Casino Chip of the Day

Here's my Casino Aztar chip. I thought Aztar was a nice place. No doubt it's a locals casino, but they did a good job of it. Aztar was the last casino that I visited on a day when I did a giant circuit of IN casinos (Edit: I guess technically since I was staying at HSI that one was last, but I'd been there before...). Evansville is pretty much right on I-64 and I-69 but other than those roads there aren't any major roads leading to town. My drive down to Evansville took much longer than expected, and was much more difficult than expected.

I've never made the drive up from Metropolis to Evansville. Did you go through IL/IN or KY? It looks much easier on the KY side, but I bet Shawnee National Forest is pretty.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I may have to put visiting Metropolis on my Bucket List...

You really should! It's an easy drive from Saint Louis, which is itself worthy of a visit for the arch, zoo, sports venues, and casinos.

Quote: rdw4potus

I've never made the drive up from Metropolis to Evansville. Did you go through IL/IN or KY? It looks much easier on the KY side, but I bet Shawnee National Forest is pretty.

I took the Kentucky route. If you stick to the interstate highways, Google Maps says that it is 142 miles and a 2 hr 20 min drive for a trip that would be about 84 miles if you could fly like a crow. And I don't think there is any "direct" route to drive. The IL/IN route is only 110 miles but still takes more than two and a quarter hours.

I just think you must not be supposed to drive from Metropolis to Evansville. It's a bit like when I checked into flying from Las Vegas to Reno on Delta -- they offer connections through Salt Lake City, which makes the trip more than double the direct distance. Similarly, Delta routes travel from Denver to Albuquerque through Salt Lake City at more than 2.5 times the direct distance. Hub systems may be efficient in many ways, but they really extend the distances of what seem like simple trips.

Did the Aztar used to be named something else? I recall playing at an "Argosy" riverboat in Indiana, a short hop from the Cincinnati Airport, but seeing lots of advertising for another casino that, supposedly, was nearby. After following the billboards for several miles, the trail went cold and I never found the other place.

I don't know whether the Aztar ever had a different name. There are several casinos not too far from the boat that used to be called Argosy. I don't have all of the Indiana casinos represented in my collection, but I think I have that area of the state covered. That's a good distance from where the Aztar is currently docked, so it's not likely the one that hid from you. The Argosy has an interesting story that I will relate when I cover it under its current name.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I may have to put visiting Metropolis on my Bucket List...

Intereting fact: Wikipedia lists the population of Metropolis, Ill. as 6.482.

Anyone else see the irony?

You mean that Metropolis is modeled after New York City, but this town in Ill is little more than a bus stop? Yeah, that was obvious to me when I was scanning the town with Google Maps.

Perhaps they chould change their name to "Smallville". (Except Smallville was a farm town with even fewer residents!)

Quote: Doc

I took the Kentucky route. If you stick to the interstate highways, Google Maps says that it is 142 miles and a 2 hr 20 min drive for a trip that would be about 84 miles if you could fly like a crow. And I don't think there is any "direct" route to drive. The IL/IN route is only 110 miles but still takes more than two and a quarter hours.

I just think you must not be supposed to drive from Metropolis to Evansville. It's a bit like when I checked into flying from Las Vegas to Reno on Delta -- they offer connections through Salt Lake City, which makes the trip more than double the direct distance. Similarly, Delta routes travel from Denver to Albuquerque through Salt Lake City at more than 2.5 times the direct distance. Hub systems may be efficient in many ways, but they really extend the distances of what seem like simple trips.

Yes, some flight routes are ridiculous. I used to travel a lot for work, and I've definitely been on some crazy routes. Louisville to Saint Louis via Denver was my favorite, I think. Or Richmond to New Orleans via Chicago. Now that I've taken a job that was listed as "high travel," I'm on the road much less. I also get to book my own travel, which means routes that are convenient and not as cheap as possible.

Did you actually take the all-interstate route to Evansville? Or did you take US 60? It looks like 60 is the somewhat-winding hypotenuse of that triangle.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

You mean that Metropolis is modeled after New York City, but this town in Ill is little more than a bus stop?

Exactly that.

I've something of a prejudice against small towns. I probably drive past more than 6,000 people before I go two mile from my house.

Quote:

Perhaps they chould change their name to "Smallville". (Except Smallville was a farm town with even fewer residents!)

That would be a town that closes at 7 and then everyone goes home for the evening? ;)

Quote: Nareed

Intereting fact: Wikipedia lists the population of Metropolis, Ill. as 6.482.

Anyone else see the irony?

If that's really a decimal point instead of a thousands radix, then I would interpret the number as approximately two pi. Other than that, I must be missing something. I also wasn't ignoring your earlier posts -- I'm just not familiar with that Bonnie Tyler song.

Quote: rdw4potus

Did you actually take the all-interstate route to Evansville? Or did you take US 60? It looks like 60 is the somewhat-winding hypotenuse of that triangle.

I admit that I don't remember my exact route. I was following the GPS route suggest by the phone I was using then. I don't think I followed interstate all the way, but Google lists the US60 route as 124 miles and 2 hr 32 min -- fewer miles than the interstate route but a longer time required. Somewhere on that trip a year and a half ago, I think I was seeing signs about "Future I-69 Corridor." Has there been a recent designation, or is something anticipated now?

Quote: Doc

Somewhere on that trip a year and a half ago, I think I was seeing signs about "Future I-69 Corridor." Has there been a recent designation, or is something anticipated now?

you could have seen that in a couple of places along that route - either along I-29, along US 41 at the river crossing into Evansville, or at the intersection of 164 and 64 in Indiana. The I-69 project is one of the more ambitious national highway projects since the completion of the initial Interstate highway overlay. When/if it's completed, I-69 will connect several border crossings (Laredo, Brownsville, McAllen) with the crossings into Canada in Detroit (via I-94) and Port Huron (directly). It's the "NAFTA" highway, and the idea is about as old as the name suggests. Progress has been slow to say the least - I wrote a paper about the project as a masters student in 2003, and only a couple hundred miles of highway have been redisignated since then.

Here's the wiki page about the project. it's an interesting read, and a study in the perils of bureaucracy in long-term multi-jurisdictional projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_69

This is how I drove from Evansville to Metropolis:

It is pretty, but I think I went through the area of country with the largest percentage of people on food stamps in the U.S. . . .

I drove the I-69 corridor coming up from Tunica to Louisville. It was okay, but Kentucky has way to many interstate-grade highways that nobody uses. I think most times I was the only car on the road.

State: Indiana
City: Belterra
Casino: Belterra

I have listed the city for this casino as Belterra, IN solely because that is what it says on the chip. Google Maps does not acknowledge that such a city/town even exists, nor does the US Postal Service. Instead, all of the resources I can find just show the casino as being on Belterra Drive in Florence, IN, with Belterra Drive a very short road and one of the entrances to the casino's parking lot.

The Belterra Casino is a riverboat casino moored next to the remainder of their resort complex, with the land-based facilities under roof being maybe ten times the size of the boat. I don't remember the details, but there may be nothing except the gaming facilities aboard the boat. Whatever name you would like to apply to this location, it is on the Ohio River, very near the southeast corner of the state, if you want to consider the snaky shape of the river to be a corner.

I have visited the casino but one time, at the end of July 2010 as I wound my way from the Cincinnati area toward Louisville for some music. I visited five casinos on that trip, four in Indiana and one in West Virginia on my way home to NC. I was pleased to come out ahead at four out of five and was even ahead overall. At Belterra, I won $55 at craps.

The chip show below is, of course, a white RHC Paulson. Should we start taking votes on what to call the colors of the edge inserts? This time I'm going with orange and lavender. UV light reveals the Paulson logo neatly centered (and not rotated).

Some time back, someone suggested that the hidden images that are rotated 90° might be errors in printing, since the person loading the sheets to print the basic graphic might not have UV light to show which direction the hidden images are facing. To me, that just doesn't sound reasonable, particularly considering how well they can align a hidden image like this one with the center of the graphic that is shown by visible light. I know almost nothing about printing – is it plausible that the hidden images and the visible graphics are printed at the same time?

Hey just an FYI Doc, a friend of mine owns a printing business and they do some "securtity" printing for various customers. I just called and asked him about the hidden UV image and if rotated ones are considered "errors". He said since you can only see the security features under UV light, they are often not perfectly centered and/or rotated. But not because the person running the printer can't see the logos...he said they can. (apparently a visible logo is printed on the sheet to guide the machine operator) But since these logos are not visible to the naked eye the customer just usually doesn't care (or cares much less)if they are perfect or not. So while they try to print them as perfectly as possible; if they get a little off they would ship them anyway, as "close enough".

Thanks. That sounds reasonable to me. The people playing in casinos and using these chips don't likely care about most of the things that are discussed in this thread: manufacturer of the chip, how the edge inserts are formed, fluorescing hidden images, errors in the printing, ownership of the casinos, how well the chips hold up, etc. It's probably only at really nerdy places, like a math-oriented gambling site, that anyone cares about such.

Here's my Belterra chip. I'm very impressed by Belterra. The actual boat is pretty average, but the on-land portion is world class. Almost oddly so, since the property is in the utter middle of nowhere halfway between Louisville and Cincinnati. Really, the casino isn't lacking for good games and it's the low point of the property. You can sort of tell that Belterra is in the middle of nowhere based on the offers that they send out. I used to travel to Louisville quarterly for work. By the 3rd trip, I was getting more from HSI & Belterra than I was spending on the trips. So I started going to Louisville monthly just to use the offers, which conveniently had the same bridge-day between the first and second half-of-month offers. The best part - by far - is that the offers were usually for cash since my play was mostly on the tables.

The only downside about Belterra is that if you want to do anything other than gamble or explore the countryside, you're stuck driving to Louisville or Cincy or one of the larger small towns in the area to find entertainment. To give a bit of context about the property's quality, Belterra is owned by Pinnacle Entertainment. Pinnacle also owns L'auberge Du Lac, River City, Lumiere Place, and the Boomtown properties in Louisiana. Belterra is on par with River City and L'auberge Lake Charles.

I'd call the edge inserts pumpkin and mauve. But I'm no color expert....

Quote: Doc

Some time back, someone suggested that the hidden images that are rotated 90° might be errors in printing, since the person loading the sheets to print the basic graphic might not have UV light to show which direction the hidden images are facing. To me, that just doesn't sound reasonable, particularly considering how well they can align a hidden image like this one with the center of the graphic that is shown by visible light. I know almost nothing about printing – is it plausible that the hidden images and the visible graphics are printed at the same time?

The printing plate only goes into the press in one direction, and the plate as well as the paper is rectangular, not square. Therefore, a 90° turn is not accidental.

However, it IS entirely possible that the off-center aspect is not intended.

Often, multi-plate printing requires minor adjustment to get everything aligned properly. As such, it's entirely possible that an element of laziness creeps in regarding invisible layers.

On the other hand, if the entire print is off-center, that's another aspect that is hard to control. Ask anyone who has done any sort of art design what the term "Bleeding" means. In short, it's designing the art larger than the final size so that there aren't white edges if the cutter is not aligned properly. Getting the cut perfect is much harder than getting all the colors aligned.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I'd call the edge inserts pumpkin and mauve. But I'm no color expert....

I used to work in the textile/carpet industry, and the dye houses generally had color experts to compare product output to the standards. There are machines for color matching, but the best human eyes do it better than any machines yet available.

I had a dye chemist tell me once that he knew a jokester who liked to go up behind a color matcher and ask, "What do you think of this?" When they turned, he would show them a large, day-glo orange card. Their color vision would be off for hours. Glad I never had to work with such folks.

I think pumpkin and mauve are much more creative names than what I came up with, but I have no idea what most such names mean. Have you ever looked at the color names in a paint store? Most of them give almost no hint at all as to what the color looks like. And they change the names for the same colors on perhaps an annual basis.

Thanks, too, for your insights on the printing processes.

State: Indiana
City: French Lick
Casino: French Lick

I guess it's some of my high school locker room sense of humor seeping to the foreground again, but "French Lick" just sounds like something that's supposed to be a tiny bit dirty or at least slightly sexy. It's the name of the casino, the resort, the town, and the township in Indiana, and fortunately my initial thinking about the name is way off base.

According to Wikipedia, the town was originally a French trading post built near a spring and salt lick – a natural mineral deposit used by animals to acquire an essential nutrient. An earlier name for the community was Salt Spring. Wiki also offers that the town is "best known as the hometown of Larry Bird."

The casino is located at one of two now-affiliated resort hotels, originally known as the French Lick Springs Hotel, built in 1845 and rebuilt after a fire in 1897, and the West Baden Springs Hotel a mile away, built in 1902. Both were constructed as spa hotels where guests drew alleged benefits from the mineral springs.

In 2005, the casino was approved for Blue Sky Casino, LLC (as indicated on side A of the chip), which represented a group that wanted to renovate the old hotels and establish a modern casino resort. The casino was to be operated by Majestic Star, which had other casino facilities. I don't know the full story, but by July 2006 there were multiple lawsuits between the participants in the project. The best I can find is that the casino now belongs to Orange County Holdings, LLC, one of the participants.

The casino opened in November 2006 and complied with the then-enforced rule that all casinos in Indiana must be on boats by constructing a lake around a boat that itself filled about half of the lake. It was referred to as "the Boat in the Moat." Here is a photo that I borrowed from the MOGH catalog web page about the French Lick casino. I don't know the original source of the photo. It looks to have been taken during the construction phase.


The pond was filled in 2008, making French Lick the first land-based casino in Indiana. I have visited the casino just once, in July 2011 just a few hours after leaving Casino Aztar in Evansville. I managed to lose $150 at craps, as part of my good-to-bad-to-terrible gaming experiences that day.

The chip shown below is from Chipco, I believe. The two faces differ, and the only thing that fluoresces under UV light is a small marking of the denomination on one side.

Quote: Doc

The casino opened in November 2006 and complied with the then-enforced rule that all casinos in Indiana must be on boats by constructing a lake around a boat that itself filled about half of the lake. It was referred to as "the Boat in the Moat." Here is a photo that I borrowed from the MOGH catalog web page about the French Lick casino. I don't know the original source of the photo. It looks to have been taken during the construction phase.

French Lick casino boat on lake

LOL. That is the stupidest / funniest method of getting around a law I've ever seen.

Reading your text, the phrase "Man-made lake" comes to mind, although it was hard to grasp the "the boat itself filled about half of the lake" part.

But seeing that photo, holy crap! That's nothing but a bath tub with an oversized tub toy!

Does the "boat" float freely? Frankly, I would assume it's got a flat bottom with just a couple inches of water beneath it. I.E. You could probably drain the "lake" without closing the casino or causing problems to the plumbing connections, but does it actually float?

Here's my French Lick chip. I've always wanted to stay at the hotel, but I've never done it. Maybe on a return trip to Louisville. French Lick is a cute little town, I had a lot of fun poking around before a drawing at the casino last summer.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Does the "boat" float freely? Frankly, I would assume it's got a flat bottom with just a couple inches of water beneath it. I.E. You could probably drain the "lake" without closing the casino or causing problems to the plumbing connections, but does it actually float?

DJ, check the next sentence after my spoiler button with the photo. Then note that the sentence after that says I only visited in 2011, so I can't give much of an answer from personal experience.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Does the "boat" float freely? Frankly, I would assume it's got a flat bottom with just a couple inches of water beneath it. I.E. You could probably drain the "lake" without closing the casino or causing problems to the plumbing connections, but does it actually float?

According to this article from 2003, the "boat" is a boat in appearance only, to comply with the, then, letter of the law. The nearest navigable waterway is actually more than 50 miles away.

Doc -
Did you mean:

Quote:

The pond was filled in 2008, making French Lick the first land-based casino in Indiana.

Frankly, even if it's a sea-worthy boat, with engine and life rafts and everything, since it's land-locked, I'd still call it a "Land-based casino."

I'm just curious to know how far they had to go to get around the law.

In my mind, if the requirement was that it be a boat, that thing better float.

Ayecarumba -
Thanks. That link more directly answers my question.

The phrase "Boat in the moat" makes more sense now. It's like a castle within a moat. Both have solid foundations and do not float.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

In my mind, if the requirement was that it be a boat, that thing better float.

Hehe, the article referenced above has some interesting background on the reasoning behind the original "riverboat" law.

I know for a fact that others did float. When I visited the old Argosy in Lawrenceburg, it actually had loading ramps that moved up and down depending on the height of the river, even though the "boat" had a breakwater build around it.

I had some time to kill before a flight out of Cincinatti airport, and had seen the signs for the casino on my way in, so I thought it would be a nice experience to cruise the river, see some sights, and maybe get my gamble on.

There were no signs indicating that the boat didn't go anywhere. You had to queue up to buy a ticket for a "cruise" in the "terminal". The information pamphlet even listed boarding, cruise length, and disembarking times. It was only after heading up the ramp onto the vessel, that it became clear to me that this cruise was going nowhere.

What amazed me, was that all the employees in the "terminal" played along. I felt like an idiot for expecting a three hour tour on a majestic paddleboat, ala Mark Twain.

Quote: Ayecarumba

I know for a fact that others did float. When I visited the old Argosy in Lawrenceburg, it actually had loading ramps that moved up and down depending on the height of the river, even though the "boat" had a breakwater build around it.

Horseshoe has and uses similar ramps. It's a real PITA when they change the boarding level. You're either stuck on the boat for 45 minutes, or you have to wait 45 minutes to board. That casino is on a very exposed part of the river, and the boarding levels change dramatically over the course of the year - I've boarded on deck 2, walking up a slight incline to get there, and I've boarded on deck 4, walking down a pretty steep decline to get there.

I didn't mean to be so indirect in describing the French Lick "boat". My impression was that it actually floated in shallow water but that they had filled in the lake/pond/moat before I ever visited, so I just base my guesses on the same photos and articles as everyone else.

State: Indiana
City: Rising Sun
Casino: Grand Victoria

Happy Turkey Day, everyone! Even if you are one of those whose experiences convince them that this year in its entirety sucks, you should have at least a few things to be thankful for today.

The Grand Victoria casino was a riverboat casino that operated on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, not far at all from Cincinnati. It opened in 1996, and until I started working on this little write-up, I did not realize that it closed in August 2011 and re-opened under a different name. It's now called the Rising Star (playing a little on the town's name, I suppose), and that's one more "new" casino that I have just added to my list of chips to get. Maybe I'll get there when I go after a Horseshoe Cincinnati chip – I think that place is supposed to open next spring.

I visited the Grand Victoria just one time, in late July 2010, about an hour before I visited Belterra just down the road. When I got home from that trip, I posted about my gambling results in someone else's thread about Indiana casinos. Here are some of my comments from back then:

Quote: Doc

I lost at Hollywood and started off losing at Grand Victoria. I was playing my usual cheapskate game at the $5 table, betting $5 on the pass and a few other things, plus $1 pass for the dealers when I was shooting. I lost so consistently that one time around I told them I was going to put the dealers' $1 on the Don't -- that way one of us should be happy with the outcome. That turned out to be my best roll of the weekend. They didn't have the Fire Bet, but they did have the Sharpshooter bet, which I didn't play. But on that turn, I hit seven points, betting the Don't for the dealers each time.

By the time I left Grand Victoria, I had gone from losing to being $125 ahead as a $5 bettor. Then I won at the remaining three casino visits on that trip and four out of the first five sessions on my next trip. Yes, craps is a streaky game.

Almost a week ago, I replied to rdw4potus's posting of his Argosy Alton chip that (per the images in the MOGH catalog) the center inlays on the different denominations of Argosy chips had a variety of scalloped edges. The $5 chip that rdw posted had concaved scallops while the $25 chip's inlay had convex scallops. Then the next day rdw posted his $5 chip from Casino Queen with convex scallops on the center inlay. That same convex scallop pattern is shown in today's $1 chip, with all of these chips being RHC Paulsons. Just a comment about the recurring and familiar patterns in these chips that have so much variety.

This one is white with two triangular edge inserts in colors I will call olive and green.

Until yesterday, I believed that this chip did not have any hidden images to be revealed by UV light. I had seen so many UV images in the recent chips in this thread that I decided to look more closely, and I found one. Notice the yellow reflection of the sun between the T and O of "Victoria" and covering the ampersand. There is a hidden Paulson hat and cane right there that I had not noticed before. It barely shows up at all, but it is there fluorescing yellow, and it tends to be particularly hidden by the visible image of the sun's reflection.

I would have included a photo here, but the lens I use for photographing these chips is currently in the shop where they are trying to fix some issues with its autofocus motor. When I get it back, probably close to a month from now, I will get the photo, add it to this post, and note the edit at that point in the thread. I would try to use a different lens and get the photo now, but that is the only one I have that is the right diameter for the set of screw-in close-up lenses I bought specifically for this purpose.



Edit 12/28/12: Here is the UV image I promised.

" Even if you are one of those whose experiences convince them that this year in its entirety sucks. "

That definitely is me, but Happy Chip Collecting , Doc. Not just today , but many, many years into the future too.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours as well Doc. The Grand Victoria could be the casino that eluded me when I visited the Argosy in Lawrenceburg oh so many years ago.

That has to be the cleanest white chip you have posted Doc. Did you search a lot or just hit the casino when they were putting out new chips?

Enjoy your holiday as a Canadian we celebrated a month ago.

Nothing to do with this post, so maybe it should be a new thread, but why is tomorrow called 'Black' Friday. Black usually has bad conotations.

Quote: kenarman

Nothing to do with this post, so maybe it should be a new thread, but why is tomorrow called 'Black' Friday. Black usually has bad conotations.

Supposedly, that's the point when retail businesses finally make enough money to be in positive territory for the year. In old terms, balances in their accounting books should be in black ink instead of red ink. They expect to go "in the black" on Black Friday.

Quote: Ayecarumba

The Grand Victoria could be the casino that eluded me when I visited the Argosy in Lawrenceburg oh so many years ago.

I'll have the story about that one coming up tomorrow.

Quote: kenarman

That has to be the cleanest white chip you have posted Doc. Did you search a lot or just hit the casino when they were putting out new chips?

Well, that's certainly not a new chip. Take a look at the edges, particularly around the 8:30 area, and you can see lots of nicks. I think this one probably just scrubbed up better than a lot of the others. If you look at the top hat at the 12:00 position, you can still see some grunge hiding in the lower right corner, and the hat to the left of that has some hiding in the cane. I usually just try to wash off the most disgusting of the residues then shove the chips under glass.

Quote: Doc

Well, that's certainly not a new chip. Take a look at the edges, particularly around the 8:30 area, and you can see lots of nicks. I think this one probably just scrubbed up better than a lot of the others. If you look at the top hat at the 12:00 position, you can still see some grunge hiding in the lower right corner, and the hat to the left of that has some hiding in the cane. I usually just try to wash off the most disgusting of the residues then shove the chips under glass.

Good cleaning job then. If you ever make it out to BC I have some of my old stuff that has need of your expert ability ;-)

It is my understanding that it's called "Black Friday" because there are so many sales, and special store hours, that the resulting crowds make it a miserable day for everyone.

There are some stores in my area (nationwide?) that have ALREADY started their Black Friday sales. I haven't even taste-tested my turkey yet!!!



Happy Turkey Day everyone!

Quote: Doc

Supposedly, that's the point when retail businesses finally make enough money to be in positive territory for the year. In old terms, balances in their accounting books should be in black ink instead of red ink. They expect to go "in the black" on Black Friday.

That's the explanation.

It is confusing because when the stock amrket ahs a crash, the day is refered to as "Black Tuesday" or whatever day of the week it happens in.

Here are my Rising Star and Grand Victoria chips. I've only visited the property twice, once under each name. I didn't notice any major changes, other than the name, from one visit to the other.

Quote: rdw4potus

Here are my Rising Star and Grand Victoria chips.

Thanks for the chip images, rdw.

The MOGH catalog doesn't identify the manufacturer of the Rising Star chips, but they all appear to be the Gemaco design series P chips. I look forward to getting one whenever I can get back to that area.

State: Indiana
City: Lawrenceburg
Casino: Hollywood

I have been promising you an Indiana chip with an interesting story, and we finally got to it. I'm sure I don't know the whole tale, but this is what I've come up with.

The Argosy Casino was a riverboat that opened at Lawrenceburg in 1996, and the original chips that were issued stated "Argosy Casino", as any rational person would expect. However, the Indiana Gaming Commission had a requirement (at least at that time) that chips must contain the name of the riverboat license holder.

In this case, that was not Argosy Gaming Company, but rather Indiana Gaming Company, L.P., which (as a limited partnership) was only PARTLY owned by Argosy. In Nevada, that would have been fine, and there are a number of Nevada casinos where the license is in one corporate name, with another corporation owning that corporation, and the whole shebang dba another name that is on the sign atop the casino and printed on the chips.

In Indiana, though, that kind of behavior is not according to Hoyle. Since the license wasn't in Argosy's name, the chips couldn't legally have the Argosy name, at least not without having the Indiana Gaming name in addition. The chips from the original order were returned to Paulson to be cancelled and a new order was placed with the "correct" name. That's why the chip shown below doesn't even seem to say what casino it is from.

The MOGH catalog has some images of the original Argosy chips with the notation, "Available only in hotstamp-cancelled form." They show two versions of the $1 chips that say "Argosy Casino", one with three edge inserts and one with four, as well as two versions of the Argosy-labeled $2.50, $5, $25, and $500 chips, though only one for the $100 denomination. I assume that the alternate versions were the backup sets of chips.

The Argosy Casino closed in June 2009 and re-opened a few days later wearing the Hollywood name. They did issue a commemorative $5 Grand Opening chip that says "Hollywood Casino", with Indiana Gaming Company noted at the bottom, but the rest of their chips seem to be the same ones that were used during the Argosy days.

I visited the Hollywood Casino just once, in 2010, and as reported yesterday, I lost money at craps during that visit, the only negative session on that trip. My chip says nothing about Hollywood on it, so I don't know whether the regulations have changed or not.

Since the casino was named Hollywood by the time I got there, that's what I have listed in the header of this post, but the image file names are "Hollywood-Argosy", since the same chips apply to both casino names. The MOGH catalog indicates that the chip shown below was issued in 2008, and both the chip image and the issue date are shown under both the Argosy and Hollywood headings, disregarding that the Hollywood wasn't open yet in 2008.

The chip is a white RHC Paulson with two very wide edge inserts in blue and purple. UV light reveals the Paulson logo in the center and the full center inlay filled with repeated "Argosy Indiana". I suppose that is a combination of Argosy Gaming and Indiana Gaming, and perhaps it's a hidden snipe at the state gaming commission. In any case, this chip with the hidden "Argosy" was still in play after the casino became known as the Hollywood. The "error" in the hidden image is much easier to pick out this time.

Thanks for this Doc. I found it very interesting. One odd thing I remember about the Argosy Craps game is that they didn't take "Hop" bets. Do you recall if that was still the case when you visited?

I do not remember that aspect of the game there. I have been to quite a few casinos that don't accept hop bets other than those that are some single or combination of 2, 3, 7, 11, and 12. About the only hop bet I place is some form of the point and only when my brain has gone loopy. And, as rare as that condition may be, that's still too often to be making such bets, I think.

State: Indiana
City: Elizabeth
Casino: Horseshoe Southern Indiana

Horseshoe Southern Indiana is another riverboat casino on the west bank of the Ohio River, with far more facilities on solid land than on the boat. It's about a quarter mile from the hotel to the casino, and the route is all indoors, passing lots of restaurants and shops. The mailing address of the facility is Elizabeth, IN, but that's a small town about seven miles away that I have never had any reason to visit. There is no town or other development right at the casino, which is located due west of the southern suburbs of Louisville, KY, by far the largest community in the area.

The casino opened in 2008, and I played there in 2009, 2010, and 2011. My wife and I stayed there in a very nice room in 2011, but somehow I never made it into the place when I visited Louisville this past summer. After five sessions of craps in those three Julys, I am ahead by a net $150, but there has been a heap of variance in my bankroll.

The chip shown below is a Chipco ProTech chip, mostly white with blue bars near the perimeter plus gray markings nearer the center. There is a gold horseshoe logo above the casino name. The edge of the chip is printed with three blue bars (two partially visible in the extreme lower right and just right of the very top) and three 1's marking the denomination. UV light reveals four very small marks on the face: the numeral "1" in two places, a horseshoe, and the letter "P". I don't know the meaning of that letter in this instance. On the edge of the chip, there are three more 1's that fluoresce, but they are not in the same positions as the three that may be seen in visible light; one of those fluorescing 1's can barely be seen at the bottom of the UV photo.

The MOGH catalog says that this chip was issued in July 2008, when the casino first opened.

Here are my Hollywood and HSI chips. I've only been to Hollywood once, and I've seen no reason to return. It was pretty much just like every other Hollywood property - nice enough, but sort of fakey and soulless.

HSI is my home-away-from-home in the Louisville area. I've stayed there about a dozen times on trips to Louisville. The hotel is very good, but like Doc mentioned it's a LONG way from the casino. At least the walk is indoors. The casino itself is beautiful, but the ceilings are a little too low and it's smoky at times. I think this is the only place I've played that uses $20 chips on the PGP and Pai Gow tiles tables. That makes a lot of sense to me, since it cuts down on the use of quarters (both the chips and the coin) on the tables.

I've complained here several times about the restaurants at HSI. They're definitely a weak spot of the property. The sportsbar/restaurant is good, but is dark on monday and tuesday, even during football season. Who closes a sportsbar during monday night football?!? They added an asian themed restaurant and removed their pai gow tiles game at the same time. The buffet is much improved now that it's Paula Deen branded, but it's still not all that great.

My chips are very similar to Doc's, manufactured by Paulson (Hollywood) and Chipco (HSI). I bet the P on Doc's chip is for ProTech.

Quote: rdw4potus

I bet the P on Doc's chip is for ProTech.

That could be -- I don't have any better guess.

I think this chip and the recent one from the French Lick casino are the only two Chipco chips I have posted that have any hidden images at all. I only have three or four more un-posted Chipco chips in my entire collection, and I don't think any of them have hidden images either. The limited data set makes it more difficulty to guess the meaning of a solitary "P".

State: Louisiana
City: Amelia
Casino: Amelia Belle

Today we begin a new state for this thread – Louisiana. All of the Louisiana chips in my collection were gathered on a single trip looping the state in February 2012. Since then, L'auberge Baton Rouge has opened, and I hope to collect a chip from there soon – perhaps soon enough to post it before I complete posting all of my current collection but not soon enough to put it in sequence with the other Louisiana chips. There is also a Margaritaville Casino under construction in Bossier City that is scheduled to open next spring, and surely I will get there without too much delay.

You would think that the state would have learned, as Mississippi did, that there are some definite advantages to having the casinos built on solid land. It's not as if land-based casinos were totally prohibited in Louisiana. The riverboats were first approved in 1991, and the Harrah's in downtown New Orleans was approved on land the following year. There are tribal casinos on land, too. I guess I just don't understand why they are still putting them on boats. The new L'auberge is not a riverboat, but this photo I borrowed from GoogleMaps shows it during its construction phase, and it certainly appears it's intended to be one of those floating-barge casinos.


Guess I'll have to check out whether it’s a boat or not when I get there, unless someone here can tell me. I also don't know the construction design of the Margaritaville.

Today's Casino Chip of the Day is from the Amelia Belle, which really is a riverboat, and I thought it was a pretty nice one. Their web site says they offer craps, but my records say I played blackjack (+$10). That choice of games doesn't make sense to me unless the craps table just wasn't open when I was there near mid-day on a Wednesday. Or perhaps there has been a change in the past 10 months.

The casino is located in the small town of Amelia, way out in the bayou southwest of New Orleans about 60 or 65 miles as the pelican flies, or about 80 miles via US90. I have no idea whether the waterway on which the boat rides has a name of its own, but it is only a short distance from Lake Palourde and a bunch of other interconnected lakes, streams, canals, and swamps that keep people in automobiles from getting out into most of the lowlands of the state.

The casino opened in May 2007, but that wasn't when it was constructed. I could have some of this in error (please correct me), but this is the way I think the history progressed. The boat operated first as Bally's Casino when it opened in New Orleans in 1994. In 2005, Caesars sold it to Columbia Sussex, and I think Columbia was the owner when Katrina struck. Somewhere along the line, the name was changed to the Belle of New Orleans, perhaps when it reentered service after the storm, but I'm not sure. As Columbia started to fold, the casino went into the hands of Tropicana Entertainment. I don't know whether it was Columbia or Tropicana that changed the name to Amelia Belle and moved it out of New Orleans, but in 2009 it was sold to Peninsula Gaming.

Best I can figure, that's who owned it when I visited. Then, a few weeks ago, Peninsula Gaming was purchased by Boyd Gaming. I thought those B-Connected cards should work there now, but it seems they are using something called a "Rapid Rewards" card.

The chip shown below is a white Paulson hat and cane chip, this time the Long Cane Version. It has been a long time since I have posted one of this style; I looked back briefly, and I think the last one may have been from the Western in Las Vegas. That one had the LCV design on one side and the SCV design on the other, which made me wonder a bit about this one.

Before hauling it out from under the cover glass on my desktop, I checked the MOGH catalog. Sure enough, the Amelia Belle issued two almost identical chips, one in the LCV design and one with the combined LCV/SCV. With that info at hand, I just had to pull mine out from under the cover and make sure. Yep, it's just the LCV on both sides. That reminded me of a professor I once had who always readily acknowledged that he could be wrong – he said he took that view because he had made a mistake once before in his life, sometime back in the 50's, when he thought he had figured something wrong, though it turned out he was mistaken about that and had had the right answer all along.

The chip has two wide edge inserts in black and orange and a very colorful center inlay that includes an image of a riverboat paddle wheel. I'm not sure whether the seven stars on the inlay have any particular meaning – this hasn't been a Caesars establishment since 2005 when it had a different name and was in a different town.

UV light reveals the hidden hat and cane Paulson logo in the center, with nothing else fluorescing.

Here's my Amelia Belle chip. I also thought that the Belle was a very nice boat. I played BJ on my visit, and I didn't stay very long. I received a free buffet voucher when I joined the players club, but the buffet was closed at the time I visited (mid-afternoon). I hear that the buffet is quite good.

Doc has me curious now - I'm away from home for the holiday weekend, but I'll have to check my chip to see if it's the SCV on the reverse...

We talked before about interstate expansion projects. Amelia is on the future I-49 corridor, which will eventually extend from Lafayette to New Orleans and from Shreveport to Kansas City (the leg from Lafayette to Shreveport already exists).

Quote: rdw4potus

Doc has me curious now - I'm away from home for the holiday weekend, but I'll have to check my chip to see if it's the SCV on the reverse.

While my $1 chip is not LCV/SCV, I'd be willing to place a modest, even-money wager that your $5 chip is. Of course, we would have to agree on the wager before you get home and checked it out! :-)

My justification for offering that side of a wager is that the ONLY Amelia Belle $5 chip in the MOGH catalog has the LCV/SCV configuration.

Quote: Doc

... All of the Louisiana chips in my collection were gathered on a single trip looping the state in February 2012.

Ooops! Brain glitch.

Don't know what got into me while I was writing that, but this evening I remembered that I had collected my three chips from the New Orleans area on a visit there in March 2010. One more example of a time that I was wrong that wasn't sometime back in the 50's!