Casino Chip of the Day

Quote: Doc

The chip shown below has extreme but certainly understandable similarity to the Harrah's Lake Tahoe chip posted four days ago.

The same good color match, too. I'd like to see how the designer of those chips dresses ;)

Quote: Nareed

The same good color match, too. I'd like to see how the designer of those chips dresses ;)

It's probably some hairy fat guy in the back room of the shop at Gaming Partners International in Las Vegas, where he wears military boots, bib overalls, and no shirt or underwear.

Quote: Doc

It's probably some hairy fat guy in the back room of the shop at Gaming Partners International in Las Vegas, where he wears military boots, bib overalls, and no shirt or underwear.

How'd you get my description?

I stayed at Harvey's when I visited Tahoe last fall. I was impressed with the room, less so with the casino itself. Almost no tables were open while i was there. I guess that WAS during a juniors bicycle race, so maybe the hotel was busy at the casino's expense?

I swear I took a picture of the other side of this chip, but I can't find it in photobucket. If I find it later, I'll update this post. IIRC, the front of the chip is very similar to the front of Doc's $1 chip.

Quote: Doc

I have once again stumbled upon conflicting (?) pages in Wikipedia. The really surprising thing perhaps is that I continue to be surprised by such things.

Ding, ding, ding! Winner of the funniest net comment today!

---

Regarding your link problems and discovery:

After many months of telling us why he doesn't want to do it, JB has added functionality to convert anything that looks like an url, to a clickable url.

He sent me a PM about it a few days ago, asking me to test it, and attempt to get it to fail.

Since it's his baby, I figured he should be the one to announce that it has been implemented.

But perhaps you have found an unanticipated problem with it.

Sent a PM to JB and let him know.

Quote: Johnzimbo

Here is my Harveys chip from around 1990. As we discussed when I posted my Harrah's Tahoe chips, those and this one have brass inserts and inlays and this Harveys chip, which has an even larger inlay than my Harrah's chips, seems to be the heaviest chip in my collection

Harveys

For the record, those brass pieces are not inlays and inserts per se, although they may be called that.

It is a brass core around which there is molded plastic. The "inlay" and "inserts" are merely raised portions of the brass core.

Check page 10 of the Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club Chipology PDF


By the way, this might be a good time to make note of this:

That PDF, as well as some other useful links scattered in this thread, have been added as a handy reference, to the bottom of the first post in this thread.

Quote: rdw4potus

I stayed at Harvey's when I visited Tahoe last fall. I was impressed with the room, less so with the casino itself. Almost no tables were open while i was there. I guess that WAS during a juniors bicycle race, so maybe the hotel was busy at the casino's expense?

I was just there on monday (memorial day) and Harvey's only had two table games open (one BJ and one PaiGowPoker)...Across the street, Harrah's had a LOT of games open...but only ONE (of five) crap tables open..at $10 minimum!

Quote: Nareed

... You obviously speak the same language as the camera.

Just came across your post -- missed it somehow last night.

In response, ... well, my camera is a Nikon, and the only Japanese I ever learned was "hai" and "iie". I don't think I ever even figured out the difference between "domo" and "arigato". And I don't have a talking camera.

Quote: Doc

In response, ...

In response, you don't take compliments well ;)

State: Nevada
City: Las Vegas
Casino: Hooters

Hooters Casino Hotel is located a little east of the strip on the south side of Tropicana Avenue, beyond all of the Tropicana casino and hotel buildings and beyond all of their open parking lots. That means that Hooters is right across the street from the main entrance to the MGM Grand, about the middle east/west of that on-strip property. Yes, the MGM is a big place on a big tract of land. I think Hooters is classified as a strip casino, but it's got to be one of the smallest and among the least obvious to someone travelling on Las Vegas Boulevard.

According to that far-from-reliable source I keep checking, Hooters started out as a Howard Johnson Hotel in 1973 and went through several ownership and name changes. By the time I first visited Las Vegas in 2003, it had been known as the Hotel San Remo for about four years. That is a name used by a number of hotels around the world – San Francisco, California; Rome, Italy; Ibiza, Spain; Larnaca, Cyprus -- and I don't think there is any connection between them. Even though my wife and I stayed right next door at the Tropicana for our first half dozen visits to the city, I never made it to the San Remo to play and collect a chip before it closed as that incarnation.

After renovation of the facility, Hooters opened with great fanfare in 2006. I don't think it has ever made a profit, and ownership changed once again through bankruptcy court action just a few months ago. Wiki claims the new owner is former creditor Canpartners Realty Holding Company, a subsidiary of Canyon Capital. The latest NGCB report says that a one-year casino license for the establishment is held by Navegante Gaming. If the casino-hotel's web site admits to any ownership, I can't find it. I can only assume that Canyon Capital has contracted with Navegante to operate the casino until other arrangements are made. Yes, pacomartin should participate more actively in this thread.

This is a very nice Paulson chip with the casino name and city molded into the perimeter, along with a couple of palm trees. (Why aren't there any owls on the chip?) It is white with two somewhat triangular edge inserts in colors I would describe as lime and rust. The center inlays fit nicely, and I like the way the images have the reversed orientation and different contrasts; it makes it look as if the center of the chip is translucent, with the girl and tree being seen through a veil.

The UV image reveals the Paulson top hat and cane in the center with the repeated "Hooters" on the inlay. Once again, they sneaked in a misspelling. That makes 3 out of 3 chips so far with that kind of repeated word that include a single spelling error. Does anyone here know anyone on the inside of the chip industry who might be willing and able to explain that to us?

According to the MOGH catalog, this was the original $1 chip issued in 2006 when the casino reopened under the Hooters name. That catalog shows an almost identical chip issued in 2007 that has the darker silhouette inlay image on both sides, with a tiny hat and cane added just below the "$". I have no idea what hidden images might be on that inlay.

As you post images of your Hooters Casino chips, please also post chips from the San Remo or any of the earlier editions of the casinos in this facility. I don't have any of them myself.

I didn't grab a chip the one time I visited Hooters but do have a couple funny stories from that visit.

My best buddy Pete (who is legally blind) and I went to Hooters to see Bobby Slayton, the "pitbull of comedy". Bobby has this nickname because he is politically incorrect and holds no prisoners, so I tried telling Pete we probably shouldn't sit near the front...but Pete always likes to sit close, so we did. Shortly after the show started Bobby noticed the two of us sitting by ourselves so for the entire show we were the "homos". He made fun of us several times and at one point Pete leans over and says "John, are these homo guys getting pissed off?" He didn't know that "we" were the "homos"!

We signed up for their player's card and I got a deck of cards for that and Pete got something else that he just shoved into his pocket. It wasn't until we were going through airport security that he gets pulled aside for having a swiss army knife in his carry on bag hehe.

I've spent a lot of time at Hooters over the past couple years, looking for non-Hooters-girls $5 chips. I can't find one. This chip was the least gaudy that I could find. I guess there are worse things in the world than searching through pictures of Hooters girls while playing blackjack - the search goes on!

Quote: rdw4potus

I've spent a lot of time at Hooters over the past couple years, looking for non-Hooters-girls $5 chips. I can't find one.

I have no recollection of the $5 chips in play back when I collected my $1 souvenir. The MOGH catalog shows a $5 chip with a center inlay that is identical to mine except for the denomination mark. That chip was issued in 2006 like mine, so there might still be some around -- keep looking! :-)

That catalog shows five chips similar to yours as having been issued in 2008. One side of each chip shows five Hooters girls together -- they appear to be standing around a pool table, but only one girl has a cue. The other side shows one of the girls alone, wearing the same outfit as in the group shot. None of them are wearing the signature orange shorts and tee shirt.

The other side of your chip does show all five Hooters girls, doesn't it? Why were you holding out on us?

Quote: rdw4potus

I've spent a lot of time at Hooters over the past couple years, looking for non-Hooters-girls $5 chips. I can't find one.

I thougth men liekd those kinds of chips...

BTW, though it's late and out of order, I noticed at the 4 Queens a wide variety of inlays on the $5 chips. I swear there were about a dozen different ones at least.

Quote: Nareed

... I noticed at the 4 Queens a wide variety of inlays on the $5 chips. I swear there were about a dozen different ones at least.

The MOGH catalog displays more than 25 different "limited edition" $5 chips that the Four Queens has issued just since 2000. I expect a whole lot of those are still in play. I think rdw4potus tries to avoid these "collector's" chips, so I don't know whether he had any trouble finding the more conventional chip that he posted.

Quote: Doc

The MOGH catalog displays more than 25 different "limited edition" $5 chips that the Four Queens has issued just since 2000. I expect a whole lot of those are still in play. I think rdw4potus tries to avoid these "collector's" chips, so I don't know whether he had any trouble finding the more conventional chip that he posted.

I do collect bland chips, and I did have trouble at 4 Queens. I bought in for $200, requested all reds, and I still had to play for a while before I found a decent "plain" chip.

My problem at Hooters is that no "normal" chip was available at all. I had a hard time at Palms, and at Hardrock, but I eventually succeeded at those casinos. Hooters seems to only have the "girlie" $5 chips. I'm not sure what to do with that one when the collection is displayed. I guess it isn't exactly NSFW, but it's not ideal either...

Something just occurred to me that perhaps I should mention. For those of you who pay attention to the order in which I am posting chips and who might have thought I missed one between Harvey's and Hooters, I have the Las Vegas Hilton (as well as the renamed Las Vegas Hotel) alphabetized under "L". Another of those cases where I might not always be consistent. We'll get to those chips eventually.

I've been to Hooter's a few times, and was always disappointed at the attractiveness of the cocktail waitresses.

As I mentioned recently, when I was in Vegas last month, I made it to Hooters for the first time. I had heard that they were having a free dinner promo ending that week. If you've seen me, you know I don't turn down food, particularly free food.

So I walked there from Bally's - despite the fact that I had a car. The walk, at about 8pm, was nice but long. Got there and looked around. I had been to local Hooters restaurants a total of twice. The girls are easy one the eyes. I was looking forward to seeing what the quality of the girls at the casino in Vegas looked like. Sigh. I'm not sure the girls there would even get a job at the Hooters near home. Apparently, all the quality girls were working elsewhere.

So I went to get the free steak details. Sign up for their player card, go to the restaurant and get a free prime rib with potato. There's a requirement to purchase one drink for $2.50. I ordered iced tea. I have no idea if that required drink could be beer or booze for the same $2.50. Anyway, it was a fine piece of meat, well worth the price listed on the menu, which I think was $9.95.

After dinner, I played poker. The poker "room" was just a space with two poker tables, only one was running. One dealer and one floorperson. The two switched positions every half hour or so. While playing, I was looking thru the chips. I generally don't save chips unless they are designed to be souvenirs. Therefore, I have few $1 chips in my collection, and finances keep me from having many $5 chips.

While looking thru my stack, and seeing that every chip was different, I resolved to not take ANY souvenir chips home.

Because I was in seat 5, I could easily see the chips in the pot. At one point I noticed a chip, perked up, and asked the dealer if I could swap him for that chip. I wasn't even pointing to a chip, and he knew which one I wanted. "The twins?"


Note, while I respect NSFW attitudes enough to hide the images, I REALLY don't think they're actually NSFW.

My $1 chip is different than Docs. Same image on both sides, and a visible Paulson logo.

Admin note: removed link to www.djteddybear.com/images/chips_large/hooters.JPGAdmin note: removed image www.djteddybear.com/images/chips_thumb/hooters.JPG

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Hooter's Twins $5 chip

Click for high res.
Admin note: removed link to www.djteddybear.com/images/twins_1_l.jpgAdmin note: removed image www.djteddybear.com/images/twins_1_s.jpg Admin note: removed link to www.djteddybear.com/images/twins_2_l.jpg Admin note: removed image www.djteddybear.com/images/twins_2_s.jpg
Because of the printing, the edge impression is very hard to photograph. Heck, when looking at it, I gotta rock the chip to read the whole thing:
HOOTERS CASINO HOTEL
• LAS VEGAS, NEVADA •
Instead of bullets, they use palm trees.

Note, while I respect NSFW attitudes enough to hide the images, I REALLY don't think they're actually NSFW.

Wow, they're very cute. I usually don't worry about NSFW issues at all (I work on a trade floor, next to a guy who was apparently a George Carlin disciple); but now the worlds most conservative woman works back to back with me. Until the floor mentality either breaks her or runs her off, I'm trying to be more careful...so this was a nice post to view upon returning home:-)

Shouldn't this chip be called the quadruplets?

Quote: WongBo

Shouldn't this chip be called the quadruplets?

Only the back....

State: Nevada
City: Las Vegas
Casino: Horseshoe

When I posted my chip from Binion's casino earlier in this thread, I included the comment:

Quote: Doc on 3/27/12

Binion's is, of course, the current incarnation of (Binion's) Horseshoe, founded by Benny, "managed" into the ground by his descendants (or so I understand), raided by the feds in 2004, shuttered for months, and bought by Harrah's who flipped it, taking the Horseshoe name and the WSOP with them.

I used the small font then for "Binion's" in order to emphasize the Horseshoe name. I'm not sure how much more I should say about the original place. Benny Binion purchased both the Eldorado Club and the Apache Hotel in 1951, reopening them as the Horseshoe. In 1988, just the year before Benny's death, the Horseshoe acquired and expanded into the adjacent space that had been the Mint hotel and casino.

There are a lot of tales about the casino, but most of them really seem to be more about Benny, and they are told better elsewhere than I could re-tell them here. It would probably have been fun, even for a low-roller like me, to play there when the place was managed by Benny, before all of the decline. I think maybe I was lucky just to have grabbed a Horseshoe Las Vegas souvenir chip before Harrah's absconded with the name.

Back when we were discussing Binion's, Johnzimbo posted (a little prematurely) an image of a chip he picked up when the place was known as the Horseshoe Club. I suggested that he post it again when we got to "H" and tell us more of the history. Perhaps he'll be kind enough to do so now. There was also a miniature image of an identical chip posted back then by ten2win.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson hat and cane design with three edge inserts in colors I would describe as brown, maroon, and baby blue. The brown and maroon are close enough that a casual glance might make them appear as the same color. I have seen that photo of Benny Binion several places, including in history displays in several Horseshoe casinos, but I don't know where it originated. Anyone know?

This is one of six $1 chip designs that the MOGH catalog shows as having been issued by the Horseshoe casino in 2004. That is quite surprising to me, since the raid by federal agents occurred on January 9th of that year, and the casino was shut down by the next day. I visited Las Vegas in September 2003, March 2004 (while the Horseshoe was closed), and not again until December 2004. I don't remember on which trip I collected this souvenir. Either the chip had been issued back in 2003 or was still in use in December 2004 after the casino had changed names.

I did not take a photo of this chip under UV light, since there is nothing that fluoresces except one of the edge inserts. I only mention this because the fluorescence amuses me – it makes the maroon insert (upper right) look the same baby blue color as the one on the upper left).

Here is my reposted Horseshoe chip



I never stayed at the Horseshoe or Binions but played there often. My best memory is from 1995 when I was casino wandering downtown and went to the back of the Horseshoe and stumbled across a huge crowd. They were playing and filming the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event, so I watched for an hour or so. Of course, watching poker without seeing hole cards is not very exciting but knowing the winner would get $1,000,000 made it interesting. Even better was later that night when I wandered into their poker room and found a cash game table where each player looked to have 50k or more in front. Each pot that was played ended with pots of 10k or more and I was sweating just watching the huge sums change hands.

Thanks, Johnzimbo, for both the re-posted image and the poker story.

I'm not really sure about the poker room situation today in that (now Binion's) casino. I think there is still a poker room in that back area, right behind the main cage, but I have never seen anyone playing there. Is it reserved for tournaments or something? Has that area been changed from what I remember?

In June a year ago, at WoVCon I, the gathered group of members played poker in a different room that I think is right on the edge where the original Horseshoe property abutted the Mint. The Binion's web site has some photos, but they make the room look larger than I remember. I might have misremembered the location within the property, too. That is the only place and time that I have played poker in Las Vegas.

Here is my Horseshoe chip:


This is probably one of the first chips I collected from back in the 80's. They had the best craps game, paying $3.50 for a $3.00 place bet on the 6 or 8. They also let players bet DIMES to take max advantage of rounding up by the casino.

The poker room off of where the porte-cochere used to be is still used for tournaments, but it was being used as floor space to sell discount T-shirts and jackets the last time I walked through there in April. The jackets appeared to be name brands, but every jacket was $10, so buyer beware...

Nice chip, Ayecarumba! MOGH says that one was issued in 1999, but they don't identify the manufacturer. The antiquegamingchips.com site just calls this the Unicorn mold and says it was used by multiple manufacturers in the U.S., including Chipco, as well as companies abroad.


Edit: by "nice chip", I meant it is nice to see one of the older, less common chips, particularly a legitimate "quarter" chip. But I think that's about what the hot stamped chips look like they are worth. They are not really all that "nice" compared to the ones with attractive center inlays.

And where's rdw4potus today? Did he start his collection early enough to have picked up a Horseshoe Las Vegas chip?

State: Nevada
City: Henderson
Casino: Hyatt

Our sixty-fifth Casino Chip of the Day is from the Hyatt Regency Henderson, which was a casino-hotel located on the shore of Lake Las Vegas. I have noted previously that my souvenir chip from there is one of only three in my collection that I purchased from a cashier without playing any of the games. Prior to my trip to Las Vegas in late November 2006, the casino had publicly announced that it would be closing in just a very few days. My wife and I drove out to Lake Las Vegas to play a while and pick up the souvenir, but they had already slashed the operating hours of the tables and were not open when we were there.

In checking my records, I find that I misrepresented the situation when I posted about this previously. I claimed that we went out to Lake Las Vegas on the day we were departing the area, so that I knew I would never be able to get back for a souvenir before the casino closed. Unless someone has surreptitiously edited my calendar log, we were actually out there much earlier in our trip, but we had lots of stuff on our agenda, including a little mid-visit excursion down to San Diego, so I just must not have been confident that I could get back out to the lake and casino at a time they would be open. Not an intentional falsehood, folks, just an unreliable memory of some details; that's why I try to keep a bit of a log. In any case, buying the chip from the cashier was a better option than risking never getting one.

The hotel and casino opened in 1999, with a game plan to offer visitors to the area an elegant resort and casino away from the bright lights and hubbub of the strip. Promo literature from that time proclaimed, "Unlike any other casino in the Las Vegas area, two-story windows offer magnificent views of the lake and surrounding mountains."

As things turned out, it seems that Las Vegas visitors actually want bright lights and hubbub. Who would have guessed? The casino closed right after my visit and never reopened. The hotel was sold and reopened very quickly as the Loews Lake Las Vegas in December 2006. I revisited the facility in 2008, just to see what it was like. Some convention or trade show was going on, and I could see that the former casino area had been converted to a ballroom or showcase hall and had a fair number of booths in operation that day. I could see nothing left to suggest it had been a casino.

Well, it seems that closing a hotel's casino during a recession is not really a guaranteed way to make a profit either. The Loews defaulted on its mortgage in 2009 and has been under control of a court-supervised receiver for the last few years. The property has been managed by Pyramid Hotel Group, which I just learned also manages the Westin Las Vegas hotel that houses the Casuarina casino. (Yes, as Face said in the Black Sheep Game thread, I do often provide a daily dose of trivia here, even about the Casuarina!)

Anyway, a Las Vegas Sun article I found from March of this year says that the Lake Las Vegas property would be changing its name that week to Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa. However, it noted that foreclosure proceedings have been pending since last December, and the name change did not seem to address that. At least the Westin Lake Las Vegas web site is functioning, for now.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson hat and cane mold, with two triangular edge inserts in green and olive. The center inlay overlaps the chip's outer ring just a tad, which always looks a little sloppy to me, but it has a nice aerial photograph of the hotel. The UV light reveals a bright Paulson hat and cane in the center.

The MOGH catalog says this chip was issued in 1999 when the casino opened and shows no other $1 chip having ever been issued by this casino. It does show a $5 chip that is imprinted "First Edition Dec. 17, 1999" and notes that it was used for the entire life of the casino.

Does anyone else have a Hyatt Regency Henderson chip to share with us? (Hold on to your chips from the other Hyatt Regency until tomorrow.) Even if you didn't save a chip, did anyone (unlike me) ever play in that casino?

Quote: Doc

Even if you didn't save a chip, did anyone (unlike me) ever play in that casino?

I have a chip from there, but it's identical to yours and I don't know how to post this stuff anyways, so no need to duplicate the chip.

I DID play there once. I have a friend in Henderson who swore up and down this was his favorite casino. So he took me there. It was basically a hotel with a casino in one of the convention area/ballrooms. The windows were VERY impressive, except I was there at night, so the view was lost on me. However, the picture on the chip is probably close to what a view in that area would look like. The games were minimal, a few blackjack maybe a roulette. I played at a $10 table, while my friend played 20 bucks on the slots. I don't remember a ton more about the place though.

Quote: Doc

Does anyone else have a Hyatt Regency Henderson chip to share with us? (Hold on to your chips from the other Hyatt Regency until tomorrow.) Even if you didn't save a chip, did anyone (unlike me) ever play in that casino?

I stayed at Lake Las Vegas before the casino in the Hyatt opened. It was actually a nice place, with a little "village" of shops and restaurants, a great view of the valley at night, and outdoor ICE SKATING in the winter time. They also had golf, but I am not a golfer so I can't comment on their facilities. It is a distance from the Strip, so I can understand why you would not get back there.

My LLV chip is from the Casino Montelago, but I expect it to come up when the list gets to the M's.

LA Times article on a now 74 year old retiree who was the model for a 50th anniversary Riviera chip.

link

Quote: Ayecarumba

My LLV chip is from the Casino Montelago, but I expect it to come up when the list gets to the M's.

Indeed it will. Three weeks from tomorrow, if I don't miss any days.

State: Nevada
City: Lake Tahoe
Casino: Hyatt

Yesterday, I spent some time preparing more photo images for future Casino Chip of the Day entries. I was starting to run low on the supply that I prepared when I started this thread. For each image, I assign a name related to the casino, trim to a square a little larger than the chip, store it full-sized, create and store the two sizes that I post in this thread, then upload those to my domain file server. It takes a while. Yesterday, I worked my way through the rest of the images for Nevada casinos, and I now have a supply that would last through the second week of August, even if I were around to post every day. And I have two trips planned for July that will shift things by a couple of weeks.

I mention all that to explain why yesterday I didn't get around to thinking about what I was going to say about today's Casino Chip of the Day. I just figured I would probably come up with something.

Previously, we have discussed "Lake Tahoe" casinos that are really in the border town of Stateline, Nevada, and a couple of "Lake Tahoe" casinos that are in the other border town/community of Crystal Bay. The Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa, and Casino is in Incline Village, Nevada, a different community – different as in "another" community and different in that it is not there specifically to provide a bunch of casinos conveniently available to California residents.

There is no Wikipedia page at all for this Hyatt hotel-casino, and the Wiki page for Incline Village does not even include the word "casino" (at least not this morning). Instead, it has a section listing "famous" current and past residents, like Mike Love of the Beach Boys and Warren Buffett. I think the whole town is a fairly laid-back place where you go to get away from excitement, rather than seek it out.

To the best of my knowledge, the Hyatt has the only casino in Incline Village, and the casino is not really the big attraction at the Hyatt. This is another example of a genuine resort that offers the lake-and-spa environment and also happens to have a small casino in case you are interested in that. The hotel's own web site mentions the casino four times – twice when listing the name of the establishment, once briefly in the overview, and once in the list of activities available. They claim a AAA Four Diamond rating.

I am a little confused on when the casino even opened. The MOGH catalog claims that it opened in 1990 but then shows a commemorative chip labeled "20th Birthday – Jan. '95". Assuming they didn't celebrate a 20th birthday after just five years, my best guess is that the resort was established in 1975 with the casino being added in 1990. The earliest chips shown in that catalog have issue dates of 1990.

The chip shown below was manufactured by Chipco , and the CI logo may be seen on the left side, hidden in the gray stripe. The MOGH catalog says it was issued "2006-08". I am not at all sure what a range of issue dates means. There is an almost identical $1 chip that was issued in 1991 with a slightly different color scheme, and in 2000 there was a series of $5 chips that acknowledged the Incline Village, Nevada location on one side and on the other showed a variety of scenes of the area in different seasons. Perhaps someone has one of those to post for us all to see.

Did anyone perhaps visit this casino prior to 1990 and have some corrections to offer to this post?

You know, upside down printing looks odd when it's not done on playing cards...

My Hyatt Regency chip is almost all metal, and is by far the heaviest chip in my collection. I think Johnzimbo was saying that about his chips from Harrah's and Harvey's. I wonder if the heavy use of brass is/was a Lake Tahoe thing? I haven't seen that anywhere else...

My trip up to the North Lake Tahoe casinos was somewhat harrowing. My rental did not like the steep turns or high altitude AT ALL. There was a point around 11,000 feet elevation where I pretty much started praying to the giant spaghetti monster to keep my car going up the hill. I did make it, and I didn't have as much problem on the way back down. In retrospect, I probably paid too much attention to the GPS, which led me up from Reno to the top of a giant hill and then back down to Incline Village. I could have taken a longer but less ridiculous route if I'd just looked at a map.

Thanks for posting that chip, rdw4potus. The MOGH catalog shows that as being one in the series of original (?) chips issued in 1990. They don't show any 1990 $1 chips, but in addition to your $5 chip, they have similar designs in $2.50, $25, and $100 denominations. The opposite sides of the chips show geometric designs that I cannot tell whether they are printed or are more genuine brass. The $2.50 chip has three lines; the $5 chip has five lines, and the $25 chip has five groups of five lines each. The lines are of different lengths so that as a group on each chip they form a triangle or pie slice or maybe a mountain, and they are clustered near one of the five edge pieces of brass -- near all five of them on the $25 chip. The $100 chip has a solid pie-shaped area, rather than lines, near one of the edge pieces. I suppose that leaves the possibility of five pie-shaped areas on a $500 chip, but they don't show one in the catalog.

Can you tell us whether the lines on the back of your chip (and the "$5" on the front) are printed or are more brass?

Quote: Doc

I am a little confused on when the casino even opened. The MOGH catalog claims that it opened in 1990 but then shows a commemorative chip labeled "20th Birthday – Jan. '95". Assuming they didn't celebrate a 20th birthday after just five years, my best guess is that the resort was established in 1975 with the casino being added in 1990. The earliest chips shown in that catalog have issue dates of 1990.



Did anyone perhaps visit this casino prior to 1990 and have some corrections to offer to this post?

My Chip Price Guide lists the "Hyatt Lake Tahoe" open from 1976-1990 then the "Hyatt Regency" 1990-now. I haven't ever been there :(

Thanks, Johnzimbo. I don't have a price guide, but if I had bothered to turn my brain on this morning, I would have noticed the Hyatt Lake Tahoe listed in the MOGH catalog as "closed". It did, indeed, have the same address as the present Hyatt Regency, so it was probably just a name adjustment in 1990. The MOGH catalog shows a number of chips from the casino under the earlier name that are all Paulson hat and cane chips of either LCV or SCV design.

I left "Regency" out of the name of today's and yesterday's chips for a selfish, convenience reason. The index table in the first post of this thread started out much narrower than the page width. As I have added long casino names, sometimes with differentiating city names, the columns have adjusted wider. Now the table is very nearly as wide as the page will allow, and I'm not sure what would happen if it got too wide. At one time, the page layout turned into a problem for some viewers each time someone posted a very wide photo. That seemed to be a "feature" of Internet Explorer, and JB eventually worked around it. I'm using wishful thinking to help put off the day I might have to rework that table, but for now I don't want to use excessively-long names for the casino, such as "Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa, and Casino." Or even "Hyatt Regency (Lake Tahoe)".

I was just looking at the thread announcing the review of Texas Station that teddys wrote, and I finally read his review. It brought to mind a question about chips.

My souvenir chip from that place just says "Texas Gambling Hall and Hotel", mentioning nothing about "Station". I checked the MOGH catalog, and it says that Texas Gambling Hall and Hotel operated 1995 to 1996 and that "Texas Station Gambling Hall and Hotel" has operated from 1996 to the present. Now I was not in the place back in the 90s, so apparently they kept using at least the $1 chips without the Station name on them. The MOGH catalog doesn't show any $1 chips at all including the Station name, but the word is included on the higher denomination chips.

The reason this intrigues me is that when a casino changes name (and chips), I try to go back to get a new chip. I just did that for Arizona Charlies's Boulder, since my old chip said Arizona Charlie's East. I also want to get a D chip whenever the former Fitzgeralds gets the new chips in play. I have both Barbary Coast and Bill's Gamblin' Hall chips and both South Coast and South Point chips.

So how should I deal with this for Texas (Station) Gambling Hall? Does anyone know whether they ever introduced $1 chips that say "Station" on them? I need to know whether they exist and then decide whether one should be added to my collection at the next opportunity. If I go that route, it would be nice to pick one up before this thread gets to "T", but I don't think that will happen. The first step is to find out whether they exist.

Any input?

Quote: Doc

Any input?

Sorry, none.

However, this brings up a question: what's the average lifetime of a $1 casino chip? Are any even retired from circulation, such as it is, due to wear and tear?

EDIT: hey, the thread has reached 100 pages!

A few days ago, when I was posting catch-up batches of chip images under UV light, I posted the Hacienda chip, saying that the UV light revealed a faint Bud Jones "BJ" logo. I said at the time that I should try to get a better photo of that. I set up again today and got what I think is a better image. Check out both versions back here.

State: Nevada
City: Las Vegas
Casino: Imperial Palace

The Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino opened in 1959 as the Flamingo Capri. In 1979, it was sold to Ralph Engelstad who renamed it the Imperial Palace and converted it to an Asian theme. Engelstad expanded the facility and added entertainment, but he also brought controversy. The NGCB was displeased with publicity from a number of Nazi-themed parties that he held in what was described as his "war room" in the hotel, complete with a collection of Nazi memorabilia and a portrait of Engelstad as Hitler. (No, I am not trying to apply Godwin's Law to this thread.)

The NGCB proposed that for reflecting poorly on the reputation of the industry, Englestad should lose his license and pay a $200,000 fine. In the end, he kept his license but paid $1.5 million in penalties. He died in 2002, and the hotel-casino was owned by a family trust until it was purchased by Harrah's in 2005. It remains a property of Caesar's Entertainment and is likely to have a substantial makeover and name change in connection with development of the Project Linq area. For now, the Imperial Palace remains the site of the as-yet-unresolved buffet challenge between Croupier and Nareed.

The chip shown below was manufactured by Paulson, and I only know that from information provided in the MOGH catalog. This chip was issued in 1992, and there were several other very-similar chips. One listed as having been issued "1990s" is so similar that I cannot pick out any differences that couldn't be explained as the hot stamped printing having faded differently -- I have seen plenty of chips which have the hot stamp printing almost completely worn off. Another listed as issued in 2007 has a tiny top hat and cane to the right of the "$1", which is my only indication of the manufacturer of these chips. And one variant issued in 1986 did not have the "NV" after Las Vegas and had a fatter "1" with the "$" positioned higher. There were a couple of similar chips issued in the early 80s, also without the "NV", in shades of blue instead of gray.

As you post your images of Imperial Palace chips, please go ahead and post images that look similar to mine. Together we can try to pick out any differences that I may have missed on my own. Also please post any Flamingo Capri chips you might have collected while the casino operated under that name; I have none of those myself.

This isn't quite a backwards compliment, but that chip is as ugly as the IP's rooms :)

Quick, Doc, reply now and score the 1,000th post!

Quote: Nareed

Quick, Doc, reply now and score the 1,000th post!

Now why would I do that? SOOPOO has already noted that this is a "sad" event for another thread here.

Quote: Doc

Now why would I do that? SOOPOO has already noted that this is a "sad" event for another thread here.

Why did you? :P

Now that Doc has taken the 1000th post, I can proceed with my IP chip image:-)

I don't mind the IP's casino. I don't think it's much worse than the Flamingo, about on par with Bill's. I've never stayed there, but I suppose I would if it were the only free offer that CET gave me or something. Actually, I'd probably take an offer from Stations first...

Anyway...What will happen with the IP when the Linq is completed? Will it be radically changed? They're not really going to call that thing a Horseshoe, are they?

I have a $1 blue chip in rough shape which my guide says is their second issue and a $1 grey chip (4th issue) which looks to my eyes to be identical to Doc's. When I snagged my second issue chip I should have searched for a good specimen as my guide says in average shape it would be valued at $30 today. When you see how crappy my chip is, you'll agree I'd be lucky to get $1.50 for it hehe

Quote: rdw4potus

I've never stayed there, but I suppose I would if it were the only free offer that CET gave me or something. Actually, I'd probably take an offer from Stations first...

The rooms aren't that bad, but they are deteriorating. Or they were in 09 when I stayed there. There was rust around the sink fawcet, for instance.

Quote:

Anyway...What will happen with the IP when the Linq is completed? Will it be radically changed? They're not really going to call that thing a Horseshoe, are they?

Oh, yeah. I forgot that. I walked through it once, and it's being remodeled. Mostly the outisde, but there was some work going on in the front of the casino and property.

deleted

As some of you remember, I wrote what woulde become the official WoV Imperial Palace review: https://wizardofvegas.com/hotels/imperial-palace/

When I walked by this past May, I saw lots of work going on, so maybe things will improve. But prior to that work, I would say that "run down" is an understatement. And the buffet is an experience best left for the truly adventurous - provided they have an iron stomach!