Poker ChipsCasino poker chips are special tokens representing money. Poker chips serve as a substitute for currency that is difficult to stack or handle while playing. Chips are fabricated with complicated graphics and edge spot patterns intending to make them difficult to counterfeit. The coin-shaped tokens are made of uniform size and weight, whose money value is determined by their color. The standard color scheme for poker chips is as follows: $1 chips are white; $5- red; $10- blue; $25- green; $100- black; $500- purple; $1000- orange; $5000- gray; $10000- pink. There is no requirement that casinos use these colors, and there is much variance regarding the colors used for denominations above $100. Traditionally, the constructing material for poker chips was bone. However, modern casino chips are often made of a ceramic material with clay added for texture and weight. The process used to make these chips is well guarded and expensive - typically done on high pressure compression molding machines. Clay chips, which can cost as much as $0.15 per chip, or $75 for a set of 500, are considered the most upscale variety of poker chip. However, they are not currently manufactured because of their brittleness and fragility. They were very popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Plastic chips at a wide variety of quality levels also can be found in different casinos. Ceramic casino style chips can be bought for home games, but typical price is at approximately $1 per chip. Modern home poker chips can be bought much more affordably (less than $100 for 500) and approach casino poker chips in look, feel, sound, and texture. They are typically manufactured with injection molding technology using ABS material. While clay composition varies by manufacturer, the clay content in these chips is typically very slight (1-10%) and does not affect the characteristics of the chip. The chip is molded around a metal slug (for weight) and comes in several colors. Many designs currently exist for home poker chips. The most common design is the dice pattern, duplicated by virtually every poker chip producing factory. There are numerous styles of low cost home poker chips to choose from. It is better to have a unique set (for security purposes) than to have the same set as others; this depends largely on your game and who you play with. If there is no security concern, having several people with the same chips is not a concern - in fact it may be better because it allows more people to play. If your game is played with high stakes, or with friends of friends and strangers, it might make sense to have unique, or custom chips. Custom chips need not to be anything more than a hot stamped or pad printed graphic on a common chip. An even less costly alternative is to add a sticker or a mark to the chips with a permanent marker. |
