When playing Texas Hold 'Em Poker, Omaha Hold 'Em Poker, or any game that involves chips
as currency, it's vital 💯 to know what each chip is worth. Unless you are at a casino,
most chipsets are unmarked.
While there is no 💯 official rule for how chip values are
assigned, there are common standards used for most poker events. A complete basic 💯 set
of poker chips used in private poker games or other gambling games is usually comprised
of white, red, blue, 💯 green, and black chips. Larger, high-stakes tournaments may use
chipsets with many more colors.
Whatever value system you use, make sure 💯 all your
participants understand the denominations and values of each type of chip. A good way
to do this is 💯 to write down and post the denominations so that everyone can see them.
Marking the chips themselves by writing the 💯 denominations on them is generally
discouraged.
Basic Poker Chip Colors and Standard Values
White,R$1
PinkR$2.50 (rare for
poker; sometimes used in black-jack)
Red,R$5
Blue,R$10
Green,R$25
Black,R$100
Full
Poker 💯 Chip Colors and Standard Values
White,R$1
Yellow,R$2 (rarely
used)
Red,R$5
Blue,R$10
Grey,R$20
Green,R$25
Orange,R$50
Black,R$100
Pink,R$250
Purple,
R$500
Yellow,R$1000 (sometimes burgundy or gray)
Light Blue,R$2000
Brown,R$5000
There
are some variations to these denominations (e.g., green 💯 is occasionally played
asR$20).
When Hosting a Poker Event
If you are hosting a poker event with up to 10
players, experts 💯 suggest that you have about 500 chips in three or four basic colors.
In the event that you are hosting 💯 a larger game involving up to 30 people, a collection
of 1,000 chips in four or five colors is recommended.
If 💯 you are putting together a set
of chips to run your own games, it is recommended that you keep the 💯 number of different
colors fairly low, and assemble your collection so that you have the most chips in the
lowest 💯 denomination with progressively smaller numbers of chips as the denominations
climb. For example, if you are assembling a set of 💯 four chip values ofR$1,R$5,R$10,
andR$25, the number of chips by ratio should be 4:3:2:1. For a set of 500 poker 💯 chips,
for example, you should have 200, 150, 100, and 50 chips in white, red, blue and green,
respectively.
Casino Chips
Casinos 💯 usually have custom-designed chips with the monetary
value and the name of the casino printed or engraved on the face. 💯 The chips may be
multi-colored and stylized with patterns. The color-coding may follow the values noted
above, or individual gambling 💯 areas or casinos may have their own unique color-coding
systems.
Atlanta Casinos
Most casinos follow the basic primary color-coding values for
white, 💯 pink, red, green, and black chips, with the addition of yellow chips atR$20, and
blue chips valued atR$10.
Las Vegas
These casinos 💯 also follow the basic primary color
coding but also addR$20 chips. The poker room at the Wynn casino also includes 💯 brown
chips valued atR$2 and peach chips valued atR$3.
California
There are no legal mandates
on gaming chip colors in California, but 💯 there is a common color coding used in most
organized games:
$1: Usually blue, but varies
$2: Green
$3: Red
$5: Yellow
$10:
Brown
$20: Black
$25: 💯 Purple
$100: White (sometimes oversize)
$500: Brown, gray (often
oversize)
High-Value Casino Denominations
Chip values aboveR$5,000 are rarely seen by
the public in casinos, 💯 since such high-stake games generally are private affairs. For
very high-stakes games, casinos may use rectangular plaques that are about 💯 the size of
a playing card. In casinos where high-stakes gambling is allowed in public areas, there
may be plaques 💯 in denominations ofR$5,000,R$10,000,R$25,000, and higher. These casinos
are mainly found in Nevada and Atlantic City.
History of Poker Chips
Gambling games
through 💯 history have always made use of some form of marker to represent cash or other
forms of currency. Standardized betting 💯 chips like the type we now know came into use
during the early 1800s.
Saloons and gaming houses in the West 💯 used engraved pieces of
bone, ivory, or clay as chips in their house-run games. These early chips were easy to
💯 copy, though, so by the 1880s, commercial companies were commissioned to manufacturer
customized clay chips for gaming venues. These chips 💯 were carefully stylized to make
them particular to a betting establishment, and therefore hard to forge.
In modern
casinos, the chips 💯 are custom designed and manufactured, and many still contain a large
percentage of clay in their composite material. Some casinos 💯 use ceramic chips. Weight,
texture, design, and color are very carefully controlled, making them harder to
counterfeit than paper currency. 💯 Some casinos even embed their gambling markers with
microchips, making them virtually impossible to copy.
