Silver strikes question?

Does anyone still have silver strikes? Do you continue to try to win these? I've noticed silver strikes machines waning over the years. In the downtown LV area I believe only 4 Queens has a machine(s). I never kept any myself. Immediately after winning one I would go straight to the cashier and get $10 instead (lol). Instead I should have kept it but I'll have to live with my decision. Each $10 silver strike is about 0.60 oz. of fine silver which makes it right in line with the current spot price of silver. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I have one that I won at the Silver Legacy casino in Reno a very long time ago.

I believe I saw a Silver Strike machine at the El Cortez but I might be wrong.

Silver Strike machine locations

Good luck. I sold mine on Ebay a few years ago when Silver was over $25/oz. I haven't sought any out since.

For many years, IGT owned all of the silver strike slot machines in Las Vegas and other gaming jurisdictions. Casinos that were interested in having the machines available on their gaming floors would contract with IGT for placing the slot machines in their casinos. The casinos and IGT would split the profits from those specific machines with IGT retaining actual ownership of the machines. That relationship was somewhat similar to the popular mega-progressive jackpot multiple casino games such as Wheel of Fortune available today.

Silver strikes were often available in different denominations - $7, $10, $28, $40 and $200 being the most common. $7 silver strikes were usually smaller in size and were all silver in composition. $10 silver strikes, the most common value, were and are the same size as a standard $1 casino token. They had a brass outer ring with a silver center. For a number of years, ".999% silver" was molded into the brass outer ring. That was determined to be deceptive because it could be interpreted to mean that the entire token was silver, not just the center, so gaming regulations were changed to require the ".999% silver" be molded into the center section of the $10 silver strikes. $28 silver strikes were all silver in the composition, standard sized tokens. They frequently had small gold plated accents on parts of the artwork themes of the tokens. $40 silver strikes were similar to the $28 silver strikes but usually had more substantial (and more elaborate) applications of gold plating on the tokens. $200 silver strikes are roughly 3-1/2" in diameter and are/were only available as a sort of hand pay jackpot from a slot attendant, or they could be obtained from the casino cage in exchange for 20 $10 silver strikes. They typically are 1 Troy pound (12 ounces) of silver. Most have varying amounts of gold plating and/or painted artwork or holograms. Many are true works of art and are very collectible beyond their melt value.

Several years ago (about 6 years ago I think), IGT decided they wanted to get out of the silver strike business as far as owning the machines and working in partnership with the casinos. They offered to outright sell silver strike machines to casinos that wanted to continue having them available on their casino floors for about $13,000 per machine, and the casinos would retain all of the profits made from the machines. That's when the number of casinos with silver strike slot machines on their casino floors significantly shrunk. That was also about the time where the majority of $10 silver strikes changed from having pure silver centers to having clad silver centers. Pure silver center strikes are still available in many of the remaining silver strike machines, but they are limited in quantity. They are easy to spot because they are usually dispensed in red tinted Air-Tite coin holders while the clad silver center strikes are dispensed in standard clear Air-Tite coin holders. The $10 clad silver strikes have basically no melt value for the centers, although there are a number of people who still collect them because they are pretty cool looking coins....and they can still be cashed in at the cage for $10 each.

Bob (member of the Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club [CCGTCC], since 1997)

Very interesting. I see as you've pointed out silver strikes have changed to clad silver, bummer. As to the higher denomination strikes (ie, $28, $40, $200) do those come out from the same 25 cent machines? I'm guessing one needs to play a higher denomination machine to get those.

If I remember right, the $28 strikes could be won on some 25 cent machines. I'm not sure because I quit playing silver strike machines after the changes were made.

They would usually mix in some of the higher denominations coins with the regular ones....so you had to get lucky. I think some casinos used to even put a gold strike in the machines...but that was back when gold was under $700/oz

I have several from quite a few years ago.

The higher denom Silver Strikes at Four Queens are kept in the cage, and can only be received by trading in smaller Silver Strikes (actual silver ones). 30 $10 SS tokens gets you a $300 SS token. At least, that was the newest denom when I worked there...given the drop in silver prices, it may have changed.

The "Silver Strikers" (a collector's group) reserve a lot of these, IIRC. I'd contact the cage to find out for sure what's available - I used to work there, but don't know what they are doing now.

BTW, most of the other SS games in town don't actually have silver tokens - many of them are painted clad tokens in the special color case, and regular clads in the rest. Even FQ used a mix of silver, painted, and clad tokens, and differentiated them in the hopper by the case color.

Use to have a bunch of them. Scaled down the 'junk' at home: sold them for $10 each to the Buying Gold & Silver people.