I just came from Sahara, and there is a crew working hard on assembling the tables and final finishes. The actual room could be ready tonight but that won't matter because I talked with one of the higher ups from the casino and he said they have no poker chips yet.

They are not using chips from the casino and the chip maker is likely a week from delivering. So we are looking at next Friday if lucky.

So not using "regular" casino chips in the poker room? Any reason for this? Shouldn't I be able to take my BJ winnings and plop it down on the poker table, or vice-versa?

That is the exact example I told him. lol
I said, so somebody drunk at the BJ tables with $2000 can't stumble into the poker room and use those chips. He just laughed.

Really its probably better for the casino if they can't. They make no money if the guy blows the 2k he just won at BJ in the poker room. Maybe he won't lose as much if he has to convert chips.

The Sahara poker room is using different chips than the rest of their casino???
Does any other casino do this? I'm pretty sure the chips were the same everywhere I've played.

I'm sure there are many across the country that don't use the casino chips. I remember at Hard Rock Tampa they didn't for a long time and then they switched, which everyone was happy about because of the drunk people with casino chips coming in and spewing in the poker room.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other casinos but I am sure there are some.

I've seen the opposite happen a few times too. Someone deemed too drunk to play poker is always welcome in the pit.

I don't remember seeing any casinos in Vegas do that.

That's really stupid of Sahara to do that. An hour after they open a poker player won't want to wait in line for the poker cashier and try to cash it at the main cage. They'll tell him to go back to the poker room and the guy will start yelling and threaten to call the gaming commission and they'll end up cashing it. Now you have mixed chips in the main cage.

Did the room open yet?

Sent from my LML413DL using Tapatalk

What would be a reason for the casino to not allow chip mixing? Do they hate poker that much to the extent that they don't even want pit players playing poker?

We won't know 100% what is going on until the cards are in the air.

No, its not open. Could be another week.

While we wait, I ran across these cool pictures.

My best craps run was at the Sands.

No Desert Inn pics?

I was told that the expected opening date is now February 14th because of the chip issue. Also, the reason for using separate chips is because since they have not had poker for a decade had to apply for a separate gaming license, thus requiring new chips. Did not know that was a thing but apparently it is

Love the pics of "old" Vegas . . . they never get old.

The guy that is posting on Poker Atlas just confirmed this also. Saying its delayed until after the 13th.

What a bunch of incompetent clowns. And why do people stand for the bureaucratic bullshit of needing to get a new gaming license and therefore different chips, and waiting 60 days and paying a giant fee to the gaming board or whatever other red-tape horse **** is holding this up? I don't know if what vegas!!!! said is true about their needing to apply again and needing to use different chips, but if it is, how can everyone not see what utter bullshit that is? The gaming bureaucrats need to **** the hell off.

As for places that have different chips for poker, I've cashed chips at Mirage before and had the cashier tell me that I could have just done it in the poker room. So there must be some difference for her to know where the chips came from--it may just be that the dollar chips ("whites" as they call them although they're actually a filth-encrusted jaundiced yellow) say POKER on them or something. Also, I know Caesar's uses different chips for baccarat. I've seen people sit down and put out a high-denomination baccarat chip and the dealer wouldn't make change for it because those chips are separate (and physically larger).

She could probably just tell from the amount of chips you were cashing. People don’t usually get up from table games with 200+ low denomination chips.

I don't think they really know either. I've gotten several responses and asked about chips, cards etc but can't get that confirmed. It seems there like there are several issues. Its delay is not attributed to a single problem, I'd guess. It will open and all of this will be forgotten.

Here is an updated picture. If only they had chips!
Sad sight to see an empty room on Super Bowl Sunday.

I called and this is a special event going on in the poker room and they claim it will open on Friday 2/7 now.

Alaskagal is at the event and said the manager is saying 2/14 tho.

That Dunes sign in that postcard tweet is top notch

True that.