Casino Chip of the Day

Category: Canada
City: Niagara Falls, Ontario
Casino: Niagara Fallsview

The Niagara Fallsview Casino is the "permanent" casino in town, the one that was supposed to replace the "temporary" Casino Niagara. It opened in June 2004, and my wife and I visited there in August of that year, as part of our return trip from Quebec City. There is a hotel in the complex, and if you paid the tarrif for a room on the falls side, particularly the higher floors, then the view should be outstanding. We stayed at a cheaper establishment just down the street.

Their promotional materials say that they have over 3,000 gaming machines ranging from 1¢ to $100 and over 100 tables. I don't know whether that includes their poker room. It's not a small place at all, and they claim that it is "one of the largest Casino gaming floors in the world -- an impressive 200,000 square feet -- the equivalent of three football fields!" I wonder whether that means fields used for American football, Canadian football, or that international game of football that some of us call soccer. Big, anyway, with a pretty nice shopping mall right outside.

I remember that I played craps and that the table minimum was $10 CAD. I didn't record the result of the session, but I do remember that I won. I can remember that because I used the "found money" to buy us dinner and tickets to a Melissa Manchester concert that night in their 1500-seat showroom. We had pondered that possibility when we first saw the billboard, but I found it more palatable to pay with "the casino's money" than my own. We had really enjoyed Melissa's music in the '70s and '80s, but she pretty much dropped out of the business in the '90s to raise a family. She had released a CD in the spring of 2004 and made that stop in Niagara Falls as part of a promotional tour for the CD. Still sounded great, but I never heard much more from her.

Until the night before last, I was completely unaware that this white plastic injection molded chip had the names of two different casinos on its two sides. I have had the Niagara Fallsview side facing up on display ever since I brought it home, and I don't know that I even looked at the other side. I am posting both sides here, but I'll also go back and add the image of the side that says Casino Niagara to the post that covered that casino. The MOGH catalog includes this chip on their page for Niagara Fallsview Casino but not on the page for the Casino Niagara.

In the first image below, I recognize that the female profile has long hair that suggests the waterfall and pool, but I don't really know what else might be symbolized.

That MOGH catalog does not indicate a manufacturer for this chip, and at first I thought I could only answer that issue by comparison. I noticed that the edge insert pattern for this chip is identical to the chip I posted for the Rainbow Casino in Vicksburg, MS, and the center inlay for that chip had a BG logo on the front of it. I was just going to speculate/conclude that this Niagara Fallsview Casino (and Casino Niagara) chip was also manufactured by Bourgogne et Grasset (B&G). Then I looked closer at the Casino Niagara side that I had been ignoring these past nine years and saw that it, too, has the BG logo, drifting over the left hand side of the falls.



I don't have any travel photo to offer today. Perhaps I should have saved my shot of the Horseshoe Falls until today, since the Fallsview casino is much closer to the falls than the "temporary" casino is. I have lots of other shots of the falls, of course, but none that add a whole lot.

Category: Canada
City: Richmond, British Columbia
Casino: River Rock

I am a bit surprised by rdw4potus not posting yesterday. He was the one who pointed out to me on 4/15 that the Fallsview Casino chip has the Casino Niagara name on the opposite side, so I was expecting to see an image of the other side of his $5 chip. He only showed the Casino Niagara side in his post on 4/12. Maybe he's still working on his tax return. ;-)


Canada has a moderate number of casinos in operation, but I have only been to a very small subset. Today's chip from the River Rock in Richmond, BC, just south of Vancouver, is the eighth and last Canadian chip currently in my collection. I really need to get back up there soon, but I don't know that I can convince my wife to make that trip this summer. We already have other trips planned for May and July.

The city of Richmond, BC is located on several islands formed as the delta of the Fraser River, which empties into the Strait of Georgia. These delta islands have an average land height of one meter, placing them at risk of flooding at high tides and high spring water flows in the river. There are a number of dikes that protect the stability of the land on these islands.

The largest and most populated of the islands is known as Lulu Island, and a branch of the Fraser River flows on the north side of that island. I have not been able to determine whether that branch has a name of its own, but the River Rock Casino Resort is located right on the waterfront of that river branch. The casino opened in June 2004 on the site of a former market, just a short distance from the Oak Street Bridge connecting Richmond to Vancouver.

On the casino's web site page describing the table games, they say this about my favorite of their games: "There is no skill in shooting Craps, it is purely a game of chance." I can't argue with that, but I wonder how that sentiment would go over in thirty or forty of the recent threads on this WoV site.

The Wikipedia page describing the resort has several comments about transportation there and says, "Bus service, operated by TransLink, is provided via bus routes within walking distance of the casino."

Unfortunately, my wife and I took a more circuitous route there in 2008. We rode a city bus from our hotel in downtown Vancouver to Richmond, but the bus took a route not over the Oak Street Bridge but via the Grant-McConachie Way bridge to Sea Island and the airport, then cutting back to Lulu Island. We got off the bus at the first convenient stop on the correct island and hiked our butts through an industrial district to the casino complex. We had fun once there, but we took a taxi back to our hotel rather than trying to decipher the return bus schedule and route. I played craps, but I don't seem to have recorded my session results.

The River Rock chip shown below is described in the MOGH catalog as coming from Bud Jones. However, it appears to be the exact same Matsui design and colors as the Edgewater chip I posted two days ago, except for the center inlay and the addition of what Matsui calls an optional "glitter ring." They offer five glitter colors, four dot patterns, and several locations where the glitter may appear on the chip. They also offer holograms on the center inlays.

I am not sure what that logo on the center inlay is supposed to be. I can interpret it as a sketch of a tree or a stylized spade pip or even an inverted valentine heart. I didn't see it on the casino's web site, but it is on most of their chips shown in the MOGH catalog. Once again, UV light reveals a logo of TCS John Huxley, which I assume was the distributor/re-seller of the Matsui chips. That still strikes me as a little strange.



Tomorrow, this thread must move on to another geographic category, and I don't have any travel photos of the River Rock Casino or anything in Richmond, BC to post. I'll just leave you with a little photo of the Vancouver skyline along the harbor, looking back from Stanley Park.



Edit 5/28/20: Member RideTheEdge posted some additional images of Canadian casino chips here.

Earlier this week Doc made a comment about 350 miles being a long ways to be from my home casino during discussions about the Edgewater casino. Although still 350 miles away the River Rock is likely my 'home' casino if I truly have one. I stay and visit it more often than any other casino. When it opened and gave me access to craps and a nice resort environment it was when my frequency of trips to Vegas went down drastically.

You would have a lot easier time with transit at the casino now Doc. The 'Canada Line' rapid transit expansion built for the 2010 Olympics runs from downtown to the airport. The last stop before the airport is attached to the resort. This stop is also a major bus loop including express buses to the extensive BC ferry system terminal.

For the craps players the RR is one of 4 casinos in BC that each have 1 craps table. All 4 of these casinos are in Vancouver suburbs.

Although there hasn't been a lot of other posts about the River Rock I am going to add some history about the casino's owner Great Canadian Casino because it is a relatively recent success story. The owners started in 1982 doing temporary charity casinos in BC. They toured the province to various festival type events putting on the casinos. I played at several of them in the early years and at first the partners would be dealing tables at the events themselves and hire temporary employees and have charity volunteers in each location. Table limits were originally $2 MAXIMUM. From this start as the provincial rules were slowly relaxed they were able to transition to permanent "casinos". These were more like California card rooms but much smaller and slots were not yet legal. They would have blackjack and maybe 1 roulette wheel, a few had another table game or two. During this time there was no craps since all dice games were specifically forbidden Canada wide by federal law, a left over from the old days of back alley craps.

They ran several of these "casinos" around BC until the change they were waiting for in the provincial regulations occurred and the Province legalized slots. This allowed them to slowly transition from these small card room to casinos in much larger facilities with more games and of course slots. As a side note provincial legislation still allows a maximum of 1000 slot machines in any casino in BC. It was about this time too that the most significant change occurred in casino law in Canada, from my point of view anyway :-), craps became legal in Canada.

The original parners eventually split with one partner taking the casinos in the Okanagan Valley in the interior of BC and forming Lake City Casino's. The second partner kept the remaining properties and has now expanded too properties from coast to coast in Canada (Including some that Doc visited in Nova Scotia), owns some card room casinos in Washington state, several racinos, and has bingo halls that have slots but no table games which are different class of license in BC.

I hope I haven`t bored everyone too much with this history lesson but it does illustrate how young the casino business is in Canada and that the major company in Canada was started by entrepeneurs with little funding and just made it happen. The company is now publicly traded and no longer a single persons vision.

Quote: kenarman

I hope I haven`t bored everyone too much ....

No, of course not. That's my job. ;-)

It's nice to have someone "local" who knows and posts the background info rather than just having me try to dig up some stuff on the web or from my own faded memories. Thanks for your contributions to this thread. Just wish I had more chips from BC that I could use to set up your contributions a few more times.

And thanks for the info on the updated transportation system. There are other casinos in the Vancouver area that I would like to collect chips from. I just don't know when/whether we will get back there, and I don't know enough about getting around the area and to the casinos.

Thanks Kenarman! I enjoyed that. I wonder how the "early" days were bankrolled? Did they use cheques at the charity events?

Quote: Ayecarumba

Thanks Kenarman! I enjoyed that. I wonder how the "early" days were bankrolled? Did they use cheques at the charity events?

They did use cheques in the early days and if I had the vision the original partners had I would have kept a few.

Quote: Doc

No, of course not. That's my job. ;-)

It's nice to have someone "local" who knows and posts the background info rather than just having me try to dig up some stuff on the web or from my own faded memories. Thanks for your contributions to this thread. Just wish I had more chips from BC that I could use to set up your contributions a few more times.

And thanks for the info on the updated transportation system. There are other casinos in the Vancouver area that I would like to collect chips from. I just don't know when/whether we will get back there, and I don't know enough about getting around the area and to the casinos.

The rapid transit system would only get you within a 15 minute walk of the other casinos and one of the racinos. Two of the other main casinos do run shuttles from a local rapid transit station (known as Sky Train) although it was almost all originally elevevated it now has elevated, grade and below grade sections.

If the stars were to align properly you might be able to talk me into a guided tour to get your bearings in greater Vancouver.

Quote: Doc

Category: Canada
City: Richmond, British Columbia
Casino: River Rock

I am not sure what that logo on the center inlay is supposed to be. I can interpret it as a sketch of a tree or a stylized spade pip or even an inverted valentine heart. I didn't see it on the casino's web site, but it is on most of their chips shown in the MOGH catalog.

I guess that begs the question... What is a "spade" symbol supposed to represent? Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs (sorta) are apparent, but is a spade supposed to be a shovel? Or is the shovel named after the symbol?

My guess is that the logo is a stylized `spade`and a remnant of the early years as card rooms. I notice the logo is featured prominently on the signage of the Washington state card rooms.

Quote: Ayecarumba

... but is a spade supposed to be a shovel? Or is the shovel named after the symbol?

I can't ignore the set-up....

There is an old story about a convent in which some renovations were being performed. The construction crew was a bit coarse in manner and language for the sensitivity of some of the nuns. One of the young sisters expressed her concern to the Mother Superior who replied, "You must remember that these are just common men -- they call a spade a spade."

"Oh, no," replied the young nun, "they call it a f**king shovel!"

Quote: kenarman

...the logo is featured prominently on the signage of the Washington state card rooms.

Thanks again. A spade pip does make sense.

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Oranjestad, Aruba
Casino: Alhambra

Today, we begin a new geographic category for this thread. I am calling the category "Caribbean Islands," but we will see that not all of these casinos are located on islands in the Caribbean; some of them are really in the Atlantic. All of the souvenir chips were collected while I was touring on cruise ships, and it is quite possible to take a "Caribbean Cruise" that never enters the Caribbean Sea.

Aruba is a resort island 17 miles off the coast of Venezuela and genuinely is in the southern Caribbean Sea. It is one of four countries that constitute the Kingdom of the Netherlands. There are several common terms that are used to associate Aruba with other islands in the area.

First, it is one of the Lesser Antilles, meaning it is one of the smaller islands and not Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, or Puerto Rico. The Cayman Islands are often also considered a part of the Greater Antilles, in spite of their small size, simply because of their proximity to the larger islands. That likely makes them part of the same geographic set or plate, I suppose.

Second, Aruba is one of the Leeward Antilles as opposed to the Windward Antilles, based on the direction of prevailing winds.

Third, Aruba is often spoken of as part of the Netherland Antilles, even though the island seceded from that group in 1986 and has been an independent country since. The rest of the Netherland Antilles dissolved as a group in 2010.

Finally, the neighboring islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao are often called the ABC islands.

The casinos in the Caribbean do not seem to be all that concerned as to whose chips they have in play, particularly in the $1 denomination, and the token that serves as today's Casino Chip of the Day is an example of that. This token is marked for the Alhambra Casino, which opened in December 1984 and is located among a strip of resorts on the west coast of the island, north of the capital city of Oranjestad.

According to CasinoCity.com, the Alhambra has 74 gaming machines and 16 table games. I would have loved to have played there and collected a souvenir chip, but they don't open their table games until 6 p.m., and my cruise ship was departing port too early that evening for me to still be at a casino miles up the beach after 6.

Instead, I received this souvenir token while it was in play at the Seaport Casino in the Seaport Village commercial development in downtown Oranjestad, just a short walk from the cruise ship port. That casino opened in 1993 and is listed in CasinoCity.com as having 788 machines, 7 poker tables, and 33 other gaming tables. I don't remember it as being that big. I played blackjack and lost $50. The Seaport Casino used only Alhambra tokens as their $1 chips while I was there.

CasinoCity.com claims that the Alhambra casino belongs to Treasure Bay Gaming and Resorts, Inc. and that the Seaport Casino belongs to Marriott International, Inc. If that information is correct (and if it was correct when I visited in November 2009), then I have no idea why the token was being used at the "wrong" casino. Note that it is marked "To be used only at the Alhambra Casino" on one side and "Negotiable only at the Alhambra Casino" on the other side. The Seaport Casino was using Seaport chips in the larger denominations, but that is not what I collect!

I do not see a mint mark on this token, and it is shown in the MOGH catalog page for the Alhambra Casino without any identification of a manufacturer. That catalog does show two different $1 chips for the Seaport Casino. Wish I had been able to get one when I was there.



I guess that I am stretching things a bit today, but I thought I would try to provide another travel photo. When we were in Aruba in November 2009, all of the commercial areas of Oranjestad were already decorated for Christmas. We had quite a bit of trouble associating the hot weather, the tropical vegetation, and the idea of Santa Claus in a furry red coat. Maybe those of you from Miami or southern California are accustomed to that, but my wife and I aren't. This display of a pool, waterfall, Christmas trees, and ornaments with Santas and reindeer was on the plaza right outside of the Seaport Casino.




Edit 9/11/13: I just received a very nice gift from forum member JW17, who visited Aruba this summer and gathered some chips. The Alhambra chip shown below is a ceramic chip from Bourgogne-et-Grasset, the European unit of Gaming Partners International. Note the BG logo in the 9:00 position.

After all of the chips I have posted since starting this thread, it seems this issue would have come up before: The B&G section of the GPI web site indicates that B&G makes plastic injection molded chips. However, this chip certainly looks just like the "ceramic" chips made by Chipco International. It even has the same kind of surface texture. As I look back over the thread, it seems there may have been several B&G chips that look like ceramic chips and several that look like plastic injection molded chips. I don't know how to reconcile that to the B&G web site.

There are no hidden images on this chip, but I really liked the way the chip fluoresced, so I thought I would include the image of the chip under UV light.




Edit 3/11/19: PokerGrinder has been touring South America and the Caribbean islands to collect chips, some of which are from casinos already covered in this thread. He posted these chips here, including a different one from the Alhambra.

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Willemstad, Curaçao
Casino: Americana

Like Aruba, Curaçao is one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was the Island Territory of Curaçao and part of the Netherlands Antilles until that group dissolved in 2010. It is located roughly 40 or 50 miles from Venezuela and a similar distance from Aruba.

Willemstad is the capital of Curaçao and previously served as capital of the Netherlands Antilles. The central part of the city lies in two districts known as Punda and Otrobanda, which are separated by the Sint Anna Bay, a channel that leads from the open Caribbean Sea to a large natural harbor. The names Punda and Otrobanda come from Dutch and respectively mean "the point" and "the other side."

My wife and I visited Curaçao in November 2009 as one of the ports on a southern Caribbean cruise. In my ignorance of Dutch, I suspected that Punda was something like the French Pont and meant "bridge," since it was the side of the city that we had to get to by bridge from our ship's docking point. At least I was able to guess correctly the meaning of Otrobanda.

The two sides of the bay are indeed connected by a very interesting pontoon bridge for pedestrian traffic. The bridge is pivoted on one end, with a motor launch built into the other. When there is a ship entering or leaving the harbor, the motor launch rotates the bridge until it is tight against one shore of the bay/channel, allowing the ship to pass. While the bridge is out of position, ferries transport people between Punda and Otrobanda. There is also a high, modern bridge spanning the bay at the harbor end to accommodate vehicular traffic.

Punda, to the south side of the bay, is the original part of the city and has been there since 1634, when the Dutch captured the island from Spain. Otrobanda is the "new" section of the city, having been developed only since 1707.

I suppose right now is as good a time as any to admit that my records for this chip-collecting excursion are in dismal shape. Before leaving on the cruise, I tried to gather information about the casinos in Curaçao on line. I found that there was a significant conflict of information available and that the casinos themselves offered essentially no reliable information via the web. I still have the little GoogleMaps printout of Willemstad with a few casinos marked, to help guide me to my destinations.

It didn't really work. Even as I try to reconstruct the story now, I can't get it straight. When we arrived in port, we left the ship and walked around both Punda and Otrobanda, as I was wildly snapping photos in between stops at casinos. When I could find a gaming establishment with table games open in mid-day, I played blackjack briefly, collected a souvenir chip, and headed on. I did not do a reliable job of recording my sessions. At all. I'm embarrassed at how bad these notes are. I only wrote down the names of four places, yet I got home with six different souvenir $1 chips. Not representative of my usual obsessive compulsion, and my memory can't fill in the gaps now.

Moreover, the MOGH catalog and CasinoCity.com disagree about what casinos exist in Curaçao now, and the casinos themselves still offer no useful info. According to MOGH, some of the casinos whose chips I came home with had already closed or changed names years before I visited the island.

Now it's quite possible that the casinos in Curaçao were as bad or worse than those in Aruba when it came to caring about whose chips they had in play – I know I left the island with one chip that said it was from St. Maarten – and I may not have kept straight just which place I had picked up the chips that were in my pocket.

Honest, I was not drunk, but it would be foolish for me to try to claim that I have a completely reliable story to tell. The best I can offer for this thread is to present one chip per day and tell what I can without taking any oaths to the truth. I hope that meets everyone's needs.

The Americana Casino is/was located in the Otrabanda district. It is one of the casinos that my notes do not even indicate that I got to, even though I think I remember going into the place while walking back to the ship. I suppose that it is understandable that I could forget to make notes before boarding the ship.

However, there remains a question as to whether I was in the real Americana Casino, in spite of the fact that I left the island with an Americana chip. The MOGH catalog indicates that the Americana Casino became the Paradise Plaza Casino in 2008, a year before I visited Curaçao! On the other hand, GoogleMaps still has the Americana Casino as a searchable item and provides a little flag as to its location. What can I say?

The souvenir shown below is a purple and white plastic injection molded chip. The MOGH catalog says that this chip is from Bud Jones, and in spite of my recent complaints about that catalog attributing almost every plastic chip to Bud Jones, I think they got it right this time.

This chip looks almost identical to the chip that I posted from the Santa Fe Station Casino in Las Vegas, except that chip was blue instead of purple. The Santa Fe Station chip includes a Bud Jones "BJ" logo on its center inlay, so I will go along with MOGH in believing that the Americana Casino chip came from the same source. The chip I posted from the Augustine Casino in California also has this same design in a pale blue. That one does not have a BJ logo, but I accepted it as being one of the Bud Jones chips when I posted it -- before I became suspicious of some of the MOGH identifications.



If I can't tell a reliable story about the chips, I might as well post another travel photo. This one shows Willemstad, Curaçao, looking from Punda across the bay to Otrobanda. On the right half of the photo, you can see the pontoon bridge.

Now let's see how well you can track my directions around the photo. To the left of the far end of the bridge, there is a low building that is dark red; to the left of that is a white pyramid roof, perhaps a tent. Right behind those two structures is a multi-tone blue building maybe five stories tall. That is the building that houses the Americana/Paradise Plaza Casino.

Quote: Doc

Today we come to the last of the New Mexico casinos represented in my collection...

I gotta say, the New Mexico casinos have the nicest looking chips so far, that I can remember. Or maybe it's just that they're the most original designs. I have mostly just been skimming this thread and looking at the pictures :).

Quote: Doc

Category: Canada
City: Richmond, British Columbia
Casino: River Rock

I thought I had been to the River Rock, but after consulting my spreadsheet, it was actually the Starlight Casino in New Westminster, BC, about 16 kilometers east of River Rock. Almost :).

Despite living in WA state and traveling through Vancouver on average twice per year (to play at various Ultimate tournaments), the Starlight is the only casino I've ever been to in Vancouver. Usually I'm with a big group of people, so convincing them to stop to play casino games while we're all tired and sweaty from running around all weekend and just want to hit the border before the rush so we can get home to shower...well you get the idea from that terrible run-on sentence :).

The one trip where I managed to hit the Starlight I was driving home from skiing at Whistler and was solo. I was disappointed to see that all the blackjack games were CSMs, so no counting opportunities. I have heard that most, if not all, BJ games in Vancouver are CSMs, which is annoying. Of course this doesn't mean that there aren't any AP opportunities, but I'm pretty lazy. I played some dark side craps at Starlight and came out ahead.

I would really like to make it to the Edgewater one of these days, it looks nice.

Quote: Doc

I have a very few European chips that I will be posting before my current collection runs out, and that will happen in three or four more weeks. I also have one chip from Asia that I received as a gift, and I will be posting that one at the end of my run.

If you have a few unusual chips/casinos (like Prague) that you would like to post before "a long, long time from now", perhaps we can work those in before I turn the thread over to rdw4potus to post his next year or so worth of U.S. chips from casinos I haven't been to yet. Let me know what you would like to do so we can coordinate such a thing.

Same for anyone else that has a chip they may have been chomping at the bit to post. I rather suspect that rdw would be willing to wait just a few days more before taking that thread on as another full-time job! It's a lot of fun to post a chip and tell a story of some kind, but posting one every day for months on end sometimes seems a bit like having a job writing a daily article for a newspaper. I've enjoyed getting a break every once in a while and having rdw cover for me. He will probably be interested in getting some breaks down the way after he has carried the lead role in the thread for a while.

Doc, I don't much care, to be honest. I have a grand total of 3 casino chips: 1 from Oregon, 1 from Washington state, and the aforementioned one from Prague. I'm happy to wait for RDW to finish his collection, or if he wants a short break I'm happy to post my 3. I'm sure many others have a few here and there.

It's actually quite possible RDW has the 2 stateside chips covered already, as his collection is more extensive than yours. If that is the case, I will just piggyback mine on when he posts his, as he has been doing for you.

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: Doc

Category: Canada
City: Richmond, British Columbia
Casino: River Rock

I would really like to make it to the Edgewater one of these days, it looks nice.

The Edgewater is probably the worst of the 5 greater Vancouver casinos although better than the 2 racinos. Their building is an old 'temporary' building from Expo 86 (the BC Pavillion) and getting pretty tired. The casino is on a short term lease with the Provincial government on the site. The government no longer wants to maintain the old building and the casino owners without a long term lease are reluctant to spend money of renovations. The City of Vancouver keeps thwarting any relocation/expansion plans the casino has proposed so Vancouver proper may soon be without a casino.

Quote: kenarman

Quote: AcesAndEights

Quote: Doc

Category: Canada
City: Richmond, British Columbia
Casino: River Rock

I would really like to make it to the Edgewater one of these days, it looks nice.

The Edgewater is probably the worst of the 5 greater Vancouver casinos although better than the 2 racinos. Their building is an old 'temporary' building from Expo 86 (the BC Pavillion) and getting pretty tired. The casino is on a short term lease with the Provincial government on the site. The government no longer wants to maintain the old building and the casino owners without a long term lease are reluctant to spend money of renovations. The City of Vancouver keeps thwarting any relocation/expansion plans the casino has proposed so Vancouver proper may soon be without a casino.

Okay then!

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Paradise Island, Bahamas
Casino: Atlantis

The Commonwealth of the Bahamas consists of more than 700 islands. In spite of the name of this thread category, and in spite of many common references, the Bahamas are in the Atlantic, east and southeast of southern Florida, and not in the Caribbean at all. The capital is Nassau, which is located on the northeaster quadrant of the 80 square mile island of New Providence.

Just a couple hundred yards off the Nassau waterfront lies the 1.1 square mile Paradise Island, which is almost entirely developed as a tourist resort. Two bridges, one built in 1966 and an adjacent one built in the late 1990s, connect Paradise Island to Nassau. A mile west of the bridges lies downtown Nassau and Prince George Wharf, the port for cruise ships and various other large vessels.

In 1976, my wife and I went on our very first cruise, a four-night trip from Miami to Freeport and Nassau. The evening that we spent in Nassau, we went with a group of other passengers with whom we shared our dinner table to a stage performance at the Britannia Beach Hotel and Casino. Our taxi driver, and everyone else I heard talk of the place, referred to it as the "British Casino." As I dig into the history now, it seems that the casino portion of the resort may have really been known as the Paradise Island Casino.

Later, that resort was expanded and renamed the Coral Towers. It was one of the resorts that were eventually incorporated as parts of the Atlantis complex. That is an enormous resort for such a small island, and everything I have seen there is very nearly first class. I have heard that they have run some attractive air/lodging promo offers, but I have never stayed there.

My wife and I have visited Nassau on four additional cruises in 1977, 1994, 2006, and 2012, dropping in on Atlantis during the last two visits. Last year, they had significantly reduced access to the full complex for people like us who were not staying there.

CasinoCity.com says that Atlantis has 830 gaming machines and 71 table games. The casino's web site says over 850 machines and 90 table games. It seemed bigger than that to me. Perhaps my opinion is influenced by other amenities – the CasioCity web site claims that the complex has twenty-two restaurants in addition to the 3,913-room hotel. The décor of the complex is just loaded with large glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly, surpassing those at the Bellagio, I believe. It also has a water park and a dolphin habitat.

When we visited Atlantis in 2006, I played craps but failed to record my session results. When I returned last year, I played craps again and blew $200. Hope that the first visit was better than that.

I gathered the souvenir chip below on my visit in 2006. It is a white SCV/LCV Paulson hat and cane chip with two wide edge inserts in dark green and light purple. Until I began preparing this write-up, I had not realized that the two sides of the chip were different, thinking it was just the SCV mold. Had to pull the camera out again and get another photo for today. The MOGH catalog says that versions of this chip were offered in SCV, LCV, and the SCV/LCV like mine.

The center inlay is undersized and has a split gray/black ring around a white disk with the casino name and location, denomination mark, and a pale blue dolphin logo. I'm not sure I can figure out the meaning of the "AC" and "SI" that are next to the dolphin. "Atlantis Casino" seems plausible, but I can't get the rest of it. Any suggestions?




And now for the travel photo of the day. (No, I don't think I'll start that thread; I'm already doing too much of it in this thread.) The image below shows how the hulking Atlantis complex dominates Paradise Island, as viewed from a ship's deck at Prince George Wharf in downtown Nassau.



In a discussion about the Atlantis on this forum a year and a half ago, I posted this same photo plus a number of images of the Dale Chihuly glass sculptures that are all over the place and a couple of other features I saw in the casino. Check out that post if you are interested in the décor of Atlantis.

The apparent level of interest in the Caribbean casinos and their chips is definitely underwhelming.

Tough. You're just going to have to see all of them anyway. At least the ones that I have. At least those of you who read this thread.

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Willemstad, Curaçao
Casino: Awasa

I have no idea where the name "Awasa" comes from for this casino. GoogleTranslate does not indicate that it is a word in Dutch, and there is no Wikipedia page for this casino that might help. All I have been able to find from a search is that both a city and a lake by this name are in Ethiopia, though I doubt there is much of a connection there.

The MOGH catalog says that the Casino Awasa opened in the Otrobanda section of Willemstad in September 1997 in the Otrabanda Hotel, replacing what was previously known as the Otrabanda Casino. (More about that place in about a week.)

I played briefly in the Casino Awasa when I visited Curaçao in 2009, losing $40 at blackjack.

The souvenir chip shown below is an olive, plastic injection molded chip with two rings of orange dashes, four long ones on the perimeter and eight shorter ones closer to the center inlay. The MOGH catalog says that this chip is from Bud Jones. I haven't seen any other Bud Jones chips that look quite like this, but I can't really identify another source. The chip looks a bit like some of the Matsui chips with inner rings, but I can't match this design on their web site or anyone else's.



No new travel photo to post today, but I'll just suggest that you look back at the Curaçao/Otrobanda photo I included at the end of my Americana Casino chip post. If you look beyond the highest point on the pontoon bridge, you should see a blue building about six or seven stories tall, with a red roof. It's very slightly obscured by the tree branch in the foreground. That's the building that houses the Casino Awasa.

Quote: Doc

The apparent level of interest in the Caribbean casinos and their chips is definitely underwhelming.

Tough. You're just going to have to see all of them anyway. At least the ones that I have. At least those of you who read this thread.

At least for my part, it's not a lack of interest, just a lack of ability to provide input. I guess I could point out the cruelty associated with showing these particular chips to a guy you know is stir crazy;-)

Quote: Doc

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Willemstad, Curaçao
Casino: Americana

The two sides of the bay are indeed connected by a very interesting pontoon bridge for pedestrian traffic. The bridge is pivoted on one end, with a motor launch built into the other. When there is a ship entering or leaving the harbor, the motor launch rotates the bridge until it is tight against one shore of the bay/channel, allowing the ship to pass. While the bridge is out of position, ferries transport people between Punta and Otrobanda. There is also a high, modern bridge spanning the bay at the harbor end to accommodate vehicular traffic.

Sorry for the flashback, Doc, but I'm playing catch-up. How long does it take the launch to open or close the channel? Is there a regular schedule, or is it ad hoc? It would be difficult if you walked over the bridge to the casino, went broke and didn't have the money for the ferry back...

I am enjoying your Carribean Collection, please keep the posts and photos coming.

Quote: Doc

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Paradise Island, Bahamas
Casino: Atlantis

The center inlay is undersized and has a split gray/black ring around a white disk with the casino name and location, denomination mark, and a pale blue dolphin logo. I'm not sure I can figure out the meaning of the "AC" and "SI" that are next to the dolphin. "Atlantis Casino" seems plausible, but I can't get the rest of it. Any suggestions?

I'm stumped... Perhaps "SI" stands for "Sports Illustrated"?

Quote: Ayecarumba

How long does it take the launch to open or close the channel? Is there a regular schedule, or is it ad hoc? It would be difficult if you walked over the bridge to the casino, went broke and didn't have the money for the ferry back...

This page has more information on the Queen Emma pontoon bridge in Willemstad, Curaçao, including that the ferry, known as the ponchi, is free to passengers. The bridge itself used to impose a toll for crossing, but no longer.

I don't know how long it takes to open fully. Here is a video someone posted showing the bridge open part way to let a small boat pass, before it starts to close again. Guess that also answers the question of schedule vs. ad hoc.

Quote: rdw4potus

At least for my part, it's not a lack of interest, just a lack of ability to provide input. I guess I could point out the cruelty associated with showing these particular chips to a guy you know is stir crazy;-)

Let's see ... in January I was driving around my own section of the country, and you were leading the thread. You were the cruel one posting beautiful chips from areas of Arizona I had not been to in decades if ever. I felt the pain to such an extent that within a week of getting home I had purchased plane tickets to Phoenix, and wound up driving all over Arizona, northern New Mexico, and a corner of Colorado.

So are you feeling the stir crazy pain enough yet to book a trip to the Caribbean? I don't think you have even made that weekend road trip to Moncton, New Brunswick that you talked about. I must not have been cruel enough yet.

;-)

Quote: Doc

The apparent level of interest in the Caribbean casinos and their chips is definitely underwhelming.

I have heard about the Caribbean. It's some kind of sea, yes?

:P

Quote: Nareed

I have heard about the Caribbean. It's some kind of sea, yes?

:P

Yes it is named after Ean the king of the Caribes. :-)

"Some kind of sea, yes?"     Aye!


I mean, if you're going to make a lousy pun, you really should make it a total groaner.

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Willemstad, Curaçao
Casino: Carnaval

Nope, I did not misspell "Carnival." It really is the Carnaval Casino. I suppose that may be the way the Dutch spell it. At least the people in Curaçao spell the casino name that way.

And as for spelling, do they or do they not put a cedilla under the "c" in the middle of the country's name? It's there in the on-line references that I can find, but my spell checker doesn't seem to like it, and it only shows up on one of the five chips that I have from there. It can be a real nuisance to try to be culturally sensitive when you are ignorant of the facts.

The Carnaval Casino is located in the Renaissance Curaçao Resort in the Otrobanda section of Willemstad, right at the junction of the Caribbean Sea and the Sint Anna Bay. It is just out of view on the left side of that Otrobanda photo I posted with the Americana Casino chip. The resort and casino are adjacent to the pier where the cruise ships dock, at least where ours did in November 2009. The MOGH catalog says that the casino had just opened in February, nine months before we visited there.

When my wife and I first went ashore, the casino had not yet opened for the day, so I stopped back by as we returned to the ship. I got my souvenir, but skipping that would have saved me the $100 that I dropped at the blackjack table. It didn't take long, either. My wife didn't even come inside; she just sat on a bench on the walkway between shops, talking with another passenger from the ship. I was gone so briefly, she may not have noticed my absence.

The chip shown below is a mostly-blue plastic injection molded chip, and once again I have to disagree with the MOGH catalog as to the manufacturer. Yes, it's a plastic chip without a clear logo, so MOGH naturally claims that it was manufactured by Bud Jones. I know that I'm no expert, not at all, but this one seems obvious.

It is clearly one of the chip patterns offered on the Matsui web site. If you want to see for yourself, go to the Matsui Design-Your-Chip tool here, select Decal Value Chip, with inner ring, 39/40mm 3 colour, the third pattern offered, and the standard inner ring with just the four 1s. Change the three colors to Light Blue, White, and Scarlet. Isn't that exactly the pattern of this Carnaval Casino chip? How can the MOGH catalog folks think that Bud Jones sells chips with exactly the same pattern as Matsui does?



Since I don't seem to have much to say about the Carnaval Casino, I thought I would post a couple more travel photos that I took in Curaçao. The first image shows the Renaissance Curaçao Resort in the foreground, including the casino (not really visible) as viewed from the deck of our ship. The vehicular bridge across the Sint Anna Bay can be seen behind. If you look at the dark red section of the resort building, just to the right of the peak of the bridge arch, you may be able to make out the Carnaval Casino logo on the face of the building, matching the one on the center inlay of the souvenir chip.



The second photo is the reverse view and shows the ship as seen from that walkway outside of the resort, just behind the sea wall.



Who here (other than me) can report on the meaning of that giant white X on the sail of the ship? It is on all of the Celebrity Cruise Line ships.

By the way, is it possible to have the text on a spoiler button include italics or even bold face? I tried to make that last spoiler button look like:

Celebrity Millennium

but it didn't work. It just made some of the intended formatting codes show up in the button label. Of course, I'm not even certain that a ship's name is supposed to be italicized, so maybe I need grammatical/punctuation help as well as formatting help.

Quote: Doc

Nope, I did not misspell "Carnival." It really is the Carnaval Casino. I suppose that may be the way the Dutch spell it. At least the people in Curaçao spell the casino name that way.

"Carnaval" spelled like that is also Spanish for "Carnival." BTW, the word means "farewell to meat" in Latin

Well, I guess that sounds appropriate for the Lenten season as (formerly?) adhered to by the Roman Catholics, so it seems to relate to the carnival/carnaval of Fat Tuesday. Learned something new again today!

Quote: Doc

Category: Caribbean Islands
City: Willemstad, Curaçao
Casino: Carnaval

Who here (other than me) can report on the meaning of that giant white X on the sail of the ship? It is on all of the Celebrity Cruise Line ships.

I had to look it up since it was Greek to me...