Poker Chips

Poker chips as all casino tokens are used to replace money in table games. A player can exchange money to chips, which stay interchangeable in the casino. Commonly casino chips keep their value only inside of the casino. Some of Las Vegas casinos are exception to this rule and may honor tokens coming from different casinos, taxi drivers and waiters inside of gabling towns might also honor casino chips informally.

Internet poker game become more and more popular nowadays, anyway there is a large amount people who prefer to play in casinos. They need to know everything about poker chips.

First poker chips, made of wood, paper or bone, appeared in the middle of 18 century. Then, around 1880, clay - composite tokens were manufactured by some companies, chips had various engravings and designs, which made them different from the other ones.

Modern poker chips always have the same diameter - 39 mm, but they differ by their weight. Poker chips are divided into 4 types: light - 4 grams, middle – from 5 to 9 grams, heavy - 11.5 grams, super heavy - 13 grams and more. The weight (and also the price) of poker tokens is determined by the material they are made of.

Plastic chips

Plastic chips are the lightest and the cheapest. Different colors and various styles are avialible. They are not as essential as the further types of tokens, but easy replacement and light weight to carry are their advantages.

PVC Injected Plastic and Metal Slug is a technology based on PVC injection (polyvinyl chloride), metal slugs are surrounded by a plastic cover. They are recommended for home usage, but also used in casinos. They are heavy, it produces a pleasant feeling to have them in your hand, and quite durable.

Diamond tokens is a more expensive (and more durable) version, preferably used in casinos due to their beautiful look and wide possibilities of customizations, engravings. They are available in different sizes and various shapes.

Clay chips

Clay Composite are very special chips, made of either ceramic or clay by injecting of mold. It allows to allocate graphics on its full coverage, which is impossible with other chips.

Casino Grade is a mixture of compressed clay and mold, their production process is kept in secret. They’re not very slick, but a little bit heavier (and easier to deal with) in comparison to their more cheaper counterparts. Among the materials poker chips also differ by their design, which is either one colored, usually embossed, or a composition of different color details (geometric figures), or collectible chips with logos, pictures. The most expensive pokes chips have logos of certain casinos.

Colors, used on the cover of chips, have special meaning. The allowed number of colors that a casino would use to mark money nominations is 1 to 5, normally 4 colors are used. Traditional basic colors (though in a pack one color might be replaced by another) are white, red, blue, green and black, and their standard value is from 1 dollar to 100. A full poker chip generally accepted version contains 13 colors – white, yellow, red, blue, grey, green, orange, black, pink, purple, burgundy, light blue and brown, and their value rises from 1 to 5000 dollars. Sets contain of different amount of chips. Commonly, 50 chips is calculated to be sufficient for one player, 200 chips are used for 2-3 persons, 400 chip set – for 5-6 persons, etc. Poker sets are packed in a case made of cardboard or polyethylene, aluminum, leather or wood.