You may think casino chips are no different from any other poker chip, but these are made very specially, and often bear no resemblance to those used at home or in other private games. Chips in casinos were developed and perfected gradually, usually in response to cheating or security issues. The chips originally substituted for the haphazard monetary tokens used in poker games in American bars and river-boats around the mid-19th century. While those could have been anything from random coins to gold nuggets, clay custom poker chips eventually became the standard choice in casinos.
These chips were first made of various materials such as wood or ivory, but the casino poker chips of a clay-based composition soon came to predominate. These were made in high-pressure compression-molding machines. In recent times, though clay-ceramic mixtures are still used to create some chips, the more usual production method involves injection-molded resin chips. And a recent innovation in the design of casino chips involves either a metal center with a plastic rim, or chips entirely of metal. The standardization makes chips easier to stack on a table, easier to keep track of, and easier to count (or weigh) when it comes time to cash in a player’s winnings.
The design of casino chips has always continually been embellished and perfected in response to security issues. In the early days, players could easily cheat by sneaking their own chips into games. But once the casinos developed their own custom designed poker chips that became harder to do. Now there are security features such as markings that only show up under ultraviolet light, or radio frequency ID tags that make the chips harder to counterfeit. And of course, almost since its adoption in casinos, clay poker chip designs incorporate distinctive artwork and custom colors.
These security measures may not be enough, however, in this high tech age. Casino chips, even with current security features, may eventually disappear. Token-counting windows have already given way in many cases to machines that receive the chips and eject a receipt that is taken to a cash window. But now there are a few experiments involving a pre-paid money card, used with a reader right at the gaming table. It’s possible that if this catches on, the long, interesting history of the casino poker chip may come to a close, leaving nothing but stories and the aura of a legend.
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