When and Where Were Casino Chips First Introduced?

When and where did chips get their start? I’m watching a 1941 movie set in the 1800s and cash was being used at the roulette table. What a mess. This was in Wiesbaden, Germany.

A mess, yes, but accurate.

The first legal casino was founded in Venice in 1626, but the earliest known ancestors of casino chips date back to 1752, when different-colored "counters" were used to keep score in French card games. As the game of poker took hold in the American West, players used anything at hand to denote their wager, be it coins, gold nuggets, even gold dust. However, the need for some kind of standard denomination led to the stamping of the first casino chips in the 1880s.

The novelty factor was so great (and regulation so nonexistent) that myriad colors were available to gambling houses. Then as now, clay was the base element. (The clay in your cat litter has a lot in common with the composition of a casino chip. Cheaters attempting to flush counterfeit chips down the toilet have learned this the hard way.) The term “blue chip” dates back to 1873, when high-value tokens were customarily made in that hue. Blue chips are a custom that has mostly been discarded by casinos.

However, given mankind’s inherent propensity to gamble, some scholars, such as the University of Nevada—Las Vegas’ Dr. David Schwartz, contend that gambling tokens date back to ancient man. “Several early archaeological sites throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East include astragali and collections of small, differently colored stones – possibly counters,” he writes in his epic history of gambling, Roll the Bones. “These could be used in the earliest form of craps, complete with primitive dice and ancient chips.”

However, all sources we consulted agree that the casino chip as we know it is a relatively recent phenomenon. Now, what was this film you were watching?

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AyeCarambaPoker Feb-20-2021

Film title

I’m assuming the film is The Great Sinner which is based on the Dostoyevsky book The Gambler. 

The book was quasi biographical in that Dostoyevsky was himself addicted to roulette and the proceeds from writing it went to paying off his own gambling debts

Adam Cohen Feb-20-2021

Moving forward

I wonder if moving forward they will continue to use Clay or look for a material that is more germ-resistant or easier to clean

Kevin Lewis Feb-20-2021

Chip color

Nowadays, casinos sell each roulette player a distinct color of chip, which makes it easy to identify whose bet is whose. I can only imagine the arguments (and gunfights) that must have broken out when it was disputed whose $100 bill was on a winning Red or Black. The croupier might have had final say over who got paid, but that would just have led to a lot of dead croupiers.

And yes, mankind has always gambled. Cave paintings in the Sur La Merde archaeological site in France show cavemen buying primitive casino chips with furs. The next panel shows the cavemen leaving without the chips or the furs. Scholars dispute whether they were charged extra to park their woolly mammoths.

Travis Lewin Feb-20-2021

Chips

I own a set of 700 ivories that were in Shipping box dated 1856 and that were shipped from NYC to an illegal casino in Balston Spa. I also have several ivory chips that were used on Mississippi River boats in the 1860-80s. Clay casino chips were created  shortly before or around the turn of the 20th century. It is said that Queen Elizabeth played cards for money but didn’t like to handle filthy cash and so had ivory chips made. I have two 19th century English ivory poker chips.

Feb-20-2021

To Kevin Lewis

Kevin, are you sure about your listing of "Sur La Merde archaeological site"?  I tried to look it up on Google, but no such animal came up.  The reason why I had doubts about the name is that I'm semi-fluent in French and I know what "merde" means, so I knew that "sur la merde" means "on shit".  What say you?

Feb-20-2021

My experience

I had a weird experience while playing roulette several years ago.  My favorite color is yellow (mustard yellow is my favorite shade) and so every time I played roulette, I asked for yellow chips.  One time I was sitting at the far end of the table, on the side edge, when a new player walked up and said he wanted to play and he gave the dealer a big bill.  The dealer gave him a bunch of yellow chips!  I don't know, maybe the dealer didn't get enough sleep, maybe he was on drugs, maybe he had a really short memory, or maybe he was just totally incompetent.  I had no choice but to speak up, very loudly, and nix what happened before the new player started making bets with his (my) yellow chips.  You see everything at a roulette table.

Kevin Lewis Feb-20-2021

The dig

Al, are you saying that I make shit up? :)

Donzack Feb-21-2021

The great sinner

It was the great sinner and my question

Question of the Day - 20 February 2021

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