In some gambling jurisdictions, the Gaming Control Boards specify uniform chip colors and sizes for the purpose of consistency, as well as the chip's value and the name and location of the casino on the chip. Although there are no universally standardized values for poker chip colors, here is.

Poker chips, also known as tokens or checks, are commonly used in lieu of cash in even the lowest stakes home games. These small, easy-to-handle discs make the game flow at a faster rate. Most cardrooms no longer allow cash on the table except in higher stakes games where players are permitted to keep $100 bills alongside their chips.

Custom chips are a worthy expense that will not only reduce the liability of someone counterfeiting, or ‘running chips into the game,’ but will also improve the overall quality of any homegame. There are several factors to consider when purchasing a set of poker chips.

Quantity of Poker Chips

Poker chips can be purchased in sets (100 up to 1000 are common) or per chip. Regardless of whether you buy a set or individual chips, you will need a general idea of how many chips to order. You want enough chips to cover the number of players. If you are running tournaments, you will want to order what is equivalent to one chip stack per player up to the maximum players permitted, plus a few extra replacement stacks.

Here is a sample calculation:

Maximum 30 player tournament order at least 33 stacks of chips. If that equates to 20 chips in various denominations per player, then 33 x 20 = 660 chips, so you know you want to go with no less than a 700 chip set. Keep in mind, rebuy/add-on tournaments will require additional stacks or some higher denomination chips that can be “colored up”.

When calculating how many chips to buy for a live action poker game, you will need to overestimate a bit. You never know if your game will suddenly escalate to higher stakes one night. You do not want to run the risk of running out of chips, so it is better to overestimate the number of chips you will need for your poker game. Ordering will be based on the stakes of the game and the number of poker players expected. On average you should have at least 100 chips per player, with the majority of your poker chips comprised of the two lowest denominations. I recommend purchasing at least 20 high denomination chips to ensure you do not run out during a heated poker game.

Type of Poker Chips

There are four common types of chips: plastic, composite, ceramic, and clay chips.

Plastic Poker Chips

There are really two types of common plastic poker chips available. The cheapest is the set commonly found in a round carrier. If you are playing friendly ‘kitchen table’ poker, these plastic chips, which can be purchased in any major chainstore will suffice. The second is Diamond chips that are made of plastic, but standard casino size and are a bit heavier than the cheaper plastic chips. These chips are solid in color and perfect for friendly poker games.

Composite Poker Chips

This is the most common poker chip purchased and used in regular homegames. They can also be found in chain stores and often come with a dealer button, deck of cards and a cut card. These chips are often adorned with dice, diamonds, or card suits on the edges of the chips. They are colored to match industry standards. They typically weigh 11.5 grams due to a metal insert. These chips work fine for a small stakes poker game or tournament where the risk of someone ‘running in chips’ is minimal. The most common complaint about these chips is they are slippery.

Customized composite chips with the metal insert are a common option for serious homegames. These are by far the most popular chips ordered on the internet. There are thousands of design options available for these chips. The designs can be put on label stickers, hot stamped, or engraved into the chip. The most popular weight is 11.5 grams. There is also a softer variation of this chip that does not have a metal insert for those players who do not like the ring of a metal inserted chip.

Ceramic Poker Chips

These chips have a smooth porcelain feel to them and are used in many casinos. The biggest benefit to these chips is they can be graphically designed with detail you cannot reproduce on other types of chips. They are also highly durable and will stand the test of time. There is a higher cost for these beautifully decorated poker chips, but they’ll look great in any serious home game – so if you can afford them then it’s probably worth the extra cost.

Clay Poker Chips

Clay chips, used mostly in casinos, are the most expensive type of chips available and generally are regarded as the best quality chips. These chips are made using a compression molding process where unique designs can be molded right into the chip. Clay chips are easiest to handle, stack, and do chip tricks with, making the $1+ per chip price tag seem worthy. Contrary to the popular belief that the heaviest chips are the best quality, clay casino chips usually weigh between 8 and 9 grams.

Color of the Poker Chips

Try to maintain the industry standard when selecting the color of your chips. This helps reduce confusion among players who are used to betting five dollars when they toss a red chip into the pot and one hundred dollars when they bet a black chip. You will need about four different colored chips to play in a standard poker game and the two lowest valued chips will compromise the largest percentage of your set.

• $1 White Chip
• $5 Red Chip
• $10 Blue Chip
• $25 Green Chip
• $100 Black Chip
• $500 Purple Chip
• $1000 Orange Chip

After selecting the dominant color of each chip, you will also have the option of selecting a secondary or tertiary accent color, which is usually around the edge of the chip. Each additional color adds to the price of the chip. Be sure to select accent colors that completely differ from the accent colors on the other chip denominations. Chip denominations can get easily mixed when stacking them if the accent colors are too similar.

Weight of the Poker Chips

If you decide against expensive clay chips, the weight of all other poker chips is one of the most important factors to consider. Lightweight chips are typically cheaper, but heavier chips are more durable. If you plan on hosting frequent poker games, you will be better off in the long run investing money in chips that will not need to be constantly replaced. In addition, players prefer to play with heavier chips which are easier to maneuver and riffle.

Common Poker Chip Weights:

• 7.5 grams
• 8.5 grams
• 9.0 grams
• 11.5 grams
• 13.0 grams
• 13.5 grams
• 14 grams

Poker Chip Design

There are various different chip designs. Let’s examine your options.

Standard Designs

Chip manufacturers offer numerous designs that can be printed on the face of any poker chip. You can buy them pre-designed or for a higher price you can provide a picture or graphic artwork for customization.

Stickers

You can purchase round stickers in almost any design to place on the poker chips you choose. You can even buy blank chip stickers and customize them yourself on your own computer. If you go this route, consider buying chips with a recessed center so the stickers are easier to place and harder for players to damage.

Chip stickers make it easy to replace a chip that has been battered on the face, but keep in mind they are just stickers, so they will be easier to batter in the first place. If you decide on using stickers to mark your chips, be sure to stick to the common color denominations rather than one chip color with different labels. Otherwise, someone could sneak chips out and replace the stickers with higher denominations and sneak them back later and scam you out of money.

Gold or Silver Foil Stamping

Chips can be hot stamped with gold or silver lettering, usually only on chips with a solid colored center. It is common to use initials or dollar denominations. Keep in mind if you choose to have the dollar value stamped on the face, you lose the flexibility to change the value of the chips. Also, be aware that the gold & silver sometimes flakes off the chip with wear, especially with low quality manufacturing.

Engraved Poker Chips

Engraving your chips will make it less likely for someone to sneak chips into your game or counterfeit your chips. Manufacturers will allow you to engrave anything you want on the chips for a set price per chip. It is common to have your name, initials or place of business engraved on the face of the chip. You have to pay double if you want both sides engraved. If you really want a customized chip that will make counterfeiting difficult, scan your signature and have it engraved on the chips.

There are a lot of factors to consider when ordering a poker chip set. If after reviewing the above information you still cannot decide on what fits your needs, order a sample set. Most reputable chip suppliers now offer a sample of one of each type of chip they offer for a price of less than $10.00. Clay chip samples run closer to $20 per sample set. This will give you a chance to feel each chip and closely inspect the design work on each style so that you will find the perfect set for your game.

By Kelli Mix

Kelli is the author of the 'Game Day Poker Almanac - Official Rules of Poker'. She lives in Carrollton, Georgia, where she is the state director for the Poker Players Alliance.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Table Of Contents

The age-old saying goes something like this: 'The guy who invented gambling was brilliant, but the guy who invented chips was a genius.'

The reason behind this saying is that chips remove from gambling the real world of money.

Gamblers tend to have very short memories. Once they purchase chips, they easily forget their real world value, making losses on the green felt seem relatively painless — at least until they go to cash out.

Home poker has largely embraced this concept.

Games that used to be played with silver change and paper money are now often played with the best poker chips.

If you're hosting a home game, you may well be considering the purchase of a cool poker chip set.

The best poker chip sets contain:

• A set of 500 poker chips
• Poker chips in three or four colors for different denominations
• A deal button
• A Big Blind button
• A Small Blind button
• Two decks of French cards

A poker chip set for home like this should be enough for your typical game of one to two tables.

Finding the best poker chips for your home games depends on your tastes and your budget.

Here's a summary of what's out there to help you find just the right chips for your game. To get a really good sense of all of your options, I suggest that you check out the online stores that specialize in poker supplies.

Discover the most beginner-friendly games of poker on the internet.

Cheap Poker Chips: Plastic Chips

At the very lowest end of the chip market are the very lightweight, 2 gram or so, thin plastic poker chips that many of us played with as kids or in high school and college.

They are typically sold in packs of 100, often in red, white, and blue.

These are the chips available for purchase in nearly every large pharmacy and in groceries, right in the same area as the packs of playing cards.

They'll run you $2.50 to $3.95 or so. If you look around you might find a really inexpensive version of them in the dollar stores — selling for $1.00.

You can buy plastic poker chips online, too. In these case, these are your best options:

• 100 Poker Chips by RINCO(Red and Blue)
• 600 Poker Chips by U.S. Toy Co.(Red, White, Blue)

These cheap plastic poker chips are fine in a pinch, or with young or inexperienced players who have never been to a public poker room or casino.

But they feel and sound so much cheaper than what you'll find in a casino or other public poker room, that they may be inadequate for your more serious players.

Imitation Clay Poker Chips

One step up, and what I first purchased back in the early '90s when I started playing in casinos around the United States, are solidly colored, imitation clay poker chips.

These poker chips for home games are made of heavy plastic weighing 8 grams a chip or so.

Cool imitation clay poker chips for home games are generally marketed as 'super diamond chips.'

They can be purchased online for between $.06 and $.10 per chip, and sell in 'sleeves' of 25 single color chips.

These are the best poker chips of this kind:

These imitation clay poker chips are perfectly adequate for your home game, especially if you are running multi-table tournaments and want to be able to afford a lot of chips for a relatively little amount of money.

What Is The Highest Value Poker Chip Made

Since they lack any striping, spotting or design, some players might not prefer them.

But I've used mine in large tournaments and in home games for 25 years and never had a complaint (at least not to my face).

Clay Composite Chips

Slightly more expensive, and by far the most common chips that are sold to poker players today, are the metal filled, clay composite chips, with a myriad of different designs, strips, and spots.

Clay poker chips are usually sold as part of chip set, including an inexpensive aluminium carrying case.

These can also be purchased in sleeves of 25 from some companies, but are more typically sold in units of 500 or 1,000 as part of a poker chip set for home games.

These clay composite chips come in a large range of prices.

The 500-chip sets, for example, can be purchased online for anywhere from $39 or so up to $300 (not including shipping), based on the quality, design, and weight of the chip. Each chip weighs anywhere from 11 to 14 grams.

If you are looking for the best poker chips and you want to top chip set for home games, pick one of these. You can't go wrong with any of them.

I've noticed that at the very bottom of that price range, the clay composite chips tend to be of unacceptably poor quality.

I once purchased a 1,000-chip set for $90 and paid $45 to ship them (they're heavy, and shipping is generally expensive). The chips arrived with 20 red chips equaling the height of only 19 white chips.

They had many other defects in them as well.

I had to send them back for a refund — and got stuck with one way of the shipping.

If you are ordering these metal-filled chips, then, I recommend you order no cheaper chip than the ones selling for about $150 for 1,000.

Customized Ceramic Poker Chips

The next step up are the Ceramic poker chips that sell for about $.40-$.75 or so each.

Nevada Jacks is the most popular brand of these chips. These also come in sets of 500 or 1,000.

A nice poker set of the best home poker chips in ceramic is known for their brilliant colors and sharp detail.

These are the best poker chips to buy. They are not metal filled, and they don't make the metal clanging sound when they bump together.

Players rave about them.

The most expensive, regularly produced variety of chips are the casino-quality clay chips made by the Paulson company, typified by the Top Hat and Cane design.

These chips cost roughly $1.25 a chip, or from $1,100 to $1,400 for a set of 1,000.

If you want your home poker chips to be just like those in a casino and you don't mind paying for them, these are the ones for you.

The best ceramic poker chips for home games are:

• Brybelly 500 Count Nevada Jack Poker Set - 10 Gram Premium Casino Grade Ceramic Chips with Aluminum Case

There is another option to consider.

Some chip manufacturers will customize your chips with your own design.

These can come as a 'hot stamped' imprint, as a printed label that is permanently affixed to the chip, or in the case ceramic chips the design can be built into the chip itself.

Prices for this option vary widely, so shop around if this interests you.

Poker Chip Cases

Keep in mind that you'll almost certainly want a case in which to store and transport your poker chip ser. There are a few options in this department as well.

The most common are these thin aluminium or vinyl attaché cases.

These are most frequently made with room for 500 chips, and a few extra spaces for cards. There are also chip cases that accommodate 250, 350, 750, and 1,000 chips.

They sell for between $20-$50 and can vary some in quality, though it's usually next to impossible to tell from the pictures which ones are more sturdily made. Look for reinforcements in the corners.

Also, the 1,000 capacity chip case, when filled with chips, will be too heavy for some to easily carry around.

You might be better off ordering two 500s instead. There is also, now, a 2,000-chip case that comes with wheels for easier transportation.

If you run tournaments or move your game from place to place, you might be tempted to get it, but I don't recommend it.

From everything I've read and heard, it is not built with sufficient sturdiness to survive much use. Tales of handles and wheels falling off upon first use are a legend.

There are a few other chip case options. One is a clear lucite chip case. It is built for 1,000 chips, stacked in chip racks of 100 each, and sells for about $50.

This is very useful if you run tournaments and want to easily have your chips organized for simple distribution to a large group of people.

It's also extremely sturdy, easy to stack, and doesn't dent, scratch, or otherwise deteriorate from regular use (unlike the aluminium and vinyl cases described above). It's what I use, and I recommend it highly.

Finally, for those who care about how your chip cases look, there are some very nice wooden storage boxes. They tend to be cube-shaped, come in a dark finish, and have shiny, small metal handles, one on each side of the box.

They aren't easy to carry, and so would be awkward and inappropriate if you transported your chips regularly.

But they do look nice sitting on a shelf. They sell for about $50 separately, but like all other chip cases, they are often included in the price of a chip set.

Other Recommendations

I would immediately rule out the very cheap plastic poker chips and the very cheapest of the metal filled chips.

Beyond that, however, I don't think there is really much of a difference in how your poker-playing guests will react to the chips.

I've played in home games with the best ceramic poker chips and with Paulson's. They were beautiful to behold.

But I noticed no one really seemed to care.

I've found that poker players are typically so completely engaged in how much they were up or down that the look of their chips was the last thing they cared about.

That being said, you might care about that, and might take great pride in having a truly beautiful set or chips that remind you of what you play with at the nearest casino.

One last item to consider — there are very few brick-and-mortar stores that sell a wide variety of poker chips (The Gambler's General Store in Las Vegas is a great exception).

Find The Poker Chip

Amazon, Target, Walmart and a few other retail chains may have boxed sets for sale, but the chips themselves will still be hidden.

That means for the most part, you'll probably be looking online at an image of a chip — not the real thing — when you contemplate a purchase.

For that reason, I recommend that before you buy a complete set of chips, especially an expensive one, that you either purchase or ask the company to send you for free some sample chips.

Catalogs, computer screens, and the like don't really do a chip justice. For that you'll need to see, hold, and use the chip itself.

What Is The Highest Value Poker Chip Mean

Sure, it may cost you $5 or $10 to get a small sample set of chips from the manufacturer. But that's a much less costly option than ordering chips you don't want and having to return them.

About the Author

Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of articles as well as Winning 7-Card Stud (Kensington 2003). He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.

_{This article was originally written by Ashley Adams in August 2016. Last update: December 2019.}

^{Photos: 'Ready for poker,' Laura, CC BY 2.0; 'Poker Chips,' Indi Samarajiva, CC BY 2.0; 'Poker XII,' Bastian Greshake, CC BY-SA 2.0; 'New custom ceramic chip set,' BigMikeSndTch, CC BY 2.0; 'Poker anyone?' uzi978, CC BY-SA 2.0;.}

What Is The Highest Value Poker Chip Value

Be sure to complete your PokerNews experience by checking out an overview of our mobile and tablet apps here. Stay on top of the poker world from your phone with our mobile iOS and Android app, or fire up our iPad app on your tablet. You can also update your own chip counts from poker tournaments around the world with MyStack on both Android and iOS.

Finding a trustworthy room to play online poker can be a monumental burden. That's all the more true if you're just looking for a place to play poker for free. We've listed five of the best play-money poker sites to enjoy and help hone your skills.

Old Poker Chips Value

• Tags

  home gamescash game strategytournament strategypoker tablesno-limit hold’emstud gameslive pokerpoker chips