For a small casino, it may indeed cost more than $1/chip to produce high quality chips. However, the guy should still sell you the chip just for the sake of good advertising and customer service.

There's nothing wrong with collecting chips. I do the same thing, though I usually just save the cleanest $1 and $5 chips I can find from each room I play poker in. I also kept a 25 chip from the first WSOP event I ever played in....this I suppose is actually against the rules.

Yes, they should sell one chip. Probably chip collecting is not that widely spread it would impose any kind of a problem for the casino. But what if that one chip offered isn't clean and well preserved enough? Asking for getting to look at some other chips, and pick? I can see a problem here. Better to buy many, and do the search process yourself.

still look at the owner or managers point of view. a stranger comes into his place and wants to take a chip away. strange to him and could be suspicious or whatever. plus he gets no financial gain from it.

I just can't imagine that a rack of white chips would cost the casino over $100 to purchase when they are buying them in bulk.

many casinos produce commemorative chips (usually red $5 chips) celebrating either events, famous acts, or their anniversary such as Caesars in AC hoping players will take them home and collect them, so they make 5 bucks on them (or probably about $4.80 after cost).

ebay is full of chips from everywhere, so there is definitely a market for chip collecting.

Either way, the guy was still out of line imo. That one chip is not going to break the bank and he is advertising the venue by putting the chip into someone's collection.

Yes, there are a lot of commemerative $5 chips, they are hoping you keep them. I've never seen a commemerative $1 chip though.

OP, has anyone at some other casino sold you only one chip? How about other people participating in this thread, have you bought only one, or tried to, ever? And what was the response?

Or is this a totally unique situation?

Was denied a one dollar chip once; only asked because I forgot to grab one. Haven't made that mistake since. Reminds me of a scifi novel I read with a planet where they weighed tourists to make sue they didn't eat more than they excreted in order to keep the planet from eroding.

As for tournaments, there was a guy (chan pelton) who was denied serious prize money for taking a souvenir. It was a big chip. recently saw he binked another tourny.

There's a big difference between a casino and a small club. The small club probably counts all their chips at the end of every night and hardly ever have any go missing. I can see people's opinions of "What's the big deal?" being totally valid, bit I can also see the side with the owner that didn't give him one. I really don't see any breach of etiquette on either of the parties involved.

just fine either way. also some state laws may preclude it. in some places a casino must have cash on hand for every chip outstanding. its only a buck but it may be policy.

i can buy casino quality, 10 gram, clay, CUSTOMIZED chips on the internet for 65 cents a chip. i imagine casinos get a better deal than me.

just buy 20 in singles and cash in 19.

everyone saying "just buy 20", it was a small club with zero players in it at the time the guy was there lol.

I'm a floor supervisor in table games, and if someone wants 1 chip I give it to them. Why sweat 1 chip? My guess is this place must be a real hole in the wall.

And chips don't cost anywhere near $1. My place has commemorative 1s 5s 25s and 100s, and they'll be glad to let you walk with them. They're making money on it.

The discussion about manufacturing cost for $1 chips reminds me of reading that a penny costs the United States Mint somewhere between 1,7 to 2,4 cents depending on the copper price.

Would the older man have sold even 20? "Why do you want to buy chips, no games running"

Looks he's making sure no games will start, like that was his mission in life.

They are buying a better product then you

here is my 2 chips worth -

Have been in casinos where they wouldn't sell chips at the cage. Said you had to buy in at the poker room. Been refused if games were running but no seat open. Like many others I thought they were less than $1 to the casino.

Usually go to an empty bj table and ask the dealer for 2 good ones out of the rack. Then pocket the best and give him the other as a tip.

I was once in Searchlight NV during the day, no game going, talked to someone (I guess the owner) and he went in the back and came out with a box of mint condition $1 metal chips. He was happy to sell me several. Have had similar experiences at some other places.

On the other end of the spectrum, played in N California on a Sunday night at a small room where all they had going was a tournament. Played in the 2 table tourney, busted out of the "final" table and asked the owner to sell me a chip. He refused because he said the state was threatening to prosecute due to chemical content of chips - How could he be sure I wasn't from the State setting him up? Offered to show him my Pennsylvania driver's license - couldn't believe what I was hearing. Ended up waiting til the tourney was over and buying a chip from the winner - payout was in chips.

That's why countries in the developed world are increasingly moving away from using pennies. Lots are even moving away from nickels and everything just gets rounded up to .10 (or down). It also doesn't make much sense to use dollar bills rather than have one and two dollar coins in circulation. The USA could save billions of dollars a year by removing pennies, nickels, and one dollar bills. Last year I was in Australia. At the cashier, I asked for change in pennies and nickels to keep as a souvenir. The woman looked at me befuddled and says: "I don't know what you're saying."

You can't have quarters if you round everything to 10c. Australia got rid of 1c and 2c coins 20 years ago, but still uses nickels AFAIK. Canada stopped using pennies in 2013. Most Euro countries still use pennies, but a few smaller ones have discontinued them. Really what we should do is get rid of our current nickels and make pennies worth 5c.

They are (were) in play and (per casino policy) could be accepted and dropped down the rake.

Just to clarify, Canada stopped minting pennies, and is gradually removing them from circulation. You can still use them.

I've never had any issues including small casinos that were dead. 3 or 4 times when I asked the dealer/cashier for a chip they took the tine to give me a good quality one without worn down edges.

I've collected hundreds of chips and only a few times was there any issue. One time a casino refused to sell me a chip because too many of their chips were being resold on Ebay. Not sure why they were bothered by it but it did come up once.

If any of you are a collector or interested in collecting certain chips, there is a thread in the Home Poker forum for trading chips: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/24...-chips-374954/

In 2001 I went to a chip collecting show in Tunica MS. at Harrahs. Basically a collector/show promoter rents a ballroom/meeting space and then sells tables at the show to dealers. The casino itself had nothing to do with the show except that it was the site.

Gaming heard about the show and showed up. They would not let the show opne its doors because people would be selling chips. Eventually a compromise was reached the show could open but the dealers could not sell any Harrah's chips.

Next time just say you want it to tip the waitress.

1. One thing that nobody has pointed out is that uncashed chips may show up as liabilities on a balance sheet. That is, if you have 10,000 $1 chips "out there" it's as bad as owing someone $10,000.

For big corporations, this may not be a huge problem. For a small casino, it could be.

2. I still wouldn't mind selling people souvenir chips, but I'd make them promise to advertise for me. Like, I'd say, "Look, man, this chip costs $1.50 to make and plus I can't even spend the $1 you give me because of accounting, so this transaction costs me $2.50. But you can have a chip if you promise to do $2.50 worth of advertising for us - use it as a card protector wherever you play next, and tell 5 people at your table about us. Deal?"