Casino Chip of the Day

But I think maybe you guys have had enough beans already.

deleted

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: Doc

State: California
City: Cabazon
Casino: Morongo

I always think about the Blackjack promotion gone wrong whenever I hear about the Morongo.

That's great! Even I would have figured that one out! Have you read the other one about what happened at the Klondike with an advantage of approximately only 1% according to Stanford Wong? They got their asses handed to them in eight hours, just by flat-betting and BS!!! I'd have known the HE to be trimmed down with that rule, to be sure, but I wouldn't actually have thought I was playing at an advantage just off the top of my head.

Quote:

He laughed again. “You don’t understand, Arnold. This rule won’t exist tomorrow. I would be wasting my time. The casino will surrender before the night is through. I guarantee it. 1% to the players is just too strong. With $100 bets, a small casino like that just won’t be able to take it.”

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/surpriseparty.html

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Blazing Saddles is a classic.

Completely agreed. It would actually make a Broadway musical, except you have to figure out how to get horses to act on stage. It's got a lot of music already in it, and the Ballad of Rock Ridge and French Mistake could easily be expanded.

Quote: AcesAndEights

I always think about the Blackjack promotion gone wrong whenever I hear about the Morongo.

I just got around to reading the linked article this morning. It's an interesting tale, but one of the minor points in the article was what caught my attention.

I haven't played much blackjack in recent years, and I probably played the local version of card craps at all of the California tribal casinos that offered it as I made the rounds to collect my souvenir chips. But I don't recall paying a $1/hand drop at tribal casinos when I did play blackjack. I know for certain that I didn't pay any explicit fee to play at the two where I played blackjack just a month ago.

How common is a fee per hand at the tribal casinos in California now? Do they do that even for shoe games? Where?

State: California
City: Pala
Casino: Pala

Pala Casino Spa and Resort is located in its namesake town of Pala, CA, about six miles down state route 76 from I-15. That puts it roughly half way between Temecula and Escondido, or (for those folks not familiar with those towns) about half way between Los Angeles and San Diego, but 20 or 25 miles inland. The chip shown below just indicates the location with the rather indefinite "California".

The casino resort is owned and operated by the Pala Band of Mission Indians. I could not find anywhere on the casino's web site where it discusses the tribe or any affiliation between the casino and a tribe. I may have overlooked something.

According to Wiki, the casino offers 2,000 slots, 87 table games, 10 restaurants, 4 entertainment venues, 507 rooms in the hotel, and a 10,000 sq. ft. spa. For the old timers on the thread who might have such interests, upcoming entertainment available in February includes Don Rickles and Debbie Reynolds appearing together, or at least at the same venue on the same night for a single ticket. I really don't see those two having much in common on stage, other than generation and last initial.

This casino's version of card craps is the one with two non-standard dice of different colors, with the die that rolls the higher number indicating which of two dealt "domino" cards is the roll to be paid. The game also offers the Super Prop bet, which pays off if the two dealt cards are the 2 and 12. The payout is 500-to-1 on what I think is a 647-to-1 probability. No, I'm not trying to start a new discussion on multiple-bet craps probabilities, but it seems the place is charging a really pretty penny to provide extreme variance. It's a bit like wrapping an entire Fire Bet into a single roll.

The casino opened on April 30, 2001, and (according to the MOGH catalog) the chip shown below was issued on opening day. It is a white Bud Jones chip, once again, with gray edge markings and a colorful center inlay with a geometric pattern that I assume matches, or is intended to look as if it matches, traditional tribal art. It reminds me of some of the stuff from Frank Lloyd Wright.

I have searched my calendar, and it appears that I made no note at all of when I visited the Pala casino. I highly suspect that it was during one of the trips I made in April 2007 and April 2009, but I really don't understand why I didn't record it as I did with other casino visits on those trips.

I haven't participated in awhile but I thought I'd jump back in now that I got my scanner up and running again. Here's all of my chips in one big dump:

[spoiler=Large Image][/spoiler]

Here's my Pala chip. I like the vibrancy and color of the chip. It does a pretty good job of capturing the atmosphere of the casino - it's a high-energy place most of the time.

Quote: Doc

Quote: AcesAndEights

I always think about the Blackjack promotion gone wrong whenever I hear about the Morongo.

I just got around to reading the linked article this morning. It's an interesting tale, but one of the minor points in the article was what caught my attention.

I haven't played much blackjack in recent years, and I probably played the local version of card craps at all of the California tribal casinos that offered it as I made the rounds to collect my souvenir chips. But I don't recall paying a $1/hand drop at tribal casinos when I did play blackjack. I know for certain that I didn't pay any explicit fee to play at the two where I played blackjack just a month ago.

How common is a fee per hand at the tribal casinos in California now? Do they do that even for shoe games? Where?

It does not happen at the tribal casinos anymore. The card rooms in CA have player banked versions of BJ where there is a $1 per hand drop. I believe the early tribal casinos had the drop as well. The bottom line is that the drop exists where the house cannot bank the game.

State: California
City: Pauma Valley
Casino: Pauma

Casino Pauma is owned and operated by the Pauma-Yuima Band of Mission Indians. Their casino is on their tribal lands and is located right in the midst of California orchard country, with avocados, oranges, and lemons being grown on tribal land. The casino is positioned within a dozen miles of four other tribal casinos and is about mid way between Harrah's Rincon and Pala.

The casino operates 24-7 in a tent structure with a reported 42,500 sq. ft. of gaming space, more than a thousand gaming machines, and twenty poker and table games. In 2007, when the tribe developed plans to replace the tent with a $300 million casino and hotel resort, they encountered substantial opposition from residents in the area. I have not heard any recent news about this, and I don't know whether delay/cancellation is more likely due to opposition or the economy.

The casino opened May 15, 2001 and is adjoined by the Pauma Pavilion entertainment facility, described as "a covered outdoor venue. That is, another tent next door for concerts and parties.

I have visited Casino Pauma only one time, a morning in April 2009 after spending the night at Harrah's Rincon. I remember missing the turn off route 76 onto Pauma Reservation Road, right across from Jilberto's Taco Shop, and having to turn around. There is no traffic signal and no stop sign on route 76. The only sign noting the presence of a nearby casino is maybe 2 ft. x 4 ft., and if you are driving in from Harrah's as I was, the sign is on the left side of the road well after the turn. I guess customers are supposed to be coming from the other direction.

The chip shown below is a white RHC Paulson hat and cane design with two wide edge inserts in red and purple. I rather expected that UV light would reveal a hidden hat and cane logo in the center of the inlay, but it turned out not to be there. As difficult as it was for me to find the correct turn to the casino, at least this chip provides the name of the town, unlike so many others recently.

Quote: bigfoot66

No one here is a Mel Books fan....

Well, I for one think " It's good to be the king. "

Here's my Pauma chip. I also thought it was difficult to find. I visited at night, traveling from harrah's. I was at least able to see the lights, though it wasn't clear exactly which turn was the right one to get over to the casino.

Pauma is a very bad casino. It is a low budget tent casino with lousy odds on games and bad comps. Even if they were less stingy on comps, they have a snack bar and a bad cafe, what are they gonna comp you? For the record though they just put in a traffic signal at the intersection where you turn off of 76 to get to Pauma, and Jilberto's is still an outstanding place to eat.

Quote: bigfoot66

... For the record though they just put in a traffic signal ....

Thanks for the update. On the very unlikely chance that I ever go back there, maybe I won't come so close to getting lost. Also, I didn't even try Jilberto's; I just scooted on down the road toward Palm Springs and visited two more casinos over on that side of the mountain before sundown.

On second thought, there were probably three more casinos that day -- that's just gotta be the day that I stopped by Pala, just six miles down the road from Casino Pauma, and forgot to record it in my calendar, as I mentioned yesterday. Mystery solved.

I suspect the lack of signage on the road is related to local opposition to the casino. You need the landowner's permission to post signs, and the folks that are along the road may not be inclined to help the casino.

There could also be local zoning that prohibits large or lit signs. Finding Barona and Valley View casinos was like that too.

State: California
City: Temecula
Casino: Pechanga

The Pechanga Resort and Casino is owned and operated by the Pechanga Band of Louiseño Indians. According to the tribal web site, in the Louiseño language, Pechanga (pe-CHONG-ah) literally means "place where the water drips." It is the name of the spring at the foot of the mountain where the tribe was resettled in the late 1800s. They became known as the people who live at Pechaa'ang, or the Pechanga Band.

They opened their casino in 1995 in Temecula. Once again, I have no record in my calendar of ever having been to the casino, but it is obvious to me now that on that April morning in 2009, after checking out at Harrah's Rincon I went directly 4.9 miles to Casino Pauma then 6.0 miles to Pala Casino and next the 6.6 miles further up the road to the Pechanga Resort before heading on to Palm Springs and the two casinos I visited over there. Such a flurry of brief casino stops is not at all unusual for one of my chip-collecting tours through an area where I have not previously played, but apparently my nerdy compulsions were not effective that day, and I just wasn't documenting my adventures.

Pechanga offers a bit different kind of facility from the one described yesterday. Instead of a tent casino with a tent "pavilion," they have a 517-room hotel that has been earning AAA Four Diamond awards since it opened in 2002, nine restaurants plus a food court, three bars, and 200,000 sq. ft. of gaming space with 3,000 machines, 130+ table games and a separate 54-table poker room. Their site claims this is California's biggest casino, but I think I have seen conflicting claims from others – probably based on different measures of bigness.

The chip shown below is white with eight imitation edge inserts and a center graphic that appears to be a combination of a photograph and tribal artwork based on feathers. On the edge of the chip, between those "inserts," the name Pechanga alternates with the $1 denomination, four times each.

Amazingly, the MOGH chip catalog page identifies this as a Chipco chip, even though my sample and the illustration in that catalog both clearly show the Bourgogne-et-Grasset "BG" logo at the three o'clock position. My confidence in that catalog just took a dramatic drop.

Here's my Pechanga chip. I'm surprised how different from Doc's $1 chip this is - we visited the casino about 10 months apart. It does have the same Bourgogne-et-Grasset logo on the right-hand side, which is apparently a secret code indicating that Chipco was the manufacturer.

Both posted chips are the ones currently in use at Pechanga. I actually have pictures of denominations of chips up to $500, just not sure how to post them.

State: California
City: Winterhaven
Casino: Quechan

The Quechan Casino Resort is located in Winterhaven, ¾ mile from Arizona and 1.5 miles from Mexico, and there is a genuine, official border crossing point right there on that road. The resort is, of course, owned and operated by the Quechan tribe on one of their several tracts of reservation.

The original Quechan Casino closed and reopened on the same site in a new guise as the Paradise Casino, in that "North" building 20 feet away from the other Paradise Casino in Ft. Yuma, AZ, as I described almost two weeks ago. The California edition of that casino subsequently closed again when they opened this much nicer facility 7 miles to the west in 2009. They once again chose the tribe's name for the establishment.

The resort's hotel offers 166 guest rooms, a fitness center, onsite truck and RV parking, and a gift shop. For dining, they have a steakhouse, a buffet, a sports bar and grill, and a food court. My wife and I didn't try any of them, just opting for the Red Lobster near our motel in Yuma. The Quechan also offers concert entertainment in the PIPA Event Center, but the only upcoming show I could find advertised was for the The Spinners, appearing November 16. It doesn't sound as if the venue is used heavily.

The casino offers 1,000 machines, seven different card games (their site doesn't mention how many tables), plus an 8-table poker room.

I did not get a souvenir chip when I visited the (California) Paradise casino in the spring of 2003, because that was a few months before I started all of this nonsense of collecting chips. When I made it back to Yuma in January 2010, I saw that the "North" casino had closed, but I did not know about the new one. I made up for that oversight just a month ago when I again headed back to Yuma and picked up a chip in Winterhaven on my way into the city.

I did not note how my gaming went back in 2003, but I managed to lose $25 at $5 blackjack on my recent visit. There were a bunch of young ladies wandering around the casino floor wearing sashes like beauty contestants, but I never figured out just what kind of event was going on. The girls were kinda cute, but they were all so skinny that they almost had to be anorexic models, rather than qualifying as any sort of genuine beauties.

The chip shown below is a white Chipco International product, according to the MOGH catalog, and they are correct this time – the "CI" logo is faintly visible on the left, just below center. The text is all black except for the large Q logo shaking a genuine tail feather. The edge of the chip is printed with "Quechan Casino Resort" in two positions aligned with the imitation edge inserts visible in the image below. The edge also shows two bars at 90° to those on the faces, destroying any possibility of confusing these with real edge inserts.

I've played at Quechan twice, and stayed there once. My meager play the first time was apparently enough to earn me a free room offer, which I used on visit #2. I was surprised how nice the hotel was - it's still not great, but I was expecting Econolodge quality and it's more like a Comfort Inn. The casino itself is big enough to offer a variety of games, and small enough to get around in (it also helps that it's a big square). I got my ass utterly handed to me both times I played there. It was fun, but DAMN! How is it even possible to lose that much $$ $5 at a time in 3 hours?!?

My chip is pretty much exactly the red equivalent of Doc's. I was a little surprised that the chips weren't cleaner and nicer, since the casino was new(ish). Did they keep using the old chips when they moved?

Do these border casino's cater to Mexican nationals by accepting Pesos? Do the poker rooms have an "English Only" rule?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Do these border casino's cater to Mexican nationals by accepting Pesos? Do the poker rooms have an "English Only" rule?

Yes, Pesos are accepted at the cage in the way that CAD are taken in Detroit & Niagara Falls. I'm not sure how easy that border crossing is, or how favorable the exchange rate might be. I'm not even sure there are poker rooms, but the table games have a mostly-unenforced english-only rule.

State: California
City: Salton Sea Beach
Casino: Red Earth

The Salton Sea is an intriguing anomaly. The sea was originally part of the Gulf of California, but then as the Colorado River spent millions of years depositing silt and forming a delta, eventually there were deposits that formed a dike separating the area now known as the Salton Sea. Depending on a variety of factors, it spent hundreds of thousands of years alternating between being a desert basin and being a freshwater lake. The area is lower than sea level, similar to Death Valley, and is directly on the San Andreas fault line.

In the early 1900s, several irrigation canals were constructed by the California Development Company to divert water from the Colorado River into the dry lake bed to provide for agriculture there. This worked OK for a few years, but it seems someone screwed up the plans by not accounting for the continuing flow of silt. At least one of the canals began to fill up. In 1905, heavy rainfall and snow melt gave enough flow in the river that it eroded banks and breached a dike. For about two years, there were sporadic periods in which the full flow of the Colorado River dumped into the depression, and the lake was formed. Since then, it has been maintained at varying depths and coverage areas mostly by irrigation runoff from the farming in the area. The area achieved some success as a resort area.

There is no outflow from the Salton Sea. Eventually the salinity grew higher than sea water and continues to rise. Other minerals (and chemical runoffs) resulted in pollution buildup. Most of the fish in the sea have died or are dying. The only time I ever visited the area on the west side of the sea known as Salton Sea Beach, I was amazed to find that the "beach" was formed of millions of tiny shells from shellfish that have died there.The surrounding valley, however, is one of the richest agricultural areas in the country.

The Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians are a small, federally-recognized tribe that has its reservation in this area. The tribe is named for the village of Toro and the Martinez Indian Agency. According to Wiki, they call themselves Mau-Wl-Mah Su-Kutt Menyil, which is said to mean "among the palms, deer moon." Whatever that means.

According to the Wiki page on nearby Mecca, CA, the tribe did manage to get "federal monetary damage payments" for land loss caused by the creation of the Salton Sea in 1905. I am not clear on whether this means they were compensated by the federal government or won something from the California Development Company (builders of the irrigation project) in a federal court lawsuit.

The tribe owns and operates the Red Earth casino, which opened in 2007 just outside of the community of Salton Sea Beach and just on the west side of state route 86, which runs from the Palm Springs/Palm Desert/Indio area southward on the west side of the Salton Sea to Brawley and El Centro. The casino is located about a mile and a half – as the American white pelican flies – from the shore of the Salton Sea.

I visited the casino just one time, in January 2010, and played blackjack to a breakeven. It wasn't much of a place, and I understand that they have since removed their table games. I drove past the place again about a month ago, but I didn't bother to stop in and check it out. I have my souvenir chip, and there was not really anything else in the place that attracted my interest.

The chip itself is from Chipco and looks a fair amount like yesterday's chip from the Quechan casino. This one is white with a red-toned center section. I cannot see any Chipco logo on this one, and the edge printing only shows the denomination, not the name of the casino.

I am not sure whether the logo "swoosh" above the casino name is supposed to represent a twin-peaked mountain – a little out of place for a desert-basin casino – or a bird. There are more than 400 species of birds that live at the Salton Sea, including 30% of the population of that American white pelican I mentioned above.

With a tip of the hat to the Poem of the Day thread, I will quote one here:

Quote: Dixon Lanier Merritt (1910)

The Pelican

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I'm damned if I see how the helican!

Thanks for this Doc. Storm churned biomass from the bottom of the Salton Sea was recently the culprit of a rotten egg smell that was noticed in Los Angeles, 150 miles away, (as the dead fish odor travels..).

is the Earth at or around the casino actually red?

Last time I was in Vegas we stopped at some Pizza place on Freemont street where the owner had taken the Chip of the Day a little further...

I wonder if he got married there.

He gets around? J/K

Quote: Ayecarumba

Thanks for this Doc. Storm churned biomass from the bottom of the Salton Sea was recently the culprit of a rotten egg smell that was noticed in Los Angeles, 150 miles away, (as the dead fish odor travels..).

is the Earth at or around the casino actually red?

That's a nice article about the Salton Sea's difficulties. Thanks for the link, Ayecarumba. I can't answer about the color of the earth in the area -- my recollection is that it mostly looks that bland gray-white color that most western deserts seem to exhibit. I don't know what it would look like wet or if you dug a bit of a hole.

I can confirm the rotten egg smell. I live in Beaumont, near the Morongo casino and about 30 miles west of Palm Springs. There was a strong easterly wind blowing for a few days and a lot of monsoonal moisture and thunderstorms. The wind brought a pretty strong smell that reminded me of the smell of a rainy desert but a little more pungent than normal. I was surprised that people could smell it as far west as Northridge, which is about 20 miles NW of LA.

As for the mountains on the chip, if I recall correctly there is a mountain range some miles behind the casino. I drove past it once in 2007. That is probably what the design is referring to.

Quote: Doc

The Salton Sea is an intriguing anomaly. The sea was originally part of the Gulf of California, but then as the Colorado River spent millions of years depositing silt and forming a delta, eventually there were deposits that formed a dike separating the area now known as the Salton Sea.

Really?

I'm not fully versed on the area, but I know two things: 1) All of the coast in the Gulf fo California is in Mexico and 2) The Colorado River does empty into the gulf (you hear that in the Hoover Dam tour).

Quote: rdw4potus

Yes, Pesos are accepted at the cage in the way that CAD are taken in Detroit & Niagara Falls.

That's not accepting pesos, but rather exchanging them.

In contrast, in places like Tijuana or Reynosa, dollars are accepted by most businesses. That is, you'll see signs saying, for example $130 MXN/$10 USD. Converesely, in Laredo, TX, sometimes stores advertise a favorable exchange rate if you pay in pesos. Say they'll give you 13.50 per dollar rather than 13, and will take the pesos as payment. They won't send you to the credit office to exchange currencies and then spend the dollars in the store.

Quote:

I'm not sure how easy that border crossing is, or how favorable the exchange rate might be.

Likely it's not easy. I've crossed at Tijuana/San Diego, Reynosa/Hidalgo and Nuevo Laredo/Laredo (most recently in 1997), and each time it was a very long line. You even were advised to turn off the engine, lest the car overheat. If you'll saty within the border area, though, then merely showing a visa was enough (even without a passport). Otherwise you park the car and file into an immigration office and go through more thorough formalities which include showing a valid passport as well as a visa.

Since then, I'm sure entry has become only harder.

Likley the exchange rate sucks, too.

Quote: Nareed

That's not accepting pesos, but rather exchanging them.

Good point. In that case, Kewadin Sault Ste Marie is the only casino I've ever been in that accepts multiple currencies. They even have different USD and CAD chips, with the rack split down the middle at each table.

Quote: rdw4potus

Good point. In that case, Kewadin Sault Ste Marie is the only casino I've ever been in that accepts multiple currencies. They even have different USD and CAD chips, with the rack split down the middle at each table.

That would be taking another currency.

It would also work if you could plunk down, say, 1,300 pesos at the table and be given $100 USD in chips.

Quote: Nareed

Really?

I'm not fully versed on the area, but I know two things: 1) All of the coast in the Gulf fo California is in Mexico and 2) The Colorado River does empty into the gulf (you hear that in the Hoover Dam tour).

Actually, due to increased diversion of its flow, the Colorado stopped flowing directly into the Gulf of California a few years ago.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Actually, due to increased diversion of its flow, the Colorado stopped flowing directly into the Gulf of California a few years ago.

I'll take your word for it.

Welcome back. As for the Salton Sea area once being part of the Gulf of California, I hope I made it clear that this was hundreds of thousands of years ago, perhaps millions of years ago, before a lot of that land in between Baja and the rest of the country was formed. IANAG. (G=Geologist) I'm not sure just how far south the glaciers reached, but they could have had an impact too. In an earlier post, I speculated that the piles of boulders along I-8 a bit east of the Golden Acorn casino were the work of glaciers.

Quote: Nareed

That would be taking another currency.

It would also work if you could plunk down, say, 1,300 pesos at the table and be given $100 USD in chips.

Isn't it an exchange if you're getting chips in USD for MEX pesos? When you take the chips to the cage, you can't get your pesos back without subjecting yourself to an exchange rate and there may be a vig on th exchange at the table as well. At least at Kewadin, with two sets of chips, you can get your native currency back at the cage at face value.

Quote: rdw4potus

Isn't it an exchange if you're getting chips in USD for MEX pesos?

No. Taking a currency means trading it directly for goods or services.

Of course there is an exchange rate. People who travel often and use different currencies quickly learn to look for the most favorable rate. This varies a lot from palce to place. In Mexico, for example, exchange houses are better than banks, and stores and hotels are the worst. In Canada in the 80s (Toronto), I got a bit more for my USD directly at stores.

Quote: Doc

Welcome back.

Thanks!

Quote:

As for the Salton Sea area once being part of the Gulf of California, I hope I made it clear that this was hundreds of thousands of years ago, perhaps millions of years ago, before a lot of that land in between Baja and the rest of the country was formed.

Very clear. It's just that looking at the map there's a lot of land between the coast and California.

Quote: rdw4potus

Good point. In that case, Kewadin Sault Ste Marie is the only casino I've ever been in that accepts multiple currencies. They even have different USD and CAD chips, with the rack split down the middle at each table.

In the casino I played at in the Dominican Republic you could play with $US or DR currency. They had both at the table and you were paid in whatever currency you had made your bet with. No conversion was done at the tables only at the cage.

deleted

State: California
City: Highland
Casino: San Manuel

The Serrano Indians refer to themselves as Taaqtam, meaning "people"; Maarenga'yam, "people from Morongo"; and Yuhaviatam, "people of the pines." Two subgroups have designated reservations, including the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which owns the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino facility in Highland.

Bingo operations began at the facility in 1986. In 1994, they added slot machines and a card room. Then in January 2005, the full casino opened after a two-year development effort. It is located in on a hill leading up to the San Bernardino mountains, just above the Foothills Freeway, and not far at all from the city of San Bernardino, I-215, and I-10.

According to this 2008 article (that page can be slow to load), San Manuel was the second largest tribal casino in the country, based on gaming area. On the other hand, this 2012 Q&A shows Foxwoods at #2 and a little bigger than it was given credit for in the first article, plus it notes that the newly-built WinStar in Oklahoma is the biggest of all. I think some of the discrepancies are due to which square footage is counted, and bingo halls can make a big difference – Foxwoods is listed at #5 in the 2008 article.

I have been to San Manuel just once, in January 2010. My notes say I won $50, but I don't seem to have recorded what game I was playing. I should remember, of course, but hey, I'm old. Senility can be a bitch. By that date, I was playing almost exclusively craps, if it was offered, and the casino offers what they call "San Manuel Craps." I suspect that is what I played, but I don't even remember which variety of card craps they have honored with the tribal name, so I won't declare with any confidence that I did play it.

The chip shown below is blue and loaded with tribal symbols, just as is the décor of the casino. This looks a bit like a Bud Jones chip to me, but it has no BJ logo that I can find. This is one of the chips that the MOGH catalog lists as "RTP" mold, and I still haven’t figured out what that means. The Richard Edward Staeffler California Native American Gaming Chips & Tokens reference, 2012 edition, which I downloaded here, also uses the RTP designation. I sent an email to the publisher of that list, and if I get a reply, I will post the info here.





Edit 11/7/15: Venthus posted a report about San Manuel getting new chips and presented one of them for our viewing pleasure here.

They really like the "X", don't they?

Quote: Doc

... This is one of the chips that the MOGH catalog lists as "RTP" mold, and I still haven’t figured out what that means.

I believe the "RTP" refers to "RT Plastics", a chip manufacturer based in Las Vegas.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I believe the "RTP" refers to "RT Plastics", a chip manufacturer based in Las Vegas.

Thanks, Ayecarumba. You are absolutely correct, and that is the same answer I got in the reply to my email. This chip is in their Tuscany series. If you click on that link and mouse over the "CS-3B", you will see a chip identical to my San Manuel chip except with a different center inlay.

Now that the name has been mentioned, I think I fuzzily recall having heard of R.T. Plastics before, and I may even have mentioned them somewhere in this thread. As I said in my previous post, "Senility can be ...."



Edit: Yep, Ayecarumba told me about R. T. Plastics (and I replied) way back on page 85 of this thread. That's when we were discussing the Grand Sierra Resort chip that has the unexplained Bally's logo on it. I've bookmarked their site now, so maybe I will be able to remember it the next time it comes up.

Not a problem Doc. I didn't recall the previous mention until you reminded me just now. In a sense it it kind of nice to only have a short memory. My old jokes can be new again...

RT Plastics is an interesting beast. They claim to be the largest chip manufacturer, but they don't appear to put their mark on any of their products. I suppose the patterns of their colored inserts could be distinctive... One wonders how they get the word out to potential new customers.

Well, I sent an email message to R.T. Plastics asking about that Grand Sierra Resort chip that supposedly came from them but has what looks like a Bally Technology logo on it. If I get a reply, I'll let folks know what they say.

Quote: Ayecarumba

In a sense it it kind of nice to only have a short memory. My old jokes can be new again...

I can enjoy the same joke over and over, no matter how many times I tell it to you.... ;-)

This sucker is huge. I haven't been there in a while. It is crowded, has no hotel, and has high minimums and a generally lower end set of people as customers. The last time I was there was probably a year ago and they played craps with the "2 shoes no dice" method IIRC.

State: California
City: Santa Ysabel
Casino: Santa Ysabel

Finally, the fifteenth Casino Chip of the Day from a California tribal casino is one for which they actually bothered to include a hidden UV image. It was getting a little boring without one of those photos to post.

The Santa Ysabel Resort and Casino is owned and operated by the Santa Ysabel Band of Diegueño Indians on their reservation. This "resort" has neither a hotel or much else resort-like that I can identify. Reminds me of some not-particularly-resort-like places that charge resort fees, but that's another subject. Wiki says that Santa Ysabel has 349 slot machines, six gaming tables, and live poker.

The casino's web site home page identifies the place as "San Diego's Craft Beer Casino." I guess it's good to know and promote your niche. It's really not much of a web site – there is a header menu labeled "Apple Days", which was intriguing enough for me to click it. It just gives an empty page. WTF?

Wiki also has some other interesting info that I was not aware of. It says that a hotel was planned when the casino opened in April 2007, but the idea was dropped due to funding difficulties. Also, in July of this year, the casino filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following massive losses and a lawsuit by San Diego County. In September, a California district judge ruled that the casino was ineligible to file for Chapter 11 because it belongs to a federally recognized tribe, not an unincorporated company, leaving the future a bit clouded. I guess I can see that they are not eligible for bankruptcy protection, but how does the county or any creditor collect on a law suit, even if they win?

I visited the Santa Ysabel casino only once, in April 2009 while driving from San Diego up to Harrah's Rincon for the night. I did not record my gaming results, but I suspect I played blackjack, considering what the casino offers.

The chip shown below is a blue RHC Paulson hat and cane design with two wide edge inserts in tan and brown. The MOGH catalog refers to these as gold and maroon, and the Staeffler chip reference I mentioned yesterday calls them the same colors. I could go along with the gold instead of tan, but the other insert doesn't look the least bit maroon to me on my chip or in the images posted in either of those catalogs.

The casino has a restaurant named "The Orchard" and a bar named "7 Oaks Taproom", which leaves me uncertain as to what variety of tree that is outlined on the chip's center inlay.

And yes, UV light reveals a hidden Paulson hat and cane logo in the center of the inlay.