The Evolution of the Casino Chip

by Bodog Casino | Feb 3 2009

There are a lot of questions in life that can pick your brain.

How do such small packets of powder make big jugs of Cool-aid? Why does everything taste like chicken? Who keeps bankrolling movies made by Uwe Boll?

And there’s one more: how did casino chips come to be? In a world that uses paper, copper, silver or plastic as a monetary instrument (semi) clay chips seemingly came from nowhere and are still alive and well in the casino realm.

We dig deep and find out how casino chips began and what advancements are being made for the future.

The History of the Chip

Although you can go all the way back to 1626 for some of the first casinos, it took about another 200 years before actual chips got some play.

Before the mid-1800s players would use anything they could find including gold pieces, clay nuggets, and coins to substitute for the chip. It wasn’t until 1880 that companies realized they needed to produce a consistent form of casino currency. For that reason companies began to produce clay chips in red, white, blue and yellow. Although from the late 1800s to the 1930s the chips were 100 percent clay, after that clay chips have been a mix of clay, sand, calcium carbonate, chalk and that stuff in kitty litters. Hopefully it’s not used kitty litters.

New-School Chips for New-School Casinos

Like the rise of portable music, hybrid cars, and recordable TV things need to evolve in order to unlock new and better possibilities.

Casino owners have noticed the same needs to happen to the casino chip. In a modern world where computers can do everything but dress us in the morning, counterfeiting the chip has become much easier.

Some owners have countered this by going high-tech with the casino chip. Foxwoods Resort Casino is getting rid of 49 different sets of old chips and replacing them with new discs embedded with tiny radio frequency computer chips and bearing individual serial numbers.

This will cut counterfeiting to a minimum and allow companies to better keep track of them while maintaining the same look as the older chips.

"Tracking the chip gives us a better idea of customer ratings at the table and also assists in chip inventory," said Jackie Mason, director of casino accounting operations at Foxwoods.

Foxwoods phased out the old chip on January 31st, 2009. No word however, if Vegas plans on adopting the new tech-savvy casino currency.