen miles or so.
Given that my previous CCotD post left off with our being at the Rivers Casino, my route from there to Resorts World Catskills was far from direct. It took us through two other states. Heading southeast from Schenectady, we entered Massachusetts to visit the MGM in Springfield, turned southward into Connecticut to spend the night in Southington (SW of Hartford), then back to the west the following morning and into New York, to Monticello/Kiamesha Lake/whatever.
Resorts World Catskills opened on 2/8/18 on the site of the former Concord Hotel, according to a note on the Chip Guide page. I don’t know whether that hotel is incorporated into the casino complex or was perhaps demolished. Does anyone know the facility history and want to report it?
The casinocity.com listing for this place says, "The casino's 100,000 square foot gaming space features 2,150 gaming machines and 169 table and poker games. The property has eight restaurants, one bar and a hotel with 390 rooms."
My notes say that we had our lunch at the 24/7 Diner at Resorts World, but I have no memory of it. They also say I spent 45 minutes at a $10-minimum craps table and lost $100. I think I must have purged that memory, too, but the experience certainly sounds typical for me, and I do have a souvenir from the place.
While I may have purged that memory of the craps table, writing those words triggered a flicker, and I did a search of this site. Five days after my visit to Resorts World Catskills, I made a post in someone else's thread started specifically about that casino. Re-reading my own post, I think the unpleasant experience I described might have led to my purging of memories soon after my visit.
That $1 souvenir is, once again, a white RHC Paulson chip, and this one has that same six-narrow-edge-inserts-in-four-groups pattern that we have seen twice before in this recent series of my posts (Live! and del Lago). This time the two opposing solo inserts are green, with the other two green ones accompanied by blue inserts.
The center inlay has a gray perimeter band with a couple of light streaks running from upper left to lower right. There is a central white circle that contains the snake-in-a-circle RW logo in red followed by “Resorts World” in a red script and “CATSKILLS” in a plain, sans-serif black font, and finally the denomination in black outline around gray. Yes, there is a red streak that I assume came from this white chip being scraped against a red $5 chip. I should have photographed the other side, but I didn't catch this until making this post.
UV light reveals the Paulson logo in the center.
This chip is the last new one that I have available to share at this time, and PokerGrinder seems to still be wandering South America. Some day he will get home and treat us to a travel blog write-up that is much more entertaining than what I write, plus post a bunch of new chips for us.
In the interim, are there any other members who have chips from casinos that have not yet been covered in this thread? If you’re not sure of what’s gone on before, just check the index on page #1 of the thread.
If you have interesting chips from casinos that have already been covered but those particular chips have not been displayed here, please share those with us during this dead period, too. If the casino has already been covered, you don’t need to follow our standard Casino Chip of the Day format, and your post won’t be included in the index (though there might be a link posted somewhere to direct readers to it. Just post the chip image and tell us whatever interesting story you have about it – the chip or the casino!
City: Monticello
Casino: Resorts World Catskills
After having presented that post header in bold, including the casino location, I should note that I have seen some references that say Resorts World Catskills is located in Monticello, NY and others that claim that it is in Kiamesha Lake, NY. According to GoogleMaps, those two places are 2.9 miles apart by the most direct road between them, with the casino being (by the direct roads once again) 4.2 miles from the former and 2.9 miles from the latter.
Yes, the Catskills are mountains, and both the locations and direct routes can involve some uncertainty, even for things in reasonably close proximity. “Yes”, I used my GPS to find the place, and “No”, I don’t have any idea by what route I got through those last half-dozen miles or so.
Given that my previous CCotD post left off with our being at the Rivers Casino, my route from there to Resorts World Catskills was far from direct. It took us through two other states. Heading southeast from Schenectady, we entered Massachusetts to visit the MGM in Springfield, turned southward into Connecticut to spend the night in Southington (SW of Hartford), then back to the west the following morning and into New York, to Monticello/Kiamesha Lake/whatever.
Resorts World Catskills opened on 2/8/18 on the site of the former Concord Hotel, according to a note on the Chip Guide page. I don’t know whether that hotel is incorporated into the casino complex or was perhaps demolished. Does anyone know the facility history and want to report it?
The casinocity.com listing for this place says, "The casino's 100,000 square foot gaming space features 2,150 gaming machines and 169 table and poker games. The property has eight restaurants, one bar and a hotel with 390 rooms."
My notes say that we had our lunch at the 24/7 Diner at Resorts World, but I have no memory of it. They also say I spent 45 minutes at a $10-minimum craps table and lost $100. I think I must have purged that memory, too, but the experience certainly sounds typical for me, and I do have a souvenir from the place.
While I may have purged that memory of the craps table, writing those words triggered a flicker, and I did a search of this site. Five days after my visit to Resorts World Catskills, I made a post in someone else's thread started specifically about that casino. Re-reading my own post, I think the unpleasant experience I described might have led to my purging of memories soon after my visit.
That $1 souvenir is, once again, a white RHC Paulson chip, and this one has that same six-narrow-edge-inserts-in-four-groups pattern that we have seen twice before in this recent series of my posts (Live! and del Lago). This time the two opposing solo inserts are green, with the other two green ones accompanied by blue inserts.
The center inlay has a gray perimeter band with a couple of light streaks running from upper left to lower right. There is a central white circle that contains the snake-in-a-circle RW logo in red followed by “Resorts World” in a red script and “CATSKILLS” in a plain, sans-serif black font, and finally the denomination in black outline around gray. Yes, there is a red streak that I assume came from this white chip being scraped against a red $5 chip. I should have photographed the other side, but I didn't catch this until making this post.
UV light reveals the Paulson logo in the center.
This chip is the last new one that I have available to share at this time, and PokerGrinder seems to still be wandering South America. Some day he will get home and treat us to a travel blog write-up that is much more entertaining than what I write, plus post a bunch of new chips for us.
In the interim, are there any other members who have chips from casinos that have not yet been covered in this thread? If you’re not sure of what’s gone on before, just check the index on page #1 of the thread.
If you have interesting chips from casinos that have already been covered but those particular chips have not been displayed here, please share those with us during this dead period, too. If the casino has already been covered, you don’t need to follow our standard Casino Chip of the Day format, and your post won’t be included in the index (though there might be a link posted somewhere to direct readers to it. Just post the chip image and tell us whatever interesting story you have about it – the chip or the casino!
February 3rd, 2019 at 2:08:54 PM
permalink
Quote: DocState: Nevada
City: Las Vegas
Casino: Park MGM
I just aquired a Park MGM chip and was curious if the visibly printed hat and cane in the insert is a new thing? I assume it was placed there because the name of the property is impressed around the ring where the hat and cane logos usually go.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
February 4th, 2019 at 11:50:45 AM
permalink
I don't think it is a particularly new technique/feature, just one that is not very common. If you check the chip that I collected from the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in December 2010 and posted in this thread in April 2012, it has a similar, visible, and somewhat-larger hat-and-cane logo printed on the center inlay. Yes, both chips have the casino name molded into the perimeter where the logos are often molded, and neither of them has a logo that fluoresces under UV light.
February 7th, 2019 at 11:14:42 AM
permalink
I ended up in Salta, Argentina for a day by accident and I found two casinos with tables but they don’t open until 6 tonight. My flight leaves at 7:30... crap!
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
February 7th, 2019 at 9:02:57 PM
permalink
PG, that's the kind of situation where I have purchased a chip at the cage and then put a dollar in a slot machine to be able to say I gambled at the casino.
I am late seeing your post, but how close was the airport to the casino? With my Casino Azores chip, I described my down-to-the-wire schedule to collect that one.
I am late seeing your post, but how close was the airport to the casino? With my Casino Azores chip, I described my down-to-the-wire schedule to collect that one.
February 7th, 2019 at 9:53:16 PM
permalink
20 minutes away, there was no way I would have been able to make it in time for the flight.
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
February 8th, 2019 at 8:49:28 AM
permalink
Quote: PokerGrinderI ended up in Salta, Argentina for a day by accident and I found two casinos with tables but they don’t open until 6 tonight. My flight leaves at 7:30... crap!
Bummer PG. How does one end up in Salta “by accident”?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
February 8th, 2019 at 6:29:45 PM
permalink
That will come with the TR if my damn wifi ever stops sucking. I’ve written them but I can’t get enough wifi to upload the pictures.
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
February 24th, 2019 at 7:07:16 AM
permalink
I’m waiting for my plane in Aruba and I’m taking inventory of my chips from this trip. The count is currently as follows:
Peru - 8
Aruba - 13
Chile - 4
Colombia - 9
I will be spending the next 36 hours in Bogotá if my plane ever decides to show up. Tonight I will be finishing my collecting in South America with 3 more casinos and 1 that I’m 50/50 on it being open. All together 34 new casinos and I’m hoping to make it 38.
Peru - 8
Aruba - 13
Chile - 4
Colombia - 9
I will be spending the next 36 hours in Bogotá if my plane ever decides to show up. Tonight I will be finishing my collecting in South America with 3 more casinos and 1 that I’m 50/50 on it being open. All together 34 new casinos and I’m hoping to make it 38.
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
February 28th, 2019 at 10:26:50 PM
permalink
I’m thinking of doing New Mexico and Arizona collecting after Spring Fling. Can I do that all in 3 days? I’ll have to map it out later.
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
February 28th, 2019 at 11:27:01 PM
permalink
I wouldn't have the stamina to do all of that driving in 3 days. I don't think I will be collecting any new chips at all during the upcoming Spring Fling trip. Maybe by next year's gathering the Virgin Las Vegas will be operating under that new name.
March 1st, 2019 at 12:04:03 AM
permalink
You’re not going to make the 7 hour drive to Wa She Shu Casino? Lol
You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston
March 1st, 2019 at 9:11:21 AM
permalink
Quote: PokerGrinderI’m thinking of doing New Mexico and Arizona collecting after Spring Fling. Can I do that all in 3 days? I’ll have to map it out later.
You could get Phoenix, abq, and the couple on i40 in 3 days. Would be hard to also do rural casinos with table hours to contend with.
"So as the clock ticked and the day passed, opportunity met preparation, and luck happened." - Maurice Clarett
