Chips: The money in casino

Currency having multiple functions, chips known now in gaming rooms and which replace bank-notes was not especially created for casinos at the beginning. The origin of chips indeed goes back up to the Antiquity, period in the course of which it served as chips of account. During the Middle Ages, the use of chips had increased in business. But it was especially during the XIXth century, because of the insufficiency of the active money, that storekeepers, restaurant owners and barkeepers proposed to change this substitute of real money. Given their acceptance by the only company which emitted it, it became an advertising support and a way to develop customers’ loyalty. Then, various sectors and activities resorted to chips for more convenience as chips of transport, phone chips, commemorative chips …

In casinos, chips are especially used for table games (roulette, craps, black jack…). For the case of gambling machines, it is coins especially adjusted to these machines which are proposed. Given that any banque-notes or real metal currency weren’t used in these gaming rooms, chips are exchanged at the room entrance.

Each casino chip, mostly made with plastic, has so a cash value well précised and fixed by the firms according to real money, its form (round, square) or according to its colour (red, green, blue…). These chips were used since a long time ago by card players in the whole Europe for staking. Once on the table, the whole chips of a player is called “stake”. Regular customers of casinos and game tables can easily value the quantity of the chips on a player; it means that, his potential by looking at his stake. Even in big tournaments as the World Series of Poker (WSOP), chips are still used during all tournaments.