Casino Chip of the Day

State: Texas
City: San Antonio
Casino: Office

Today’s chip of the day is from The Office Card House in San Antonio, Texas. Back in April of last year I posted my chip from Abby J Card House which is still one of my favourite chips in my collection. After playing there I had no idea how they stay open since they barely got one table per day. My friend who had been there the year before and I had two theories, first it was a front for laundering money or two the owner was just willing to lose money month after month to have his own “play area”. The second one seems more likely and I guess he got sick of footing the bill because he sold the club about a year ago to a 40 year old family man who then changed the club name to The Office. When I stopped in (hobbled in on my crutches) the game hadn’t started yet so I sat down and played some new poker variant with the dealer, owner and one player. The game was weird and I lost about $4 trying to figure it out. We started the 2/5 game shorthanded but it filled up pretty quick. I heard some stories from the new owner about the old owner including how much of an ass he was and how when he sold the club he pocketed a $100,000 (don’t quote me on that but I believe that was the number) bad beat jackpot instead of giving it out to players as intended. I guess he figured it was a rebate on the costs over the years. Now I was wondering how much of the bad stories were true until two players showed up and one confirmed all the stories, she was the previous owner’s daughter and the mom of Abby J who the club had been named after. I’m amazed how few nice things she had to say about her dad. The game was great and we played until there were only 3 of us left. I cashed out up $800 and called it a night.

The chip while not as nice as the previous one from Abby J is still very well done. Overall an extremely nicely designed chip. The $25 chips were mint coloured rather than the more common darker green. The owner said the sample came the wrong colour but he liked it so he kept it that way for the set he ordered. The chip is white with what looks like grey ink spills all over the chip including the inlay. All writing is black with the denom around the edge of the chip, the club name in the inlay in a rectangle and under that is the location and year the club opened.

Is that a textured face on the chip?
("Lots of little bumpies"?)

Yes it is textured.

State: Texas
City: El Paso
Casino: Flaming Aces

Today’s chip of the day is from Flaming Aces in El Paso, Texas. I tried to go to Jack of Hearts when I got to El Paso and the guy said the game would start later. The club was huge with about 20 tables so I figured it would have action. I took a nap and headed back to find the door locked and nobody was on the poker list on PokerAtlas. I then went to Flaming Aces where I was told by a few players that they never get games going over there. Flaming Aces is a smaller club with 4 tables on one half of the club and slot machines on desktop computers taking up the other half. A few years ago the slot machines were explained to me that they play for credits not cash so it’s not illegal but then the credits are turned into cash so it’s the same thing as far as I can see. I’ve seen the slot machine desktops in multiple Texas cities so they must get away with it. There was one table running with a fun group of guys. There was a lot of table talk with people razzing each other and I joined right in. The locals loved that the new guy was busting balls without a worry. The owner’s wife made some amazing tacos on soft corn tortillas. The chicken was amazing and the hot salsa was amazing too, I had seconds on the tacos. These are definitely not tacos you get in the northern USA or Canada. I played for 3 hours until it got late and I figured I should get some sleep before driving to Vegas. On my way back to my hotel I saw what looked like a poker room that I had never heard of before… to be continued tomorrow.

The chip is white with 4 blue/yellow edge inserts. There are 8 engravings of playing cards around the edge of the chip. The centre inlay black with dark yellowish writing. The logo is a spade on fire, there is a club and heart on either side of the logo and a diamond and spade inside of the logo. The club name is listed below the logo with denom in white at the bottom of the inlay.

State: Texas
City: El Paso
Casino: High Society

Today’s chip of the day is from High Society Poker Club in El Paso, Texas. As I mentioned yesterday I was headed back to my hotel when I saw what looked like a poker room sign so I stopped to check it out. I walked in and there was a full table which ended up being a tourny and then a dealer, a girl and what turned out to be an off duty dealer at another table. I asked if they were going to play and they said maybe if the tourny players bust and join. I sat down and chatted until they decided we could play 3 handed which was fine with me since I just wanted a chip. We played for about 30 minutes with the other players full on soft playing each other cause they were friends which is very wrong normally but again I didn’t care as I just wanted to play for my chip. The girl busted her $80 and then the owner’s dad sat with us. The 3 of us played 3 handed for a while and they were your standard bad players. I won $120 over the short period before we called it a night which doesn’t seem like much but 3 handed in an over raked game that is pretty huge. After we finished, the tourny players and the 3 of us played 6-7 hands of 5 card Omaha flips where we all put $20 in and the dealer deals 5 cards. It’s silly straight gambling but since we open one card at a time it gets loud and fun. I ended up losing $20 during the flips and called it a night. Fun group and I would happily play at this club again minus the large illegal rake.

The chip is grey with 12 black edge inserts and 6 white horizontal diamonds between the edge inserts. The centre inlay is blue with the logo in the middle. The logo is a black spade with a crown on it, the denom is in the middle of the spade in blue. The club name is black above and below the logo, with “society” having a $ instead of the S. I’m not sure if this is what they were going for but a “stack of high society” in chips is a 20 stack of $500 chips or $10k.

State: Texas
City: Houston
Casino: Lucky Aces

Today’s chip of the day is from Lucky Aces Social Club in Houston, Texas. I saved this one for the end of my Texas chips because it’s a weird one. I found this club on google maps and went to check it out. It’s on the second level of a strip mall looking place. I went in and asked about poker and two Asian woman in broken English told me there is no poker running. I asked a few questions trying to gauge if they ever have games and I could maybe get a chip later. Eventually a lady who spoke more English came out and talked to me. She said they almost never get poker games going but they have bj and baccarat, confused I confirmed live tables not electronic which she confirmed. I said ok, how does it work? She explained I needed a membership and to buy credits. 1 credit = $0.10 and it costs 13 credits to play one hand of bj and I think 16 for baccarat. Before I could figure out the cheapest way to collect a chip at this very illegal club she says I will waive your membership fee and give you 1000 credits if you want to come try it out and play. I said sure, gave them some info and went in. Inside looked like a normal casino with one guy playing $500 a hand on baccarat and some dealers being taught at another table. I sat down at the bj table, she pulled the cards from the shuffler and I cut them. She started dealing and on the 2nd or 3rd hand a bullseye card comes out and I stop cause I have no idea what’s happening. They then explained that this is Texas Bullseye not blackjack. They take the 16 ten value cards out of the deck and insert 13 of these Bullseye cards worth 10. So basically if you’re counting, the 6 deck shoe starts at a -18 lol. I didn’t stick around long as the game sucked but also I didn’t want to be there when the club inevitably got raided. Very odd place to find in Texas.

The chip is white with 6 light blue edge inserts. The centre inlay is black with a blue border and the club name and denom written twice each around the inlay. The logo is hard to decipher, there is a better picture of it on chipguide. It looks like two men in cowboy hats, each has a stick, one with a club on it and a one with a 4 leaf clover. The club and 4 leaf clover appear again at the corners of the blue mound in the inlay. The club name and denom both appear in white.

I collected two new chips this week but I haven’t done anything with them and don’t mind having a posting break. Dwc if you’re ready go ahead and take over as I’ve exhausted my inventory.

I added your Lucky Aces CCotD post to the thread index in the Texas category. I considered instead just adding it to a new category of "Illegal Casinos Where WoV Forum Members Have Dared to Play."

:-)

I guess since Dwc hasn’t started posting I’ll post the last two chips that I have to post currently.

State: Montana
City: Kalispell
Casino: Fatt Boys

Today’s chip of the day is from Fatt Boys Bar and Grille in Kalispell, Montana. I made a quick stopover in Kalispell for two days and hit up the 2 poker clubs in the city that are both run by Montana Poker Room. On Monday they ran 5/10 limit O8 which I played for about 2.5 hours. The game was brutal since it was small, limit and a split pot game, all annoying things. I stayed as long as I did for two reasons, one the table talk was good, it was a bunch of old dudes razzing each other which is fun and also I had nothing else to do since I was in the middle of nowhere. I ended up losing $300 in the game, I couldn’t make a hand to save my life and I got quartered with the nut low 5 times. That means I had the best possible low hand and the other player had the same low and a better high hand than me. They get the half of the pot for the high hand and then we split the half that goes to the low. Quartering shouldn’t happen as much as it did, at least not to the same player (me) over and over lol. I lost my buy in and left with one measly chip for my collection.

The chip is a white, lower quality hot stamp with 4 blue edge inserts. Each insert has A, K, Q or J on it. Between each insert is a card engraved on the chip with either an A or K of spades on it. The centre inlay is white with a blue and white checkered outline. There is a gold “GP” hot stamp in the middle of the inlay. None of the chips had the denom on them. I was told a story of where these chips come from but I’m skeptical of the accuracy. GP stands for Glacier Poker which apparently was a poker room in Whitefish, Montana about 20 years ago. The reason I doubt that this story is true is how all the hot stamps look almost new which definitely would be unlikely after 20 years and being passed around to multiple clubs. The more likely option I think is these are the original chips from Glacier Peaks Casino 2 hours away. I posted my chip from there over 5 years ago so it’s possible these were their original chips before they got nicer ones. I guess we will never know!