Casino Chips and Tokens

In casinos, currency is usually exchanged for chips. Outside of the casino, most chips do not have a value of their own, but inside the casino in which these chips have been arranged, they can be exchanged for cash at the casino cage, cashier station, or even at the gaming table. A chip is a small disk, usually made of either metal, plastic, or compression molded clay. This is both to ensure the players' security and the casino's own interests. In addition to that, casino chips are usually much easier to handle and organize than bills and coins. For playing on the slot machines, the currency substitute in use is not the clunky chip, but usually metal, coin-sized and coin-shaped casino token coins. This is so because it is usually much easier to slip a small, metal coin into a slot machine than it is to use slightly bulkier chips, made of less dense material. In gambling tables where the stakes are very high though, gambling plaques are often used instead of chips. Gambling plaques normally have values that start at twenty-five thousand dollars, and go up from there. Gambling plaques are usually made from the same material as chips, but they are invariably larger, rectangular, and have serial numbers. When playing poker in a casino; chips are also used. Chips are used for practically every single game available in a casino; from craps to roulette, and even to games like wheel of fortune.

Casino chips can come in a variety of colors, and while the color and denomination of gambling chips usually follow a particular pattern, most chips vary from establishment to establishment. In home gambling sets, colored chips are usually quite uniform: red, blue, white, and sometimes, black and green. Home set chips are usually made of cheap plastic rather than metal or compressed clay, which, while often better looking and easier to handle, are more expensive to manufacture. In contrast to home gambling set chips, casino chips can also come in pink, purple, orange, yellow, and even "tri-color" designs that also bear the casino's logo. Some chips can have a very high currency value. Usually, these high-value chips are colored a slightly more unconventional color than the other chips. There are also sometimes slightly larger than these other chips. A casino gambling chip can have values as high as five thousand dollars, or they can have a value as low as fifty cents.