Yes. Once the Nevada Gaming Commission has approved a chip design submitted by a casino, it is listed on the NGC's Approval Lists site.

Contributed By: Jill Bitner

Yes and No. During the national 2000 CCA convention, Michael Knapp and Dick Covington taught a very interesting and educational seminar on chip collecting basics called Chipology 101.

The course outline and reference materials are permanently housed in PDF format on the CCA site.

Yes. The Casino Chips and Gaming Token Collectors Club is an international group of hobbyists who collect Casino Chips, Slot Tokens, Silver Strikes, Slot Cards, and many other casino-related items. Membership is highly recommended and is very affordable for what you receive. If you're considering taking up chipping as a hobby, one of your first stops should be their website.

There are also regional clubs that provide more frequent and local activities for their members. Even though the CCA hosts an enormous convention each year in Las Vegas, most chippers enjoy getting together with their fellow hobbyists on a more frequent basis to meet new members, trade chips, and discuss the latest chipping topics.

Yes. The CCA maintains a Glossary which defines dozens of terms and phrases that you'll encounter. Need to know what a COTY is? Or a Jeton? Or a Flip? You'll find it all there.

Yes. The Casino Chip and Token News is an award-winning quarterly publication of the CCA. As a member of the CCA you will receive the magazine free. It is jam-packed with articles from every region of the country, all the latest chip releases, and all the latest news of interest to the hobby. The magazine alone is worth the cost of membership.

Yes. The Chip Guide is a part of Greg Susongs web site, and is an invaluable reference when searching for chips, browsing chips, or checking their catalogue numbers. It's not a complete reference (for one of those, purchase a hardcopy chip price guide), but it does have hundreds of images you can reference online.

Pete and Chantal Rizzo also host the Las Vegas Casino Chip Museum which houses images of over 5000 chips from current and closed Las Vegas casinos.

Jeff Rudder also has over 2000 chip images at his Starchip Enterprises site on his Cashier's Cage page.

Contributed By: Terry Shaffer

There are several advantages.

  1. Quarterly magazine - The Casino Chip and Token News
  2. Access to dozens of books in the club Library.
  3. Superior trading status - as a member of the CCA, people will be more trusting in their trade transactions with you because they know you're bound by the Code of Ethics. Additionally, members prefer to trade with other members, and in fact, some people will only trade with club members.
  4. Ability to vote for the Chip of the Year, Silver Strike of the Year, Token of the Year, and Card/Key of The Year.
  5. You can pre-register for the convention and get one of the famous goody bags.
  6. You can attend the Early Bird Banquet before the convention.
  7. You can be listed in the public, online Club Directory (along with your email and website URL) for others to learn about you and your collecting interests
  8. You will develop life-long friendships with other club members.
  9. You receive a membership card and are entitled to use the club logo on your business cards and web pages.
  10. You get to have a vote in the direction of the most influential organization in the hobby.
  11. You have access to the full Club Directory that contains many names and addresses not available in the public, online directory.
  12. You have the honor of belonging to an organization that takes its ethics and codes of conduct very seriously.
  13. You have the honor of belonging to an organization dedicated to the preservation of part of our nation's history.

For the nominal membership fee, the magazine alone is worth joining. You can even join online using the online application found on the Membership Center.

Contributed By: Paul Donohue, Sunday Silverman, Terry Shaffer, Tyrus Mulkey, Bob Stoops, Ed Bigley, Jack Mayercik

Ed Hertel's The Illegal Gambling History Connection is a great resource for history on illegal gambling in the U.S., and it's a great source for pictures of illegal chips.

The CCA maintains a list of chip grade and condition descriptions that are used by all club members and many non-members. The list is intended to be used as a guide so that two people involved in a trade have the same understanding as to the condition of the chips in question.

For example, the condition "New" means "Never used in games; square and round edge chips will be as from the manufacturer with absolutely no wear, no dings or nicks; no scratches on surface of chip or inlay."

Before the existence of the guide, to one person, "New" might have included almost new chips with very little signs of wear. However, since the inception of this guide, all chippers understand that a chip in that condition would fall into the "Slightly Used" category.

You should always use the conditions outlined in the guide and apply them appropriately to your chips. This will save much headache in trade/sale transactions by keeping one or both parties from being dissatisfied with the chips in question.

Robert Eisenstadt's site has a FAQ that deals mostly with antique and ivory chips. Lots of great information there.

There are (to my knowledge) no comprehensive guides to International chips. However, there are at least four guides to chips of specific countries or regions: Pollack's Guide to the Chips & Tokens of Aruba, Ginsburg's Guide to the Chips & Casinos of Curacao, Casino Chips & Tokens Of The Dutch Caribbean, and Ginsburg's Guide To The Casinos & Chips Of St. Maarten. These books (and their ordering information) can be found at the Books page of The Chip Guide.

There are also a few online resources. Jason Skinner has a nice site with lots of details on dozens of casinos in the United Kingdom. And Fran Alejandre has a nice site with lots of details on dozens of foreign casinos in countries like Spain, France, Monaco, Peru, etc. - although you'd better be prepared to read Spanish!

Contributed By: Keith Murrey, answers by Debby Meister and Jason Skinner

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