Was watching one of the poker scenes in James Bond Casino Royale. There were 100k chips in play but the 500k and 1million chips were represented by plaques. Why use plaques instead of chips?
Google is your friend. If you had typed the title of this thread in it, you would have got your answer.
In the pre-RFID age, the serial numbers would allow tracking of the money. If you showed up at the cage with a bunch of plaques but the casino no record of you buying plaques in the past, the authorities and they can be pretty sure you're laundering money. And yes, anyone buying $25,000 casino tokens is going to get the attention of the room manager, even in the highest end casino.
Not sure if they still do, but casino Monte Carlo used plaques in their high stakes cash games.
According to people who played with them, recreational players love them while pros think they are extremely annoying to handle and take up unnecessary table space.
Ever seen someone (rightfully) get angry at 1/2 or 2/5 NL about an opponent hiding $100 chips? Imagine someone hiding $1,000,000 chips. Much harder to do with plaques
The hiding thing is definitely true for poker, but AFAIK plaques are mainly used in baccarat and other traditional (read: ancient) table games played at high stakes, where hiding them makes much less sense. Though I suppose they might make it more difficult to cheat with on table games as well.
I suspect venice is right and the traceability of the serial numbers back in the day was the primary reason to use them. Now that the checks all have RFID it's mainly just for marketing reasons I imagine.
When I played in Germany, the chips were different sizes for different denominations as well. Huge pain to stack (especially as they were very light weight), but really easy to differentiate. In fact, my avatar is the chipset from my local casino at that time. IDK if they also had plaques, but if they did the game never got big enough that anyone "colored up" to them.
All the chips were different sizes, or just two sizes, a normal and an oversize? The latter is common in many casinos (especially in CA), the cutoff is usually the $100 chip. The most annoying thing is that they require slightly different racks.
It's a lot harder to lose a plaque then chips. If you drop a plaque on the floor it's not going to roll under something or disappear and no one can find it. Imagine losing 100k chip. That might sting a little. Having plaques alleviates that problem. They're a lot harder to lose. And when you have big denomination items you don't want them to be lost easily.
All the chips were different sizes, or just two sizes, a normal and an oversize? The latter is common in many casinos (especially in CA), the cutoff is usually the $100 chip. The most annoying thing is that they require slightly different racks.
IIRC, there were at least three sizes. 5s were tiny, 10 and 20s about the diameter of normal US chips (but thin and very light) and 50s and 100s about the size of a Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie. I don't recall getting any chips of higher denom than that, and 1s did not exist.
Hmm, weird. "Standard" casino chips are 39mm diameter and 3.3mm thick. Oversized (also called baccarat chips) are usually 43mm, though they sometimes go larger too.
It's a lot harder to lose a plaque then chips. If you drop a plaque on the floor it's not going to roll under something or disappear and no one can find it. Imagine losing 100k chip. That might sting a little.
Casinos started using RFID in higher denomination chips around 10 years ago.
Yeah, these chips were far from standard. I played at a couple of places in Europe that had standard chips, but these were much thinner, made of translucent plastic, and we're even thinner in the middle than on the rims.
The bank notes for Euros are also different sizes. In that instance it helps sight-impaired people know what denomination they have in their hands. I wonder if that is something that has spilled over in some way to casino chips.
It's a lot harder to lose a plaque then chips. If you drop a plaque on the floor it's not going to roll under something or disappear and no one can find it. Imagine losing 100k chip. That might sting a little. Having plaques alleviates that problem. They're a lot harder to lose. And when you have big denomination items you don't want them to be lost easily.
I would imagine it’s also harder for someone to steal one. There are videos on youtube demonstrating how someone might steal a couple of your chips at the blackjack or roulette table without you noticing. I would think sneaking a plaque from in front of someone would be harder.
I think a lot of it is just institutional momentum. Most high stake players aren’t carrying their roll around, partly to make it easier to argue with the casino about EL recorded for comp purposes and partly just because it’s dumb to carry fairly easy to lose chips around.
Come to think of it, maybe plaques also discourage players from carrying ultra high denomination tokens around.