Casino Chip of the Day

Quote: DogHand

Quote: PokerGrinder

State: Illinois
City: East St Louis
Casino: DraftKings at Casino Queen

<snip>Not sure what the symbol in the middle is supposed to be but it looks like a “Q” in 3/4 of a box.


link to original post

PokerGrinder,

I think that symbol is a stylized "CQ" for Casino Queen. For a chip only about 2 years old, your specimen is really dirty.

The last time I visited Casino Queen they were still on the boat, so I guess it's been a while!

Dog Hand
link to original post

Duh, today’s stupid award goes to PokerGrinder.

State: Wisconsin
City: Hayward
Casino: Sevenwinds

Today’s chip of the day is from Sevenwinds Casino in Hayward, Wisconsin. Sevenwinds was Lac Courte Oreilles Casino until 2018 when they changed the name but they used the old name’s chips for at least a year afterward. I kept checking to see if they had the new chips and around late 2019 I found that they did. I didn’t go last year as they were only opening the tables on Friday and Saturday due to Covid. I went about 4 months ago but even after looking at pictures of the place I don’t remember it at all… Sevenwinds has 492 slots and 13 table games.

The chip is blue with 4 pink/green/pink and 4 pink/white/pink edge inserts. The centre inlay is white/blue with the casino name, location and chip denom in black. The logo is a bunch of triangles in yellow, grey and orange.

That’s the end of my currents posts until I collect more chips.

So a big "Thank you" to PG for the latest round of CCotD posts.

(I would have used this forum's feature to just click a Thank You button, but then some bloke might think I was thanking him for ending his run of current posts.)       ;-)

Doc I thought this book I came across might interest you. It’s the about the man who created Paul-son.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/paul-s-endy-jr-las-vegas-casino-gaming-legend-eric-p-endy-mba/1141396963

Today's "Question of the Day" at the Las Vegas Advisor site discusses counterfeiting of casino chips, along with chip manufacturing processes. I thought it was interesting, and I have now added a link to that QoD in this thread's list of "Handy Reference Links", which now appears in post #3, way back on page #1.

Interesting article, nice find.

Sorry for the late reply but I don’t frequent this thread and I never thought y’all would cover Texas poker rooms. When you were at Bullets you were at the site that started it all. That little building is actually in the town on Manchaca just South of Austin and it’s where Sam Von Kennel opened the original Texas Card House, the first legal poker room in Texas (outside a reservation) exploiting a loophole he found in the state gambling laws. That was 2015 and I think he had five tables but the only game spread was 1/2 and you could buy up to the largest stack. Since it was the only game in the region, that meant players of all abilities and experience levels were in the same pool of players. Table 1 became the game for big bankrolls and wild action even though they played the same limits. Funny, from your post it looks like Bullets runs the same way.

Texas Card House stayed there for about three years before moving to the site that you reviewed. Here’s a chip they used at the old place.

Category: Asia
City: Seoul, South Korea
Casino: Seven Luck Coex Center

I was traveling in Asia for work in 2012 and had a free weekend in Seoul. I saw this casino near my hotel in the Gangnam region and checked it out on a Friday night. Like a lot of Asian casinos it is only open to foreigners. You have to show a non Korean passport to get in. It was really small, smokey, crowded and generally unpleasant. They had a handful of table games and some slots. Mostly Asian tourists and about 25% American GIs. I played blackjack at a CSM table for about an hour and left.

The chip is 1000 Won, worth about $0.77.

Excellent addition to the CCotD thread! While this is the 98th Asian casino covered in this thread, it is the very first one from South Korea. I am hoping that these latest two posts suggest that you have more to come for us. ???

Quote: Doc

Excellent addition to the CCotD thread! While this is the 98th Asian casino covered in this thread, it is the very first one from South Korea. I am hoping that these latest two posts suggest that you have more to come for us. ???
link to original post

Well I’m afraid I’m about to disappoint you, Doc. I’m not a collector. I really enjoyed reading all of the Texas posts from PG. and I wanted to share the cheap ugly chip from the little poker room that started the current Texas poker boom. Then I noticed you didn’t have a Korean chip so I thought I’d share that one too.

I’m done with what I’ve been doing in casinos for the last five months so I’m hitting the road for a bit. I’ll be collecting about 25 chips over the next 10 days and I think about half of those will be new to the thread.

Have fun in your travels. I look forward to seeing the new chips!

I ran into quite a bit of trouble with chip collecting in NM. Taos Mountain has permanently removed their tables and to be frank, I don’t understand where in that tiny casino they used to have tables lol. OhKay Casino has permanently removed their tables and although Tesuque has tables the casino is closed on Monday and Tuesday and the days that I had to pass through were those days of course. Sky City’s tables are still closed from Covid so I only collected chips from Route 66, Northern Edge and Fire Rock. I head to Arizona tomorrow before going to Vegas the following day.

I visited Yavapai and Bucky’s tonight in AZ and I was 99% sure Yavapai no longer had tables and they don’t, Bucky’s uses $1 and $5 chips from Bucky’s and $25 and $100 chips from Yavapai for some reason.

During a fishing trip in Montana I managed to escape for a few hours and get some chips from poker games in Missoula. I have some chips to post and would like advice on how to populate the official CCotD header.

The challenge is the name of the "casino." Apparently the way the poker games work in Montana is that any place with a liquor license is allowed to host a poker game, but the game is usually run by another outfit, not the venue itself. I played at two places, a VFW and a bar.

The game at the VFW is advertised on PokerAtlas as "VFW Poker" and was run by "BC Poker." BC is the initials of the guy who owns the poker outfit. They had 2 different chips in play. The 50 cent chip was labelled "BC Poker" while the other chips were from the now closed Silver Tip Casino. My guess is that there would be two entries for these chips: one for the defunct room with re-purposed chips and the other for BC Poker. Doc, does this sound right to you? As a side note, the dealer said they will be getting new VFW chips at some point, so if any enterprising chip collector goes through Missoula after those chips are put in play then they might have the honor of a fresh VFW CCotD post if the concensus is that I *not* make a VFW post.

The second game at the bar was run by an outfit called "Poker Montana." At the time it looked like this outfit might run several games in the state, possibly more than one in Missoula, but I cannot access their website now from home. They blocked access to pokermontana.com, perhaps because I'm out of state? Weird to have access blocked. The chips say "Poker Montana." So, title the post with the name of the bar, or "Poker Montana?" If the entry is for Poker Montana and someone goes to the other locations with similar chips, then I guess they would not be able to make a post. This is similar to the way we handled the Amsterdam casinos.

My go to is to use the name on the chip unless it’s obvious they are using them from another casino. I would title it poker Montana personally. I think Doc is going to have an opposite opinion,

I normally think of casino chips as having the name of the establishment where the games are played, but it seems things are not always so consistent. In these cases, my first inclination is usually to go with the name that appears on the chip, but if such chips are used in numerous places, we try to indicate where this particular chip was collected. I also frequently try to check how other sites have listed the establishment and its chips.

One source for such info is the Museum of Gaming History Chip Guide. That guide does list chips from several VFW posts in Montana, but I think all of those say "VFW" right on the chip. They do list a place as "Poker Club, The" in Missoula, but they say that place closed in 1980. They also list a chip from the "Poker Chip Bar" located in Red Lodge, but I have no idea whether that has any connection to the place you visited. They don't seem to have anything listed as "Poker Montana", but they have a number of chips listed with names beginning with "Montana". I don't think any of those give very useful guidance.

I think I would just need to leave this to your preferences, with the request that you make it clear the name of the establishment and the town/city where it was located. At this time, the thread only has five chips from Montana, so maybe the confusion level won't grow too high.

Here is a thought:
- The Silvertip Cardroom chips were clearly from the Silvertip originally even though they are currently used at the VFW. In the past I've been encouraged to use the room the chips originally came from, so I think these chips should have their own Silvertip post. MOGH has them here: http://chipguide.themogh.org/cg_chip2.php?id=MTMIST&v=2275654917
- The BC Poker chips were collected at the VFW, but maybe they are also used elsewhere. MOGH doesn't have a VFW entry for Missoula. Perhaps just call this "BC Poker at VFW" even though nobody else uses that designation? My inclination is to use "BC Poker" and note in the description where they were collected.
- The Poker Montana chips were collected at Stockman's in Missoula. That room has an MOGH entry here: http://chipguide.themogh.org/cg_chip2.php?id=MTMIS1&v=462227808 but the current chip image looks similar to the chip-like image below. Thanks go to Dieter for digging up the Poker Montana facebook page containing that image. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go to the Hilton where Poker Montana also runs the game to see if they use the same chips. Perhaps call this "Poker Montana at Stockman's?" There is precedent for using the name on the chip instead. The "Granite State Poker" chips may have been used at several cardrooms under the same umbrella, though by the time I first saw them they were in use at Manch Vegas in Manchester NH and I later saw these same cheap plastic chips in Keene, NH. My inclination is to label this entry "Poker Montana" and note in the description where it came from. This would probably mean no posts for other rooms that use the same chip.

I can just decide and make some posts as Doc suggests, but I get the idea some of us enjoy discussing or arguing about this sort of detail.

I just collected the last chip I needed from Arizona.

Ok, so I collected 15 more chips on my trek back to Canada, I made it but my car did not! My car engine died a hour north of Rock Springs, WY and it was going to be $8200 USD to fix it which makes no sense when the car is worth maybe 10k. Soooooo I flew from Rock Springs to Denver to Calgary to Winnipeg and 18 hours later I was home!

Of those 15 chips 8 have been posted as chip of the days but most of the chips are different so I am posting one photo with the new chips. I will start posting the other 7 chips so that they are done before I leave for Europe on July 28th.

State: Missouri
City: St. Louis
Casino: Horseshoe

Today’s chip of the day is from the Horseshoe Casino in St. Louis, Missouri. The former Lumiere Casino changed it’s name to Horseshoe in April of this year. The casino has 1375 slots and 75 table games and poker tables. All the BJ tables were full when I got there so I donated $100 to the UTH table before taking my souvenir and heading to Kansas City. The last time that I was in this casino was in 2012 and it doesn’t look anything like my memory. That could either be they have changed the casino or my memory sucks, both are viable options.

The chip is a white RHC with 2 edge inserts in blue and purple. The centre inlay is white with a giant silver star covering most of it. The casino name, location and chip denom are all in the black and the horseshoe logo is to the left of the casino name.

State: Missouri
City: Kansas City
Casino: Bally’s

Today’s chip of the day is from Bally’s in Kansas City, Missouri.
This casino become Bally’s on August 3, 2021 but I’m not sure when the chips came out exactly. The former Isle of Capri was sold and the name was changed to Casino KC in July of 2020. Based on the generic names of that and Casino Vicksburg they felt like placeholder names to me so I wanted to make sure that I got those chips before they were gone. I was right and the generic names lasted only one year. On my way to Vegas a few weeks ago I was able to make a quick stop in to Bally’s and grab a chip. I played a few hands of BJ and walked away up over $100 after winning every hand I played. I left rather quickly as there is a restaurant called Smokin Aces that I go to every time I’m in KC and they are currently closing at 7 pm due to staffing issues so I didn’t want to miss that. I highly suggest everyone check it out if you’re in KC as they have the best bbq.

The chip is white with 4 green edge inserts. Most of the chip is red inside a flower shape with a shadowed “B” in the background. The casino name, location, chip denom and manufacturer’s logo are all white.

State: Colorado
City: Central City
Casino: Dragon Tiger

Today’s chip of the day is from Dragon Tiger Casino in Central City, Colorado. Dragon Tiger was known as Johnny Z’s until January 22 of this year. Maverick Gaming bought Johnny Z’s, The Z and The Grand Z in October, 2019 but so far they have only changed the name of the one casino. Dragon Tiger is the smallest of the mentioned casinos with 344 slots and 6 table games. The dealers were excited when I sat down to play, they said they only get 4-5 players a night even on weekends. They said they think the tables will be gone again in a year or so but with those numbers I give it 6 months tops.

The chip is still sharp to do 6 months of barely being used. The chip is a white RHC with an oversized grey centre inlay. There are 4 edge inserts in blue and pink, the pink ones are bigger than the blue ones. There is a red dragon and a gold tiger in the black circle in the middle of the inlay. The casino name has the same colouring for the words as the logo, red for dragon and gold for tiger. The location is listed in grey around the edge of the inlay and the denom is listed twice in black.

When Bally's was known as Isle of Capri it was occasionally refered to as "Pile of Debris". Personally I have not been there but have heard horror stories about how was not a well kept property in a less than stelar area.

It’s currently under construction but yes I would agree in my 3 visits there now I’ve always thought it was dingy.

State: Colorado
City: Black Hawk
Casino: Bally’s North

Today’s chip of the day is from Bally’s North in Black Hawk, Colorado. Bally’s North has 552 slots and 9 table games. Golden Mardi Gras was renamed Bally’s North on July 1, 2021.
I stopped in on my drive west to Vegas and played DD BJ for a couple shuffles, I left up $700. The casino looks exactly the same as last time I visited before the name change, I’m not sure if they have plans to fix it up at all.

The chip is white with either squiggly lines or “S’s” all around the white of the chip. There are also 4 brown “S’s” as well. The centre inlay is white with a “B” in the background. The casino name and denom are both in black.

State: Colorado
City: Black Hawk
Casino: Bally’s West

Today’s chip of the day is from Bally’s West in Black Hawk, Colorado. Bally’s West is formerly Golden Gates Casino and changed names on July1, 2021. The casino has 220 slots, around 8 table games and a poker room with about 17 tables. I played DD BJ to grab my chip and lost $300. I actually played the exact same table (in the same spot at least) that I did in 2014 when I collected my chip from Golden Gates.

The chip is white with 12 blue edge inserts and a blue line between each set of 3 inserts. The centre inlay is white with a shadowed “B” in the background. The casino name is red and the denom is black.

State: California
City: Palm Springs
Casino: Agua Caliente

Today’s chip of the day is from Agua Caliente Casino in Palm Springs, California. In 2021 the owners changed the name from Spa Casino to Agua Caliente to match their other two properties in Rancho Mirage and Cathedral City. The casino has 898 slot machines and 22 table games. I was only in the casino for maybe 10 minutes as I was late getting to LA for dinner with a friend. I played 2-3 hands I think and won 2 doubles for a quick $140 profit.

The chip is blue with 4 edge inserts, 2 green and 2 pink. The name of the casino is engraved into the chip twice. The centre inlay is brown with 3 black palm trees and the casino name, location and chip denom in white.

Quote: PokerGrinder

State: California
City: Palm Springs
Casino: Agua Caliente

Today’s chip of the day is from Agua Caliente Casino in Palm Springs, California. In 2021 the owners changed the name from Spa Casino to Agua Caliente to match their other two properties in Rancho Mirage and Cathedral City.
link to original post

We finally get the chip with the new name! Thanks!

(I think they changed the name just before 2020 because I was there in Feb 2020 — a month before the pandemic hit — and I looked for the new chip but it hadn't changed yet.)

Is the race on as to who will be first to post the Hard Rock Sacramento chip? I have the chip and just need the time to write about it! :D

Quote: smoothgrh

... Is the race on as to who will be first to post the Hard Rock Sacramento chip? I have the chip and just need the time to write about it! :D

Well, I'm not even an entrant for such a race. I don't have the chip, and (as best I can recall right now) I have never even been to Sacramento. As for who should post first, my suggestion is that you let PG continue posting whatever chips he has on hand (assuming he posts daily) and then post your Hard Rock chip as the only chip for that day.

Quote: smoothgrh

Quote: PokerGrinder

State: California
City: Palm Springs
Casino: Agua Caliente

Today’s chip of the day is from Agua Caliente Casino in Palm Springs, California. In 2021 the owners changed the name from Spa Casino to Agua Caliente to match their other two properties in Rancho Mirage and Cathedral City.
link to original post

We finally get the chip with the new name! Thanks!

(I think they changed the name just before 2020 because I was there in Feb 2020 — a month before the pandemic hit — and I looked for the new chip but it hadn't changed yet.)

Is the race on as to who will be first to post the Hard Rock Sacramento chip? I have the chip and just need the time to write about it! :D
link to original post

I was there (Agua) around April 2021 and they were using the old chips still.

I have one more chip (and It’s not from Sacramento) to post and then the lead is yours.

State: California
City: Highland
Casino: Yaamava’

Today’s chip of the day is from Yaamava’ Casino in Highland, California. San Manuel Casino became Yaamava Casino on September 24, 2021. Yaamava’ has 4700 slot machines and 130 table games or in other words it’s a massive casino! I stopped in on a Saturday night and it was both packed and insanely loud. Every slot and table seemed to be full and there were people walking around everywhere. I eventually found an open seat at a CSM (continuous shuffler) with a $25 minimum. I played 2-3 hands and won $50 before getting out of there so I could drive back to Vegas. Fun fact San Manuel the former name of this casino was one of the very early chips that I collected. I would say it’s one of the first 30-40 chips that I ever got for my collection back in 2012.

The chip is blue with 3 brown edge inserts and the casino name engraved into the edge of the chip. The centre inlay is white with a blue border. The centre of the chip has a green tree with the casino name over top in black and the denom in blue.

I’m officially out of chips to post. My current collection is at 1058 chips and I plan to add more when I go to Europe next week. I’ll probably spend 2-3 months in Europe but I haven’t fully decided as I booked a one way ticket. I was thinking I might start a travel thread if anybody is interested in reading it. Thanks for letting me post Doc.

State: California
City: Wheatland
Casino: Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sacramento at Fire Mountain

Today’s chip of the day is from the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sacramento at Fire Mountain, which is actually about 35 miles north of Sacramento in the middle of nowhere. In an unincorporated area, the casino has an address for the town of Wheatland, but that’s 7 miles away, and the town of Olivehurst is only 5 miles away. It’s 10 miles from Yuba City to the northwest.

It opened October 30, 2019 and has a reported 140,000 square-foot gambling floor with 1,500 slot machines and 55 table games. The hotel has 168 guest rooms including 31 suites, a pool, spa, and five restaurants. It opened its 2,500-seat Hard Rock Live music and entertainment center on June 3.

I got this chip on Saturday night, July 16, while playing $10 “California” craps. After being down more than $50, I was the hot shooter, making about four points and finishing up $67. They also had $10 CSM blackjack and $15 double deck. I didn’t see any signs posted about 6:5 BJ payouts, but I assumed they all were. There’s no poker room.

The Hard Rock’s decor and vibe is much better than the nearby Thunder Valley, which looks fancy, but lacks the style associated with the Hard Rock brand. I would say the Sacramento Hard Rock, though it has the usual memorabilia, is more minimalist than the Lake Tahoe Hard Rock.

For more details, I wrote a ridiculously verbose trip report.

I saw and read your trip report first, and the whole time I was reading I was thinking: "Am I going to have to remind him to make a CCotD post about this place? Did he even remember to keep a souvenir chip? etc., etc."

Should have realized right away that you would be well ahead of me on that. Anyway, your post is now linked in the thread index!

Thanks Doc! This was a carefully crafted multimedia presentation! 😂

Collected two new chips from Scotland casinos, sadly they are Genting so they are generic and boring.

I went to a third casino that I knew was most likely not going to have original chips and they didn’t. It was the Grosvenor Mayberry and sometimes Grosvenor casinos have non generic chips but it was just their standard purple Grosvenor chip.

I’m up to 4 new chips now after collecting in Glasgow.

Interesting note about the colours here. £1 chips have been either yellow, blue or purple, £5 are green except one casino I went to, £25 are black and £100 are pink. It looks very weird coming for USA/Canada.

That sounds like a confusing time indeed.

Collected one new chip yesterday myself. I’ll post a write-up after I get photos.

State: Virginia
City: Bristol
Casino: Hard Rock

I’ll begin this post with a little background information that I had completely overlooked until very recently (perhaps I was asleep for a couple of years.) In 2019, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia approved casinos in the state, with a few conditions imposed. If I am reading the internet info correctly, they imposed a limit of one casino in each of five designated cities, with the requirement that the residents of each of those cities must approve the casinos in order for them to be opened.

I haven’t dug into the history very well. As I understand it, each of the city governments received proposals from potential casino operators, selected one that they liked, and put the idea up for a yes/no vote of the citizens. The votes were held last November, and the residents of Bristol, Danville, Norfolk, and Portsmouth gave their approvals. In contrast, the people of Richmond rejected the casino proposed for there. From what I have read, in April of this year, a judge gave the city permission to hold a second referendum in November 2022. Then, in June, the legislature nullified that plan, delaying such a move until 2023, giving the city of Petersburg (nearby) the opportunity to pursue an alternate casino proposal and get the license away from Richmond. Perhaps someone who understands this process better than I do can explain it to all of us.

Progress is underway in the first four locations, with construction underway in at least some of them. The one that (apparently) is furthest along is in Bristol (a city that is really in two states, straddling the line between Tennessee and Virginia.) Of course, this really means that there are two cities with the same name on opposite sides of the line, and the casino city is in Virginia.

That operation has opened a temporary casino under the name of “Bristol Casino”, while the signage all around says “Future Home of Hard Rock Hotel and Casino – Bristol.” That facility opened for business on July 8, and the news was a complete surprise to me. It is located in what remains of a closed (perhaps abandoned) shopping center once known as Bristol Mall. The Bristol Casino is on the lowest level of the building, and it is my understanding that the permanent casino (with construction now going on at the opposite side of the structure) will be on the upper floor. That permanent casino is expected to open in 2024.

I visited the Bristol Casino for a couple of days this past week as part of a wedding anniversary trip that my wife and I took. I had communicated in advance with forum member Odiousgambit, a Virginia resident who had not previously made his way to this temporary casino. We have met with him (and usually his wife) a couple of times at the Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina, and he joined us for the visit and gaming in Bristol.

What they have in operation right now seems to be done rather well, so I suspect these facilities will continue to operate when the “permanent” casino opens, perhaps as some sort of annex. I did not count things myself, but a news article says that they have 870 slot machines and 21 table games. They currently have two restaurants (Mr. Lucky’s and a pizza spot, both of which we tried), a bar, a small sports book area, a high-limit area, a small non-smoking casino area with machines only, and the general (smokey) casino area that is almost confusing enough to get lost in.

I only played craps, myself. They had two craps tables, but only one was open during my visits on Tuesday and Wednesday. The minimum wager on Tuesday afternoon/evening and Wednesday morning was $15. (I prefer a $5 table myself, but I can’t seem to find one within driving range of home.) For Wednesday afternoon and evening, the minimum bet jumped to $25. I am not accustomed to seeing that kind of jump mid-day on a week day. I looked around at a few other games and saw both $15 and $25-minimum blackjack games. I glanced into the high-limit area but didn’t linger to check it out. The craps table offered 3x4x5x odds as well as the Fire Bet and what appears to be a copycat of the All-Tall-Small bet, except it is called something like the Little-Biggie-Boom/bust bet. I don't know the background on this, but to this non-lawyer, it looks a bit like an infringement of some sort.

The dealers are still working on their skills, but they were all quite friendly, and I didn’t notice any significant problems. My impression is that some of them had received formal training before the temporary casino opened, and others are being taught on the job. At least for the craps game, the dealers seemed to understand the game better than most of the players.

In planning this trip to a “temporary” casino, I had in mind that I could pick up a souvenir chip from the Bristol Casino now, and then in 2024 I could go back and add another new chip to my collection – that one from the “permanent” Hard Rock Casino – Bristol. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. Apparently they didn’t want to waste money on a “temporary” set of chips, so all of the chips in play have the name of the not-yet-permanently-open “permanent” casino. Thus, I have titled this post with the name on the chip rather than the name the casino is currently using on the door.

The chip is almost new, so it is in very good condition. It is a white RHC Paulson/GPI mold with three very-wide purple edge inserts. The center inlay is a bit oversized, with one side having the Hard Rock logo and the other displaying an orange electric guitar in Hard Rock tradition. All of the text printing is in purple, except for the yellow in the logo.

On both sides of the chip, UV light reveals hidden text with the repeating name “Hard Rock Bristol”. And for those of you who are familiar with the things we have seen before with this type of hidden text, yes there is a very hidden typo in about the same place it usually shows up. Have fun searching for it. If you don’t know what this comment is all about, try reading every word of the fluorescing text. You may click on any of the four images below to see a larger version (which might help if you are scanning the details of fluorescing text.)

If you like to play Craps but prefer to play along with someone you know, and live within hailing distance of North Carolina, definitely make friends with Doc. He's on an extended winning streak, getting the W for each trip he takes for the last numerous. Plus you will be meeting up with fine people, him and his wife, which can be a nice break from the crumb-bums in the usual casino crowd.

He wasn't going to miss this one, seeing as how that winning streak is going plus there's a new chip involved... yep, no way. I'll be blogging about it pretty soon. Some things:

* I was expecting something half-put-together, being temporary, but it was very nice if small. New looking, clean, furbished, nice bathrooms. Perhaps it is going to be part of the new casino when finished. You go all the way to the back of the mall, btw, if you are going.

* Blackjack and other table games: 8 tables in total besides Craps. You had various BJ tables naming themselves by the side game they offered [this used to confuse the hell out of me as to what I was looking at] .......... $15 and $25 though I suppose perhaps sometimes higher. I was informed that BJ paid 6:5 on the former and 3:2 on the latter.

There was one table each for Mississippi Stud, Pai Gow Poker, and something called 5 Treasures. Did not note minimums.

* I've been bemoaning the absence of Craps tables with low minimums in my recent travels, no matter when you show up, and here we go again. I dropped by at 4:30 AM on my way out of there to see if there was Craps going, since someone had told Doc it was 24/7. I never asked anyone if 24/7 was a fact, but a full table with that irritating $15 minimum was going. I don't think they have the personnel for the second table. You can play bubble Craps for $5, 2x odds, each station with its own dice. This allows the system to note whether you are rightside or darkside and make the dice beat you, something not possible when all play against the same dice. Now I don't believe for a minute that is going on [only for a second or two right after getting screwed, which happened in prompt royal style]. I couldn't leave fast enough. Just saying.

Ha Ha.............. I usually reserve that kind of stuff for my blog

Quote: odiousgambit

…
* Blackjack and other table games: 8 tables in total besides Craps. You had various BJ tables naming themselves by the side game they offered [this used to confuse the hell out of me as to what I was looking at.

Perhaps the 21 table games count that I saw in the on-line article was referring to the projected number of tables at the permanent casino, when it opens. I didn’t see any number close to that, unless perhaps if you count the electronic table games, like bubble craps.

this was interesting, have to mention it

the dealers were largely undergoing on the job training, as Doc mentioned. The Box-man was always as good as you'd find anywhere, though, and it seemed the Stick was likely to be well experienced. The other dealers were likely to be needing a lot of help. Stick and Box would help them, and in at least one case I had a dealer that had another guy standing right behind him helping him constantly. This was when the minimum went up to $25, and I was betting max on the odds. The 6 or 8 was the point the first time this had to be paid off when I placed $125 on the odds. The rookie dealer had to ask what he was supposed to pay. Interestingly, the guy behind him was flummoxed for a bit too ... after a short period it was determined to be $150

Of course this meant only one thing: nobody else had been betting max odds. It was 3x4x5x!  That's designed to make it easy for the dealers! No matter if the point was 6/8, 5/9, or 4/10, the payoff for max odds made on the table minimum was going to be $150. Training a newbie, of course you'd expect them to remind them of that first thing, 'payoffs will be $150'. But even the more experienced dealer behind the rookie hadn't prepared himself for that. The thinking likely was, nobody is going to be betting max odds. 

What this tells me is one reason the house is going to the higher minimums now, they are realizing this kills max betting on the free odds.

Chip inventory update:
Edinburgh 2
Glasgow 2
Dublin 5
Galway 2

Also I broke my zip up plastic bag that I got free from MGM properties in Vegas during the pandemic. It was a cheap bag worth about $0.10 but I’ve been using it to hold chips while I travel for 18 months. I guess a ziploc will have to work lol.

I tried to collect a chip tonight from one of the Holland Casinos. I am staying near the one just outside of the central area so I walked over tonight. The table minimum got bj and baccarat are both €20 so they don’t have €1 chips in any of the trays. The other Holland Casino is in central Amsterdam and has poker so I assume they will have €1 chips. If not I’ll have to keep a larger denom chip.

When I played poker there they used mostly 2, 10, and 100 euro chips but there were some 1 euro chips on the table. There was a 5 euro entry fee, but hotels in the area gave away free admission cards.

They recently got rid of the entry fee. I was expecting to pay one but they said they decided it wasn’t necessary anymore.

I went to the casino in city centre today and it seems like the €1 chips just don’t exist anymore so I kept a €5.