Casino Chip of the Day

Quote: Doc

... the casino hotel offers essentially NO rooms to mortals on the weekends.

Quote: teddys

... and they are still offering me free rooms at any time.

Which perhaps goes a long way toward disproving your mortality.

I don't want to derail this thread (I have a vested interest in it) by planning a gathering right here, so maybe we should start another one. My wife and I plan to be in Cherokee on Saturday night 8/2 for the Jennifer Nettles solo concert, in case that weekend is of interest to anyone else. (No, we couldn't get a room at Harrah's even at a so-called rack rate, so we'll be at a Comfort Suites.)

State: Florida
City: Pompano Beach
Casino: Isle

Another unfortunately blurry picture due to the chip being in a frame. This is the first Isle I visited before realizing there are tons of them. Slot machines with a very nice poker room, one of the big south Florida poker competitors (here, the Hard Rock in Hollywood and Palm Beach Kennel Club are the biggest poker draws in the West Palm to Ft Lauderdale ares). Supposedly there is horse racing here but it's never been going when I've played poker there.

Quote: wezvidz

State: Florida
City: Pompano Beach
Casino: Isle

Another unfortunately blurry picture due to the chip being in a frame. This is the first Isle I visited before realizing there are tons of them. Slot machines with a very nice poker room, one of the big south Florida poker competitors (here, the Hard Rock in Hollywood and Palm Beach Kennel Club are the biggest poker draws in the West Palm to Ft Lauderdale ares). Supposedly there is horse racing here but it's never been going when I've played poker there.

I think this is the only casino with tables that I've visited since I started collecting chips that I don't have a chip from. I went with friends who wanted to play slots, and that's all we did. I couldn't even break free long enough to buy a chip in the poker room. Darn...I'll have to return to south Florida.

Category: Cruise Ships
Cruise Line: Holland America
Ship: MS Westerdam (Cardplayer Cruise)

Ah, the golden years of online poker.

I was making money hand over fist on fishy sites like PartyPoker (which has long withdrawn from the US market) and I won a 200 player tournament that was invite only based on player points (coin-in) you had earned over a certain period.. regardless, it was for a free cabin on the Party Poker Millions V Cruise which was an official World Poker Tour event on a cruise ship out of Ft Lauderdale. Myself and another college buddy of mine went as it fell during our spring break. Pretty surreal thinking back.. first time I mingled with poker pros I saw on TV in close proximity every day, and it wasn't your typical cruise atmosphere. The pool decks would be empty during the day while the multilevel dining room was converted into a huge poker room with cash games running 24/7. The tournament itself was a $10,000 buyin LIMIT holdem event (the biggest limit event outside of the WSOP I believe). We had a blast and snuck enough booze onboard that the trip was basically free.

Quote: rdw4potus

Quote: wezvidz

State: Florida
City: Pompano Beach
Casino: Isle

Another unfortunately blurry picture due to the chip being in a frame. This is the first Isle I visited before realizing there are tons of them. Slot machines with a very nice poker room, one of the big south Florida poker competitors (here, the Hard Rock in Hollywood and Palm Beach Kennel Club are the biggest poker draws in the West Palm to Ft Lauderdale ares). Supposedly there is horse racing here but it's never been going when I've played poker there.

I think this is the only casino with tables that I've visited since I started collecting chips that I don't have a chip from. I went with friends who wanted to play slots, and that's all we did. I couldn't even break free long enough to buy a chip in the poker room. Darn...I'll have to return to south Florida.

Why is the "S" in "Isle" silent? Was there a time or a place where it was pronounced?

Got home and got the index updated to include wezvidz's contributions to the thread.

State: Florida
City: Miami
Casino: Miccosukee Resort & Casino

Weird place. It's many miles due west of Miami in the middle of nowhere on the edge of everglade wilderness.

Nothing but slots and a medium sized poker room where (if I remember correctly) allows smoking INSIDE the room at the tables. This is the only place I've ever seen that. Pretty gross.

If there's any interest, I'd be happy to post some I don't see in the index. Off the top of my head:

Sands Atlantic City, New Jersey $5
Crown Casino, Melbourne Australia $2.5
Adelaide Casino, Adelaide Australia $5 with metal inlay (Prior to the purchase by SkyCity, renaming, and renaming back)
Fiesta Casino, Costa Rica, I think $5
One from France, the name escapes me, 5 EUR
One from London, I believe The Empire, 5 GBP

Quote: AcesAnd8s

If there's any interest, I'd be happy to post some I don't see in the index.

A few comments:

Just in case you aren't aware of it, there is a member here (for more than 2 years) with the screen name "AcesAndEights." I suspect that there are some folks (like me) who will confuse your screen name with his. You should anticipate this and be prepared to resolve the mixups that will likely ensue.

As for posting your chips, that is exactly what this thread is all about! Thank you for offering to contribute; we would love to see your chips and add those casinos to the directory.

There are a few key issues. In keeping with the name of the thread, we like to keep it to just one new casino presented each day, giving everyone a chance to read and respond. Because of this, we usually try to have one person take the lead role and post what they have, then we turn it over to the next member. About six weeks ago, it seemed that all of the active participants had (temporarily) run out of chips to post. There was only one new casino/chip presented in the entire month of May.

Just a week ago, member wezvids said:

Quote: wezvids

I have a ton of Florida chips (mainly poker rooms) not posted so I'll contribute, along with some cruise chips and possibly some Denver-area chips in a few weeks.

He has posted chips from five casinos so far but did not post one yesterday. We should give him the opportunity to post the rest of his set before you begin presenting yours. If he is going to have some delay before he can resume posting, perhaps (after checking with him) we could turn the lead over to you for a while and return to wezvids later. I wouldn't want to cut him off prematurely, though.

When you do start posting, remember that we want to hear something about the chip, the casino, your experiences there, whatever, not just posting a picture of the chip. Of course we might accept that, but we want much more. ;-)

We also have an established format for the headers of posts that cover new casinos. That should be evident if you have read even just a bit of this thread. I will appreciate your keeping close to that format -- like many here, I'm a bit of a neurotic nerd. After you post the chip image, I will add that casino to the directory.

Thanks again, and welcome to the forum.

Category: Cruise Ships
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean
Ship: Majesty of the Seas

Took a cruise with the family 2 years ago and couldn't believe they had Ultimate Texas Holdem along with BJ, 3CP, Craps and terrible VP paytables. We played a bunch of UTH, and while I tried to play craps the tables were always empty and I hate playing alone on the don'ts.

State: Florida
City: Immokalee
Casino: Seminole Casino Immokalee

FYI to the poster above, I have about 12 more chips then you can take over.

As for today:
"The Seminole Casino Immokalee is a Class III tribal gaming casino in the town of Immokalee, Florida, United States, 35 miles from Naples. The Seminole Casino is owned and operated by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Originally opened in February 1994, and recently expanded the property in February 2009; the Seminole Casino offers Vegas Style Slot machines, Poker and a variety of table games including Baccarat, Blackjack, and three card poker."

I hit up this casino on a weekend trip from my home area of West Palm to the Ft Myers/Naples area. Went specifically to go to a few poker room/dog track combos and to see Brian Regan perform standup in Ft Myers.

After a long boring drive through the nothingness of alligator alley, I found this place before getting to my hotel back at civilization. This is located in the middle of nowhere in south central Florida. Don't remember much other than it was a pretty nice place for being in small town nothingness.

Quote: wezvidz

FYI to the poster above, I have about 12 more chips then you can take over.

Excellent! Please let us know when you have reached the end, and we can try to keep the thread going for a while longer without interruption.

In case some of you haven't noticed yet, AcesAnd8s has changed his screen name to DeadMansHand to avoid confusion with AcesAndEights. His name has been changed on each of the few posts that he made before the change, but the original name still appears in my post where I quoted him. We look forward to the rest of wezvidz's chips to be followed by those from DeadMansHand.

I have seven new chips myself from my recent trip, but five of them are from casinos that rdw4potus has already covered. I will post those five chips together once I get the photos taken, and I will add the other two in posts of their own after DeadMansHand finishes posting his chips.

I think we really should be discussing the manufacturers of some of these chips, and maybe some of their features. The chip from Seminole Immokalee is a Paulson Reversed Hat and Cane chip, just like the very first chip posted in this thread and many others. The chip from the Isle casino in Pompano Beach is obviously from Chipco International, since the CI logo can be seen at the 4:00 position. The chip from the Majesty of the Seas is Icon's split-6 design.

The chips from the Westerdam/Card Player cruise, the Miccosukee, and the Island Breeze all look like Chipco chips, too, but I mustn't jump to that conclusion too quickly. Chipco has gone out of business, with some of the (former) employees opening up the Game On Chip Company, which makes ceramic chips very much like those that were from Chipco. Their web site even has a page that shows an Isle Pompono Beach chip that is identical to the Chipco one that wezvidz posted except that it has a "GO" logo instead of a "CI" logo. Without the logo visible, I have no idea how to tell which company made these chips.

I'm not sure of the source of the Palm Beach Kennel Club chip. The MOGH catalog says it is from Bud Jones, but they tend to attribute all plastic injection molded chips to Bud Jones, sometimes even when there is a visible logo from another manufacturer. They could be right this time, but I don't see a logo, and I'm not sure.

I finally got around to photographing the chips I collected on my recent trip to Niagara Falls, Ontario, with casino stops in Canada, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. As I noted yesterday, five of my new chips are from casinos that rdw4potus has already covered in this thread. He posted the $5 chips that he collected, so below are my photos of the $1 chips from the same casinos. As always, click on any image to see the larger version.

Presque Isle Downs, Erie, PA. This is a white Gemaco chip, with the "G" logo evident between the denomination and the city/state. The only thing on this chip that fluoresces under UV light is the overall center inlay.


Horseshoe, Cleveland, OH. This is a white Paulson SCV design with three edge inserts in green, orange, and whatever you want to call that other color -- olive? Khaki? Under UV light, the green insert fluoresces in more of a blue tone than is evident in the photo, and the Paulson logo appears in the center.


Hollywood, Columbus, OH. This is a white Paulson RHC design with four wide edge inserts, two in green and two sort of peach. The city and state are printed so small that they are nearly impossible to read. Under UV light, the green edge inserts fluoresce, and the Paulson logo also appears in the center.


OLG Casino Brantford, Brantford, Ontario, Canada. This is another white Paulson RHC chip, with four narrow edge inserts in green and pale blue. Under UV light, the Paulson logo appears in the center, with nothing else fluorescing. In fact, the edge inserts are almost completely invisible under UV light.


Great Blue Heron, Scugog Island (Port Perry), Ontario, Canada. This is a white Bud Jones plastic injection molded chip with purple markings and a rather pretty center inlay, including the image of the heron. The BJ logo shows up under UV light.


I'll post the other two chips I collected -- one from New York and one from Pennsylvania -- when it is again my turn to take the lead very briefly.

State: Florida
City: Bonita Springs
Casino: Naples Fort Myers Greyhound Track

"A long time landmark and popular recreational facility on Florida's southwest coast, the race track operates year 'round with greyhound racing, full card simulcasting of dogs and thoroughbreds and a casino-style Poker Room. "

A continuation of my trip spoken of above that took me west across Florida from home in West Palm to Ft Myers.

As is a big theme in Florida, this is my second race track/poker venue chip with quite a few more to come. The poker at these places are the fishiest games I've played anywhere in the country. I played a short 1/2$ no limit holdem session to collect the chip.

Those are the cutest dogs!

State: Florida
City: Fort Myers Beach
Casino: Big M Casino Cruise

Last chip from my Ft Myers collecting trip. Another of the numerous casino cruises Florida offers.

I will post another chip from a cruise out of the Tampa area soon which was a pretty terrible experience where you take a ferry out to an anchored ship. This ship is similar to the WPB & Victory cruises posted earlier where you rode the ship itself out to international waters then gaming began. The experience wasn't very memorable, good or bad.

Just a couple of comments on the most recent chips....

The Naples Fort Meyers chip certainly looks like a Chipco International product, but there is no clear ID. Of course it could be from Game On Chip Co., if it is rather new. The Big M chip is, naturally, a Paulson RHC model.




Unless, I miscounted, this latest chip represents the 700th casino covered in this thread. Another milestone.

How do you post pics on this forum? Thanks

A couple of months ago, I tried to give some advice on that topic, specifically related to posting chip images:

Quote: Doc

The trickiest part is that the forum doesn't provide space to store the images -- you need to have the image hosted on a publicly-accessible site elsewhere on the web and link to it in your post. I host my images at my own domain; rdw4potus and others have used Photobucket.com, and Nareed recently used Google photos (with just a little difficulty). Once you have an image stored and available for the link, check out the formatting codes that are available (click on the "Click here for formatting codes" link right below the frame where you enter a new post). You can also look at the details of someone else's post of an image by clicking on the quote button for their post -- examine their post and then hit cancel.

BTW, some of us post just a small image of the chip to appear directly in the post, with a link that lets you see a larger image by clicking on the small one. If you have the images in two different resolutions (I use 180x180 pixels for the small ones and 600x600 pixels for the large ones), check out one of my chip posts to see how to combine the image post with a link to another image.

If that isn't a clear enough explanation, let us know and someone will try to do a better job.

Quote: Riva

How do you post pics on this forum? Thanks

With difficulty ;)

Also, what Doc said.

State: Florida
City: Port Richey
Casino: SunCruz Port Richey

Took a weekend trip from West Palm up to the Tampa area in August 2012. It's about a 4 hour drive from the WPB area, and it was memorable in many ways. I got to see Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager live (I'm a big time Adam Carolla podcast fan). The republican national convention was in town ahead of the 2012 presidential election. Lastly, driving back, I narrowly got back into WPB before Hurricane Isaac hit and although we just got the mild side of it, I'm glad I wasn't driving through the torrents of rain and wind starting to come down just as I pulled into my garage.

As for the first chip from this area I collected, it's the last of the FL casino cruises I've been on (of 4) and certainly the worst. This is an anchored casino ship off shore that you take a 30 minute ferry ride out to and board.

The ferry was uncomfortable and the "cruise" ship was smokey, cramped and hot.

This chip is pretty dirty and I'll buff it more before I frame it but most of them were like this on the boat. Matches the experience.

State: Michigan
City: Orchard Lake
Casino: Orchard Lake Schools Charity Casino


Well, let's see if this works.

A s mentioned, I volunteer at a non-profit that has charitable gaming to raise money. It's real money gaming but more of the $1 to $5 variety. We own all our own tables and equipment, including custom chips. Below is a pic of a $5 chip. It is a very shiny gold and about the size of a silver dollar and weighs about half as much as same. The one side shows the denomination along with the organization's name and year founded. The other side is the official crest of the organization with official motto, in Latin. We also had a silver $1 chip with the same inscriptions that was about the size of a .50 piece.

AFter many years of use, we finally retired the metal chips and have replaced them with casino-quality clay chips, again with custom logos and inscriptions. While very elegant and impressive, the metal chips were an absolute nightmare to handle for both dealers and players. Having very little girth, it did not give the "feel" of real money. Also, it was slippery as heck and virtually impossible to stack. Most of the time players and dealers simply put them in to big beer cups and/or buckets. The new clay chips are a dream to work with.

Quote: Riva

The other side is the official crest of the organization with official motto, in Latin.

I can't make out the motto. I'd be interested to know what it is.

Quote:

Also, it was slippery as heck and virtually impossible to stack.

I inherited a lovely set of translucent poker chips from my dad. The denominations are plain numbers (1, 5, 25, 50, 100, etc). I love to look at them, but you can't stack more than five without them toppling over or even toppling under. They're made of some kind of old-fashioned plastic, I think. He had the set since the 60s or early 70s. Each denomination is a different color, too.

State: Florida
City: Tampa
Casino: Tampa Bay Downs (The Silks Poker Room)

"Since opening in 2004, The Silks Poker Room has emerged as a prime destination for card-game aficionados of all experience levels and bankroll sizes to test their skills."

Another chip from my Tampa trip. This is a horse racing track just northwest of downtown Tampa. Lots of tables, very clean and a close poker destination to downtown Tampa so it has good action.

This is one of 2 chips from the area that I'm not sure how to categorize by name, because the card room has a unique name vs the venue it is housed it. The other one will be posted tomorrow.

Once I finish my Florida run of chips from the Daytona Beach strip down to Miami, there's two other card rooms at tracks that have unique cardroom names as well. Not sure how to categorize these (venue vs cardroom name) but I'll let the mods sort that out :)

Quote: Nareed

I can't make out the motto. I'd be interested to know what it is.

Since Riva hasn't replied:

"Initium Sapientiae Timor Domini"

Translated as: The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God.

It's a Catholic school, or rather a group of schools.

Quote: wezvidz

... other card rooms at tracks that have unique cardroom names as well. Not sure how to categorize these (venue vs cardroom name)....]

I suggest that you list them by the name of the facility rather than the name of the poker room. Or include the name of the poker room in parentheses as you did this time. I'll just put the facility name in the index. I can't think of examples right now, but I think there are plain casinos that have special names for their poker rooms and/or high-limit rooms, and those names might appear on some chips. As long as the facility name is on the chip, like "Tampa Bay Downs", I think that's a good way to list the place here.

BTW, I am not a mod, just a nerd who tries to coordinate some degree of order and consistency in this thread.

Thanks!

Quote: Doc

Translated as: The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God.

It's a Catholic school, or rather a group of schools.

Even so, it's the oddest thing put on a chip I've seen here.

State: Florida
City: Tampa
Casino: Tampa Greyhound (Lucky's Card Room)

"We have the friendliest card room in Tampa Bay. Our managers and dealers are committed to making sure your visit to Lucky’s is a great experience. "

This is the second of the two chips in the Tampa area with a venue name and a seperate cardroom name.

I don't remember a lot of details about this place other than that it didn't impress me much in any regard.

Quote: Doc

... I'll just put the facility name in the index.
I am ... just a nerd who tries to coordinate some degree of order and consistency in this thread.

Well, to show a bit of my inconsistency, this time I'm showing the name of Lucky's Card Room in the index, since this Paulson RHC chip doesn't even mention the Tampa Greyhound facility on it.

That is one cute dog. I can't imagine playing cards with him looking at me.

Quote: Doc

State: Nevada
City: Las Vegas
Casino: Cromwell

The souvenir chip shown below is a white ceramic chip with two brown edge "inserts" and red printing on the center "inlay". One side includes the casino name twice, the city/state, and the denomination. The other side has the casino name (just once), the Total Rewards name and logo, and the denomination. I think this is the only chip I have ever seen with the Total Rewards designation right on the chip.

The Quad does as well - or at least they did when I got my chip from there in 2013.

Speaking of chips, I was trying to fit the chips from my latest Vegas run into picture frame chip holders, and I noticed that both Downtown Grand and The Cromwell are using larger chips - 40mm diameter instead of 39mm. These are the same size as the chips I got from Australia back in 2011.

State: Florida
City: St. Petersburg
Casino: Derby Lane

My last visit of my Tampa area racetrack-casinos, a poker room/racetrack combo on the southside of the Tampa area. Took a beautiful ride over the long bridge connecting Tampa to the penisula of St Petersburg down south and played some poker. Nice place to play and a well maintained poker room.

Quote: ThatDonGuy

The Quad does as well - or at least they did when I got my chip from there in 2013.

Well, Dang! You are absolutely correct. My Quad chip (that I had posted here, has the TR logo, too. Obviously, I had forgotten that. I have it displayed on my desktop with the "Q" logo facing upward, so I didn't see the other side as I scanned over them.

Yes, some casinos use chips of slightly different sizes, though I don't think I have ever measured them. It becomes most obvious to me when I rearrange the chips on my desktop to include new additions. I place the new chips where they belong, remove all of the chips in sequence in stacks, and then place them back out in the new array. As I stack them and handle the stacks, the differences in chip sizes become quite evident. The biggest differences are with the tokens, which are quite noticeably smaller than any of the chips I have.

State: Florida
City: Daytona Beach
Casino: Daytona Beach Kennel Club



Now to finish off my Florida chips, we'll take a run down from north to south along the east coast.

Grabbed this chip in February when my mother was in Orlando for a work conference and we met up for dinner. I had been planning to grab this one on the way to Jacksonville sometime (which has 2 poker rooms I still need to visit) but this provided a good opportunity.

A big poker room (55 tables) that was bustling because the weekend I was there also had a motorcycle convention in Daytona. Drinking bikers make the games even more fishy than normal. Apparently this place also hosts a televised Heartland Poker Tour event every year which is the only HPT stop in the state.

State: Florida
City: Melbourne
Casino: Melbourne Greyhound Park (Club 52)



Another poker room that is named differently than it's venue name.

This chip was picked up on a trip from West Palm up to Port Canaveral where the Victory casino cruise departs. It's a good pitstop for a rest along I-95 in the middle of nowhere.

They do a lot of high hand promotions, bad beat jackpot and such to attract players. My memory of the facility is that it was a pretty depressing looking room and not very active when I stopped by. Seemed like a locals type of place.



....

BTW, this will be my 2nd to last post before a before a 4 day hiatus. I will post tomorrow, then be taking a trip to Blackhawk and Cripple Creek from the 26th-29th. My posting will resume Monday the 30th, so if somebody wants to take over for 4 days, go for it.

Another Chipco International product, with the CI logo faintly visible at the 5:00 position.

Quote: wezvidz

BTW, this will be my 2nd to last post before a before a 4 day hiatus. I will post tomorrow, then be taking a trip to Blackhawk and Cripple Creek from the 26th-29th. My posting will resume Monday the 30th, so if somebody wants to take over for 4 days, go for it.

This looks like a good opportunity for DeadMansHand to post those chips he mentioned to us back here. Hope he's still reading this thread.

And thinking about chips posted by others got me to look back at that metal chip from the Orchard Lake Schools Charity Casino that was posted last week. Until now, I had not noticed that Riva had edited his post as I had suggested, so I added that to the directory. It seems that someone with admin powers has been looking after us/me -- the several posts where we discussed proper formatting of that post have all been deleted, both Riva's and mine, just as I had suggested we should do after it was all fixed. Now that I think about it, perhaps the same admin did the editing of Riva's post of his chip. I don't know. Anyway, it looks fine now, and we have another Michigan chip in the directory.


Edit 5/24/20: Member RideTheEdge has posted images of some additional chips from the Club 52 Poker Room at the Melbourne Greyhound Park here.

Well, it seems that DeadMansHand has a conflict with posting his chips right now and will be back to share with us later. I have two chips/casinos to share during wezvidz's 4-day absence, and I'm waiting to hear whether rdw4potus has his chips out of storage and photographed for us yet. In case he doesn't, is there someone else who has chips from as-yet-not-covered-in-this-thread casinos and would like to step up to the plate this weekend? Let me know so we can try to coordinate.

State: Florida
City: Fort Pierce
Casino: Fort Pierce Jai-Alai



Another chip picked up along I-95. For the first time in my posting, instead of a greyhound track with poker it's a jai alai place with poker. Crazy sports I don't understand in the slightest, but plenty of people bet on it. There's at least one more of these combo places in Miami that houses poker & jai alai. This is another smaller, locals type poker room.



This will be my last post until Monday 6/30, can't wait to drive through Colorado to collect some chips. Beautiful part of the country I've never visited.

State: Pennsylvania
City: Farmington
Casino: Lady Luck

The Lady Luck chain of casinos was purchased by Isle of Capri in 2000, with the casinos eventually being rebranded. Then, starting in 2008, the company revived the brand for some of their new casinos and newly-acquired casinos, continuing to use both the Isle and Isle of Capri brands also.

In 2011, the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in the very-rural town of Farminton, in western Pennsylvania, was selected for the last Class 3 resort casino license in the state, with Isle/Lady Luck to operate the place under the name Lady Luck – Nemacolin. There were some objections to this license by competitors, so it took more than two years for them to open the place, even though the structure was pre-existing as a convention center on the grounds. The casino eventually opened in July 2013.

As a Pennsylvania resort casino, there are restrictions on who may enter and play there, very much the same as at the Valley Forge casino but much less restrictive than at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. When my wife and I visited in May 2014, since we had not yet spent any money at the resort, we could only gain admittance by first purchasing a couple of gift cards ($10 each) good at any of the establishments on the grounds. The line was much shorter than what we encountered at Valley Forge in 2012; i.e., nobody in line ahead of us this time and three friendly folks ready to serve us. After purchasing the cards, we immediately walked straight through the casino to the Otis and Henry’s restaurant, where we used our gift cards for lunch before starting the gaming. That’s not a particularly onerous restriction on casino access, but there are other options available.

The extent of gaming at the Class 3 casinos is limited by the licenses, but the Lady Luck is quite a bit smaller than Valley Forge. For example, the resort claims “almost 30” tables (28, according to casinocity.com), contrasted to the 50 tables plus a poker room at Valley Forge. The Lady Luck web site says that they operate the table games from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Actually, the casino has two web sites, one here associated with the resort and the other here associated with Isle of Capri (with that second one confirming “28 tables.”)

I don’t know how their table minimums might vary by day or time of day, but mid-afternoon on a Wednesday they offered craps for $5 on an active table, and I came out $25 to the positive side in about an hour of play.

My souvenir $1 chip shown below is a white Paulson RHC design with three wide edge inserts in olive, blue, and red/orange. It has a typical (I think) Lady Luck logo with the Nemacolin designation about in the middle of the chip and the city/state at the bottom. UV light reveals a Paulson top hat and cane logo in the center, plus the fact that the red/orange insert fluoresces while the other two do not.

State: New York
City: Buffalo
Casino: Seneca Buffalo Creek

The Seneca Nation had several reservation areas in New York state. Per this Wiki article, there was a (tentative) treaty in 1838 calling for all members of the Nation to depart western New York for Wisconsin and Oklahoma. The land sale associated with that treaty fell apart, and a new treaty was passed in 1842. Under that set of terms, the Buffalo Creek Reservation was dissolved, while four others in the area remained intact.

The Senecas repurchased a nine-acre tract of that original Buffalo Creek Reservation which had been in private hands, and this plot in downtown Buffalo – now entirely occupied by the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino – constitutes the modern Buffalo Creek Reservation.

The original casino opened in 2007, which is the date noted on both their web site and the MOGH chip guide. However, that casino was slots only, giving a disappointing revenue stream and leading to disagreements with the State of New York. The tribe broke ground on a new casino in 2012, with the new place having its soft opening in August 2013.

I had never even heard of this casino until SOOPOO and Soopoo (I’ll let them explain that bit) mentioned it over lunch at the WoV 2014 Spring Fling. I immediately added the place to my list of “Chips I Might Get Some Day”, and my wife and I stopped by last month on our way to Niagara Falls.

I can’t really verify whether there is a good route to the casino. Looking at a map in retrospect, it appears that coming from Erie, PA, we should have stayed on I-90 to I-190, which passes just a couple of blocks from the casino. Instead, we relied on my GPS, which directed us on the “shortest” and allegedly “quickest” route, leaving I-90 earlier and meandering through several miles of decayed-and-partially-under-reconstruction industrial zones to get us there. I guess you could say we engaged in a bit of rust belt tourism on the way to the casino.

Once we found the place, it was fine, and being less than a year old it was in good shape. Their web site lists their table games as blackjack, craps, roulette, Blackjack Switch, Mississippi Stud, Spanish 21, Let It Ride, Three Card Poker, and Teas Hold’em Bonus Poker. It also claims they have “over 800 of the most sought after slots.” Casinocity.com lists the gaming space as 67,000 sq. ft. and says there are a total of 18 tables for the 9 listed games. I didn’t count them, and the casino’s web site doesn’t give a number. For my own action, I played $10-min craps and managed to throw away $200 in an hour – my second such losing session of the day.

My souvenir $1 chip from Seneca Buffalo Creek is a white Paulson RHC with two wide edge inserts in dark blue and orange. The center inlay includes a buffalo logo at the top, the name of the casino in black and orange, the denomination in gold, and the city/state in orange. There is a bluish swoosh background image that I assume represents the Niagara River, which begins less than three miles away as the primary effluent of Lake Erie. UV light reveals that the blue edge insert fluoresces and that there is a Paulson hat and cane logo hidden in the center.

The MOGH chip guide includes illustrations of a series of similar chips, which I assume were all issued last year when the table games opened. These include denominations of $1, $2.50, $5, $25, and $100. The $2.50 chips are pink, with the others in standard colors. With my losing session, I had no occasion to look for what other denominations might be present in the box man’s bank.

My posts for the next couple days fall into the "me too!" category. Last September, Doc posted his chip from Aliante. At that time, I was travelling and hadn't yet taken a picture of my chip. I said I'd post the images when I could, and as far as I can tell I never actually did that before now. The photos of my chip from Aliante are below.

I wonder how Aliante is doing now that they've left the Stations family. It's a nice enough property, with kind of a clean modern feel. But it's very far north, and pretty much all alone out there. I've visited 6 times, once to get each chip (stations and non-stations), 3 times for Stations promos, and once last summer just for fun. My offers have dried up since the property left Stations, which means I'll probably never return. There's just no reason to drive past other similar properties to get to Aliante.

My chip from Aliante is a Paulson RHC. I got it pretty soon after the separation from Stations, which is also pretty soon after the chip's issuance. Even so, it's a bit dinged up and worn.

Quote: rdw4potus

My offers have dried up since the property left Stations, which means I'll probably never return. There's just no reason to drive past other similar properties to get to Aliante.

The very first chip posted in this thread was from Aliante Station. In discussing that first chip/casino, the Wizard said:

Quote: Wizard

The Aliante Station I think is the only hotel/casino in Vegas I have not been to. There is zero reason to go to that part of Vegas. I've lived here 11 years and have never had the reason to go anywhere near the place.

They say that great minds think alike.

Sitting in Denver's airport. I'll resume posting tomorrow, continuing through my Florida chips.

As a side note, what a fun trip this was. Driving to Blackhawk and Cripple Creek were gorgeous, scenic drives. Stayed 2 nights at the Ameristar in Blackhawk and loved the place.

Cripple Creek had some sort of festival going on with the main downtown strip closed off with a couple live music stages, lots of food vendors, etc. Out of the chips I had planned on collecting, they told me at Big Jim's they no longer had table games, and the Gold Rush was permanently closed. As luck had it though I snuck in under the wire to get a chip from Gold Creek. There were signs there saying they're closing officially on 6/30, and even though the poker area was closed, the nice cashier opened a sealed bag of their chips that were ready to ship out somewhere and snag me a dollar chip.

After the 5 or so Florida chips I have left, it appears I collected a Colorado chip not on here yet, the Monarch in Blackhawk.

EDIT: I now see that Golden Mardi Gras and Midnight Rose have been posted but they're not listed on the index, so that needs fixed. I was very surprised seeing them not posted but found them among rdw's Colorado posts.

Did you happen to go up the hill to Central City? The folks up there thought the " open the doors and let the suckers in " phase was going to last forever. You had to park in a muddy lot, no cars allowed down the main street, and lets have a building moratorium so none of the big boys can build anything.
You know the poem " Face on the barroom floor ", that face is on the floor at the Teller House. Worked with a guy at AT&T who was part time slot tech at the Teller House. They used to set out a nice buffet for employees. Then it was prepared sandwiches and salads.
Then a couple of loafs of bread and baloney.
Their last idea before closing was to be a no tipping casino. Ameristar was originally a casino that paid HILTON to manage them.
Opened 2 weeks late instead of normal 2 days, Closed at 10 PM first couple of weekends as insufficient funds to cover jackpots, etc.
Ameristar bought in for pennies on the dollar. Now has 38% of Blackhawk Market,

Quote: wezvidz

I now see that Golden Mardi Gras and Midnight Rose have been posted but they're not listed on the index, so that needs fixed. I was very surprised seeing them not posted but found them among rdw's Colorado posts.

Well, dang! I could probably make up lots of convoluted explanations for that oversight, but none of them would make any sense. Obviously, I wasn't too busy or away from the forum at the time, since I replied to both of rdw's posts and included images of my own souvenir chips.

It shouldn't surprise me or anyone else if I have forgotten to add some other casino names to the index. Senility leads to recurring memory lapses. If anyone notices other oversights, please let me know so that I can correct them.

And thanks for this, wezvidz.

Doc posted his Quad and Aliante Casino chips on consecutive days. I'd meant to do that same thing...9 months ago. Instead, I'm doing it now. During the same visit when I collected my chip from Aliante, I also visited the Quad.

The Quad is a confusing property. It's physically somewhat labyrinthine, and it's also tough to categorize. If it weren't center-strip, it'd be a fine property. But it's so clearly inferior to its neighbors that it's hard to see why that condition (and/or the property itself) is allowed to exist.

My chip from the Quad is pretty nice. It's a Paulson, and it's very close to mint condition. The property name is imprinted in the clay, which is a nice touch. There are also two hat & cane symbols on each face. Those symbols face opposite directions. I wonder if that means that this is technically an RHC design.

(1) I know that rdw4potus has told us that he has a routine now for photographing his chips: get photos of both sides of every chip, even if they are the same, get two different size images, get them all uploaded to the web, etc.

(2) From the very beginning of this thread I have admitted that some of my own chip photos show color shifts, with gray chips looking beige, etc., and I frequently try to describe the colors a bit or the color shifts that I notice.

With those two factors in mind, I have to comment that these two photos of rdw's Quad chip make it look as if it is/they are two completely different chips. I mean, the images look almost as different as some of my visible light vs. UV light photo sets. ;-)

I just edited my chip post for the Grand Station casino riverboat in Vicksburg, MS to add the following comment:

Quote: Doc

I just learned from this blog that back on May 18, 2013, the Grand Station riverboat, aka Horizon, -- or at least the remaining shell of the barge -- was finally removed from its docking station. It had been sold for the "Grand" price of $10,000 to Keyes Recycling Center, presumably to be scrapped.

Obviously, this is old news, but I hadn't heard it and thought that some of you might be interested, too.

State: Florida
City: Dania Beach
Casino: Dania Jai-Alai

Back to Florida chips, continuing south along the east coast.

This combo Jai Alai gambling joint + poker room is in the Ft Lauderdale area and is majorly overshadowed by better poker venues at the Hard Rock Hollywood or Isle to the north. Small, unimpressive place, and hardly anybody was there on a Friday night when I popped in for a chip.

Quote: Doc

Another Chipco International product, with the CI logo faintly visible at the 5:00 position.



This looks like a good opportunity for DeadMansHand to post those chips he mentioned to us back here. Hope he's still reading this thread.

And thinking about chips posted by others got me to look back at that metal chip from the Orchard Lake Schools Charity Casino that was posted last week. Until now, I had not noticed that Riva had edited his post as I had suggested, so I added that to the directory. It seems that someone with admin powers has been looking after us/me -- the several posts where we discussed proper formatting of that post have all been deleted, both Riva's and mine, just as I had suggested we should do after it was all fixed. Now that I think about it, perhaps the same admin did the editing of Riva's post of his chip. I don't know. Anyway, it looks fine now, and we have another Michigan chip in the directory.

That was me, tending the fires. I asked Riva if he wanted help in doing it, or whether I should just fix it, and he asked me to do it. So I went with it as you had requested, including deleting the interim discussion on the nuts and bolts of it.