
Learn all about poker chips
Types of chips
Authentic
casino chips (High-end poker chips)
Other
poker chips
Telling true clay poker chips from all the imitators
Poker chip sizes
Inlays (on true clay poker chips)
Molds (on true clay poker chips)
The sound of poker chips
Putting together a set and choosing denominations
Durability of poker chips
Cleaning poker chips
Oiling chips
Chip quality
Types of chips
While there are dozens (or even hundreds) of different varieties of poker
chips available to consumers, they all fall into two groups. Either they
are authentic casino chips, or they are not. Probably 99% of the chips
you’ll come across when researching poker chips in the consumer
world are non-authentic chips. They’ll work just fine, but they’re
an entirely different product.
Authentic casino chips (High-end poker chips)
We specialize in authentic casino chips, which we define as chips made
by the same manufacturers that make chips for Las Vegas casinos, using
the same materials, processes, and quality control. These come in true
clay (See our Protege)
and ceramic (See our Archetype
line). You can read more about authentic
chips and see Las Vegas chips made
by our manufacturers here.
Other poker chips
In the poker chip world, especially on the web, the term “Clay
poker chips” is woefully misunderstood and frequently abused. While
only a handful of companies in the world offer true clay poker chips,
almost every poker chip vendor out there claims to sell them, often using
intentionally vague marketing jargon such as “clay composite”,
“casino-grade”, or “casino-style” poker chips.
In reality, they are not true clay chips and are nothing close to the
actual chips they are using in Las Vegas casinos today. The majority of
these chips (which come in hundreds of styles and colors) are nothing
more than injection-molded plastic poker chips. You can find different
varieties of these chips pretty much everywhere online and in regular
retail stores. Some have metal inserts. Some do not. Some weigh 8 grams.
Some weigh 11.5 grams. Some weigh more and some weigh less. All of them
claim to be “just like the casinos”, yet almost none are.
Telling true clay poker chips from all the imitators
Price is the first tip off. Authentic casino chips cost around $1.00
to $1.50 per chip, some more, some less, depending on the style and quality.
If a chip is for sale for less than 75 cents per chip, it’s not
likely an authentic casino chip. Usually, the price difference is much
more distinct as most low end chips sell for less than 25 cents per chip,
and the really cheaply made ones sell for closer to 10 cents per chip.
Weight is the second tip off. The standard weight of authentic casino
chips is (drum roll please) between 8.5 and 10 grams. Every chip you’ll
find in Las Vegas is in this weight range. Unfortunately, there is an
overwhelming amount of conflicting and confusing information about the
weight of poker chips on the web. You can read
more about real poker chip weights here.
Other than that, your best bet is to go with a trusted vendor as it's
often difficult for a newbie to tell what a true clay poker chip is and
what is not unless they can compare it directly to a chip brought home
from a casino. Unfortunately, the poker chip retail industry is teeming
with unscrupulous vendors who sell low-end plastic chips and call them
"clay composite" or something of that nature. Be careful.
Poker chip sizes
Authentic poker chips have a standardized diameter of 39mm. Low-end poker
chips, although there is no standard, are typically 40mm. You can read
more about poker chip sizes here.
Inlays (on true clay poker chips)
In layman terms, a poker chip inlay is the center sticker with printed
graphics, which typically includes the chip denomination. It’s not
a sticker, as it is compression-molded into the chip and is not removable,
but that the general idea. You can read
more about poker chip inlays here.
Molds (on true clay poker chips)
In simplistic terms, two sides of a metallic mold cavity are slammed
together like a sandwich to make the coin-shaped poker chip. Thus the
mold of a poker chip is the three dimensional form of the poker chip that
is created with this process. There is a lot more to it with edge spots,
but that’s the general idea. You can read
more about poker chip molds and mold design here.
The sound of poker chips
You know you’re getting deep into it when you start learning about
the sounds poker chips make. It may seem like a superficial concern, but
there is a distinctive sound that authentic poker chips make when you
rifle thru a stack. It’s one the easiest ways to tell authentic
chips from low-end chips. Chip aficionados can recognize the sound of
true clay chips from across the room. Listen closely around the poker,
craps, or blackjack tables next time you are in a casino.
It’s difficult to precisely explain the sound real clay poker chips
make when you rifle thru them. It’s sort of a soft, melodic kalick,
kalick, kalick, kalick, kalick… or a longer kalic-lic-lic-lic-lic-lick.
Once you hear it, and pay attention, it’s unmistakable.
Authentic ceramic casino chips, which were introduced in the 1980s as
an alternative to clay poker chips (for production speed and graphic detail
reasons, among others) were created to mimic the sound of clay poker chips,
and they are pretty close but have a higher pitch. They sound substantial,
but it’s a little different sound.
Low-end chips, especially the widely available 11.5 gram or 13 gram ones
with metal inserts, have an entirely different, and sometimes unnerving
metallic twing. It’s similar to the sound a metallic driver makes
in golf, but a bunch together, rapid-fire. On chips, it just sounds cheap
and artificial, especially if you’re used to listening to the real
thing.
Putting together a set and choosing denominations
The two things to consider when putting together a poker chip set are
how many chips in total, and how many of each denomination.
Recommended poker chip set size
- 4-5 players typically – 300 chips
- 6-7 players typically – 400 chips
- 7-8 players typically – 500 chips
- 8-10 players typically – 600 chips
- 10-15 players typically – 1000 chips
For denominations, we recommend you stick with 3 or 4 consecutive denominations
(i.e. $1, $5, and $25 chips where each consecutive chip jumps in value
4-5 fold between denominations). If you go with 3 denominations, get quantities
with a ratio of 60:30:10 percent from lowest to highest denominations
(i.e. on a 500 chip set, you’d get 300x $1 chips, 150x $5 chips,
and 50x $25 chips). If you go with 4 denominations, get quantities with
a ratio of 40:40:10:10 percent from lowest to highest. You can read
more about putting together a poker chip set here.
Durability of poker chips
One of the biggest advantages of high-end poker chips is their durability.
They are really designed for commercial use in casinos, not for recreational
use. As such, they will literally last more than a lifetime in home games,
and probably many generations. Most importantly, they are built to retain
their beauty with use. Like a rock they just sort of polish with time.
Low-end chips, made out of plastic, are a different story. While they
are durable in the sense that it’s difficult to completely destroy
them, the soft nature of plastic leads to them becoming quite tattered
after a few years use.
Cleaning poker chips
Both our high-end chips (Protege,
Archetype) are made
to be cleaned. Casinos clean their chips rather frequently. With the heavy
use and everything that gets spilled on chips in a casino environment,
they won’t touch chips that can not be easily cleaned. The best
way to clean them is to use a mild detergent (like the baby detergent
Dreft) with water. You can wash them individually, or just dump them into
a bucket of soap or water and swish them around a bit. We don’t
recommend soaking them for long periods of time, just rather get them
in, clean them up, and then dry them off with a non-abrasive towel.
Keep in mind that not all high-end chips on the market can be cleaned.
Some clay chips are not even supposed to get wet, so be sure to verify
this with the vendor if you get your chips elsewhere.
Oiling chips
If you have high-end clay poker chips and a lot of time on your hands,
you may want to consider oiling them. Casino chip collectors have used
this little secret to enhance the beauty of their chips for years. It
only works on true clay chips, so don’t bother with high-end ceramics
nor low-end plastic chips either.
In a nutshell, the idea is to break-in clay poker chips with a labor-intensive
oil treatment process that mimics exposure to hand oil (what happens to
clay poker chips in a casino environment). You simply rub on, or immerse,
the clay chips in mineral oil, let is soak in for a while, and then remove
it with a dry rag. The more oil you get on, the more time it takes to
remove, so find a happy medium. It’s a very time consuming process
that’s about 1 minute per chip, so be aware that doing a set of
500 or 1000 chips is no small task. The result is a finely polished chip
that both livens up the chip colors and provides a broken-in feel and
sound.
Chip Quality
Chip quality, even in the high-end of the market, is all over the board.
Much of the product available on the consumer market is dictated by the
manufacturers. On the high-end of the market, most of the manufacturers
are focused on the casinos and treat the consumer market as secondary.
Unfortunately, the perception is that the consumer market isn’t
willing to pay for quality, so the manufacturers produce products along
that thinking. On the low-end of the market, there is a fixation on low
price. Quality takes a back seat. In both markets, you typically get what
you pay for.
Being a leader in high-end poker chips, we pride ourselves in going above
and beyond what other retailers and manufacturers offer in terms of quality.
We view our company as a producer of poker chips, kind of blurring the
lines between retailer and manufacturer. We leverage the expertise of
the best manufacturers in the industry to make chips on our own proprietary
molds, using our designs, and according to our own high standards.
On true clay chips, which have inconsistencies due to the nature of their
compression molding manufacturing process, we hand sort thru the chips
our manufacturers produce for us. We sort them into first and second grade
chips. Our regular chip packages only ship with chips that we personally
approve, and securely repackage ourselves. This is an important distinction
because there can be quality control differences from one manufacturer
to the next. Doing the QC on our end ensures we only ship the highest
quality chips out the door. This raises our costs a bit, but ultimately
serves our discriminating customers a much better product.
To maintain our quality leadership, we invest significant amounts of
time and money in developing our own proprietary molds that are made specifically
to address the needs of home game poker players. You can read
more about our commitment to great mold design here. For inlay design,
we rely on the expertise of top design professionals. You can read
more about our philosophy on inlay design here.
On ceramic chips, where the manufacturing is a much more precise process,
we focus 100% on design and graphic detail. As a result, the design on
our Archetypes is very highly regarded. In fact, it’s featured prominently
in Dealmaster
2.0 (dealer training software) and on the cover of William Poundstone's
latest novel, Fortune's
Formula.
The manufacturer that we utilize for our ceramic chips is the best in
the industry. They make chips for many top Las Vegas casinos including
the Luxor, the Excalibur, Bally’s/Paris, etc. What sets them apart
is the clarity and graphic detail. They’re a little more expensive,
but they’re leaps and bounds ahead of the competition in the consumer
poker chip market, some of which can be downright horrendous in terms
of graphic clarity. As unbelievable as it may sound, some relatively expensive
ceramic chips in the consumer market even have blurry graphics.
Our focus on chip quality doesn’t stop until our customers are
100% satisfied with their purchase. If a customer is unhappy with any
individual chip, for any reason, we’ll exchange it for free with
15 days of receipt of goods. See
details on our return policy here.
Take
a closer look at our poker chip lines
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