Can You Take Poker Chips Home
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You can make a ton of money selling them to poker chip enthusiasts or build an assortment of antique poker chips. While you can sell your chips, they won’t hold much value until they become a collector’s item. Vintage poker chips can fetch you a significant amount of money. Poker chips hold great value, whether they are old. You can also find poker chip sets in varied colors to make your poker playing more authentic. We provide a large selection of high-quality, professional Poker chips with and without denominations for all your needs. Other fancy poker merchandise in our selection include poker DVDs, decorations for casino and promotion events, poker dealer. Heavy clay composite chips have the look and feel of authentic casino chips, making them great for poker enthusiasts. Composite chips made of heavy compressed plastic have a more slippery feel and make a harder clicking sound compared to clay composite chips. Carry cases designed with sponge linings help to protect poker chips. Answered June 22, 2018 At casinos you can definitely take poker chips to your home. But don't plan to keeping them with you for a long time because eventually they may replace the chips with new ones and the old ones will be worthless, although they give plenty of notice. Not sure what you.
After winning a game of poker at your local casino, it is expected that you cash in your chips before leaving. So what happens if you don’t want to?
What if you want to cash in on your wins another day? Are you allowed to take your chips home or do you absolutely have to cash in on them before you leave the casino? Read on to find out about the rules that govern the use of poker chips in and outside a casino.
Can you take poker chips fromcasinos? Yes, you’re allowed to take away poker chips from a casino. You canbring them back another day to cash in on or even keep them as souvenirs.Unfortunately, poker chips can expire, and if you take too long to cash in yourchips, they may become completely worthless.
So what happens if a personwalks in with stolen poker chips? Howabout if people counterfeit poker chips and try to cash in on them claiming tohave won them at an earlier date? There are several measures casinos have takento ensure they are not defrauded with fake chips.
Why Casinos Allow Players Take Home Poker Chips
Most people expect stricter rules guiding the movement of poker chips in and out of a casino, but are surprised to find that anyone can take home their chips if they want to. The reason behind this is quite simple and I’ll be explaining it below.
Poker Chips Security
Casinos have put in measures to ensure that people can’t falsely claim to own poker chips they stole or present counterfeit chips. If you return on a later date to cash in on your chips, you’ll be put through a thorough verification process to ensure you are indeed the owner of the chips.
In the case of counterfeit chips, it’s actually harder than most people imagine. Poker chips are made in such a way that they feature the same design, color, and weight. Also, each chip is marked with special markings that are only visible under UV light.
Higher denominations even have tracking devices embedded.
When a casino is trying to ascertain if a chip is real or not, they inspect the chips to see if it’s the same model as the standard chips.
Also, they can ask for your membership card to prove that you truly won those chips at the casino. With these stringent verification rules, it’s next to impossible for people to play a fast one on casinos.
Not all Chips Make it Back
One good reason casinos are happy to let you take their chips home is that they know a small fraction of chips that leave the casino never make it back. Some people might lose their chips, others could decide to keep them.
The result is that the casino gets to keep the monetary value of the chips that never returns. Another thing the casino knows is that chips have expiry dates. This means there’s a good chance some chips won’t return to the casino until it’s already too late to redeem.
If you want to read more when and how do chips expire, then find out more in this article.
Chips no Longer Good asCurrency
Back in the days, poker chips were the ultimate currency around casinos and gamblers. Since just about anyone could redeem a chip, people were able to pay off debt, give donations and get haircuts with poker chips as payments.
This directly contrasted federal law that says that no other form of currency should be allowed in the country. To help enforce this, the state of Nevada passed a law that made it illegal for anyone to treat poker chips as real money.
This meant a lot of people could no longer redeem the chips they got from third parties and they were required by casinos to show proof that the chips they presented were indeed gotten from the casino.
If you do accept chips from people as a form of payment and try to cash it in, the casino authorities reserve the right to confiscate your chips until you can adequately prove they are yours.
Why Chips Have Expiry Dates
It would seem strange that chips have expiry dates. It’s not like they become toxic or automatically explode once they expire, so why do chips have expiry dates?
The whole expiry date conundrum came into being when the state of Nevada issued regulation 12 which branded chips with expiry dates and forbade players from treating them as a kind of currency.
These regulations were issued to ensure poker chips were not used as an official currency aside from the US dollar.
Expiry dates are determined by each casino and they could range from a few months to years. Once a poker chip has expired, it becomes totally worthless. Players will be unable to cash them in and casinos transfer their expired chips to companies who handle chip disposal. Ultimately, the chips are destroyed with a tumbler and new chips are issued.
Do Casinos allow Poker chips from other Casinos?
There’s no rule that says a casino has to accept poker chips from other casinos, but they generally do. This is especially true when the casinos are owned by the same companies.
If you’re going to cash in your chips at another casino, you should be ready to produce evidence that you indeed won those chips from a game. To do this, you should be able to provide a player’s card that shows you’re telling the truth. Also, casinos will check for markers on your chips to ensure you have no outstanding issues with the casinos you got them from. These markers are used to check for players who have outstanding bets to settle.
While smaller denominations can be exchanged for house chips without much fuss, higher denominations like $1k chips might not be easily accepted if accepted at all. At the end of the day, all chips are cashed in at the casino they were created.
This means a foreign casino will need to send the foreign chips to its parent casino to cash it in. The stress and cost of getting someone to go cash in foreign chips is one reason many casinos would rather not accept your foreign chips.
Final Thoughts
If for any reason you’re nursing the idea of coming back home with the chips you won at a casino, you’re completely free to do so.
Casinos don’t stop anyone from leaving with their chips and you can always come back to cash them in on a later date. Is it a wise choice? That depends. If you’re taking a couple of chips home as a souvenir, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
If you do plan on cashing them in on a later date, you need to be careful to avoid losing the money you won. Before leaving the casino, inquire about the expiry dates of your chips. You don’t want to show up in a few months only to learn that your chips have expired.
When you take them home, keep in a safe place to avoid misplacing them. When you’re ready to cash them in, be sure to go along with your player’s card to show that you got them legally.
Related Question
What kind of chips do casinos use? Casinos use ceramic chips. They are otherwise referred to as clay composite or just clay. In truth, they are not made of clay at all. They are made with a unique resin or plastic that has similar qualities with ceramic.
What do I do if I find a chip on the floor? While most people might pocket chips they found on the floor, many casinos have rules which state that casinos found on the floor are properties of the casino. While you may not be arrested for pocketing a chip you found on the floor, they may actually kick you out for it.
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I was at a friend’s house recently and the topic of poker came up. During the conversation, he asked me, “can you play poker without chips?” After answering him, the question got me thinking so I did a bit of research and decided to share a few tips on how to play poker without chips.
Poker games are built around wagering or betting. Therefore, unless you are strictly playing for fun you will need some form of currency or monetary substitute available to play with. Otherwise, it is virtually impossible to know who is winning or losing. Almost universally, the most common thing used in lieu of real currency is poker chips.
However, sometimes an impromptu poker game will happen and no actual poker chips will be available. Fear not. You probably have numerous different options to use as an alternative somewhere in your house or place of business. I know because I scoured my house and office for ideas to fulfill the needs of avid poker players when it comes to playing without chips.
Here are a few obvious and maybe not so obvious quasi-poker chip options:
1. Spare Change
Okay, so this is the obvious one so I saved it for last since you might have forgotten about your kid’s piggy bank or those coins built up in the center console of your car. Speaking of which, I once built a $4,000 bankroll from the spare change lying around. If I can do it, surely you could use those accidental savings to play a quick game with your family or buddies. Rolls of pennies, nickels, dimes, or all three would serve perfectly. Just make sure you set the parameters ahead of time dictating whether the winner actually gets to keep the money.
2. Play Money
Perhaps the most common option that one might have lying around the house is in the form of play money collected from various board games. The most obvious that come to mind are Monopoly, Payday, and the Game of Life. It’s likely that one or more of these types of games are stuffed in a closet or cabinet somewhere. If so, the fake cash will serve you well in a game of poker. Maybe the most fun part of using play money comes from pretending like the money is real and you are a group of high rollers!
3. Board Game Pieces
While you’re raiding the game closet if you find that you do not have any board games that contain play money all hope is not lost. Many other games contain game pieces that can substitute fairly well for poker chips. Here are a few examples of games that have either some form of chip or other items that can be used as money. Most everyone has at least one of the following games that contain good poker chip substitutes: Othello, Connect 4, Backgammon, and Checkers. In a pinch, one could even bet with Scrabble tiles.
If you have multiple games with reasonably useful game pieces, feel free to mix and match so that you have enough quantity to play poker with. Scrabble tiles could be $1, red Connect 4 chips could be $5, all the way up to using black Othello pieces as $1,000 chips.
Can You Take Poker Chips Home Delivery
4. Dried Foods
Another option that could upset your significant other is to use common dried foods from the kitchen pantry. Dried beans, corn, and/or legumes work well since they won’t make a huge mess and are typically available in large quantities. You could even boil them up afterward and have some poker chili!
Just be sure not to use any foods that are ready to eat. For most, the temptation is too great and you will probably eat up all the profits. Besides that, who wants to eat an M&M that has been touched by everyone at the poker table. That’s pretty gross.
5. Office Supplies
If you are playing an impromptu game at the office, your options will be limited with no poker chips. Even so, I’m sure there are plenty of items in desk drawers that will do nicely in a poker game. Just make sure the boss isn’t around.
Here are a few things that might be laying around or in a desk drawer:
- Paper clips (Preferably Color)
- Tacks
- Rubber bands
- Posted Notes (Fold Them)
6. Color Popsicle Sticks
This is a great stackable option that most households, especially those with kids, have stuffed in a drawer somewhere. I recommend cutting each stick into thirds to stretch out the number of “chips” that you have. This will add a nice variety to your game.
If you don’t happen to have color popsicles, then it wouldn’t take long to just write different denominations on each stick. The best way to do it is to give a stack to each player who is tasked with writing on a different amount. Otherwise, you can just have the sticks serve as one single denomination.
7. Garage Items
Your typical garage likely has numerous items that can come in multiples and can serve as poker chips. This is especially true if you have a dedicated toolbox that almost always contains a wide assortment of the following:
- Nuts
- Bolts
- Nails
- Washers
- Fasteners
- Electrical Terminals
How Many “Chips” Do You Need to Play Poker?
For most poker games you typically need about 500 poker chips for the game. However, games with 6 players or less can usually get by on 300. This sounds like a lot, but it’s really not since your house or office typically will have a variety of items which can act as a poker chip substitute. Of course, if you have rolls of coins you just evenly distribute them among the players.
What Type of Game Should We Play?
My advice is to only play short stacked cash games or tournaments where the blinds don’t go up. That way you don’t have to round up too many chip replacement items and can just get on with the business of playing poker. After all, your significant other or boss might not appreciate you digging around like a groundhog and making a huge mess!
Assigning Denominations
Without real poker chips available, the best thing you can do is to keep things simple and only use three different poker chip amounts. I would recommend playing 25/50 blinds and giving the following “chips” or denominations that go in a player’s stack:
- $25- 8 Chips
- $100- 8 Chips
- $500- 2 Chip
This setup will give each player $2,000 or 40 big blinds to start with. This allows for an exciting action-packed game. If you need some advice on playing short stacked, I wrote a brief guide with charts that anyone can obtain for free by signing up for my newsletter. Feel free to use my raising ranges or whatever you like so that you can dominate your friends!
What If Someone Runs out of Chips?
If someone busts out, my advice is to let them “rebuy” for a half stack of 20 big blinds or $1,000. That way no one is ever out of the game and some will be able to play deep-stacked as the game progresses.
Alternative Methods of Playing
If everyone in your poker group has access to a computer or even a smartphone/tablet, another option is to play for play money against each other “LAN party” style. There are numerous poker sites out there that offer play money games where you are able to create your own “home game” table to battle against your friends. I recommend Pokerstars since they have the smoothest software and have a way to set up private home games.
Poker Chips Set
Don’t Forget to Use Good Playing Cards
Good playing cards are relatively inexpensive. So, if you can’t afford good poker chips but want to still have a classy game, pick up a quality deck of cards!
How To Play Poker At Home With Chips
Attributions LAN party image by Sanza29 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons