How Poker Chips Work

Poker chips, also called casino tokens, are small objects used to represent money when gambling, whether you're at a casino, or just playing a friendly game of cards at home. Common types of chips are made of colored metal, molded clay, and plastic. These chips vary in cost and style, but they all serve the same function – you don't have to put real cash on the table. In a casino, you'll buy your chips at a cashier station. Inside the casino, these chips are the same as money, but once you're outside, they're just pieces of plastic or clay. In Las Vegas, you may find that some casinos honor chips from other establishments, but this isn't always the case.

We use poker chips instead of money because they're easier to use and carry. They also make it a lot harder to steal money or use counterfeit bills. That's not a big problem if you're playing a kitchen table game, but can be a real issue for casinos and other establishments. Uniform size and easy stackability makes it easier to count chips than it is to count bills. That means that you and your opponents will be able to tell how much is being bid. Casinos also like poker chips because most people are more willing to gamble more when they use them than when they're putting cash on the table.

The first poker chips came into being in the 19th century, when players used any small object to represent money. Pieces of gold, chips made of bone or ivory, slips of paper, and objects made from shellac all showed up on the table. It wasn't until the 1880s that standardized chips came into being. These were made from clay, and came in many styles and colors, but were mostly red, white, blue and yellow. Nowadays, we still use compression molded clay for poker chips, but they're not made of pure clay. The last chips to be made that way date from the 1950s. More durable materials, like sand and chalk, are combined with the clay, although the exact mix is considered a trade secret, and each manufacturer has their own way of doing things. Clay chips are then covered with paper, which might have graphics printed on it, and coated in a film of thin plastic. Ceramic chips are also available.

Molded plastic chips are easy to find in gaming and hobby stores for home use, but almost no plastic chips are used by players in casinos. The one exception is the Bud Jones brand, which is actually not available for home markets. In Europe, you may also see mother of pearl chips, and different shapes for poker chips that have a higher value. In America, high value chips, like thousand and five thousand dollar varieties are oversized for easy identification. The general public almost never sees chips of a higher value than this, since they're used in high limit rooms. Higher value chips aren't actually chips, but card-like gaming plaques with serial numbers printed on them. Each casino uses their own set of chips, to make sure that it's hard to slip in a counterfeit.

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