What Happens to Slot Tokens when TITO Replaces Them?

When a casino converts to TITO (Main Street Station comes to mind), do they destroy all of the old monetary gaming tokens? Do these tokens have any uses at all today?

Since you mentioned Main Street Station — recently reopened — we took your query to Boyd Gaming spokesman David Strow, who said the following.

“First off, your reader is probably referring to the dollar tokens at Main Street Station. While we aren’t using them in machines anymore, they remain active and can be redeemed at Main Street Station at any time (or played on a table game).

“However, on the broader question of what happens to retired tokens or chips, once we retire a token or chip, we're required to provide public notice that the token or chip is being retired from use. This would typically be through advertisements in the local newspaper. Within that notice, we provide a deadline for redemption and we continue to cash out the token or chip until that date. (Just to clarify, we haven’t issued that notice for the Main Street Station dollar tokens.)

“Once the deadline has passed, the chips/tokens are no longer redeemable for cash and we destroy all copies. Customers can certainly still keep the tokens or chips as collectors items (and many people do just that), but we do not redeem them after they are retired.”

There's a whole subculture of people who collect casino chips and tokens; you can find them at ccgtcc.com, which stands for Casino Chip and Gaming Tokens Collectors Club (it's been expanded into the Casino Collectibles Association). In fact, a member of the group, with 2, 222 chips, each from a different casino, is currently vying for the new record for the largest collection of casino chips in the world. The collection will be on display tomorrow through Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., at Spinetti's, 810 S. Commerce Street. The display is part of the process for certification by Guinness for the world's record. It will also be shown at the Casino Collectibles Association's annual conference, scheduled for June 16-18 at South Point.

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Kevin Lewis Sep-26-2021

Chip collectors...

What a great little scam--"collectible" casino chips. They will never be redeemed for cash, so the casino keeps the money that was used to buy the chips and never has to pay it back.

Many of the Strip megatoilets were regularly issuing "commemorative" chips--usually $5--about 10 years ago. I haven't seen nearly as much of that lately.

Reno Faoro Sep-26-2021

2,200

iam counting my vast collection of chips,tokens, slugs . i may be close  Membership in club is not increasing . As in other 'membership' clubs groups,  the younger generation would RATHER   get into 'CRYPTCO' or is it 'cryptko ' currencies , or is it currency.  ???

rokgpsman Sep-26-2021

$1 slot tokens

One of the best sounds in a casino was hearing a bunch of $1 slot tokens falling one at a time into the coin tray at the bottom of machine.

kennethross Sep-26-2021

Philately will get you nowhere

Along the same scammy vein which Kevin has pointed out …
Our government has long promoted collection of the stamps and coins, commemorative and otherwise, which it produces for sale, having no expectation that the purchased stamps and coins will be used to purchase goods or services. Once again, pocketable profit.

O2bnVegas Sep-26-2021

y'all party poopers

Collecting can be a source of enjoyment.  Folks who stumble on the rare or misprinted stamp or coin get a momentary (at least) thrill. Maybe something in return. 

Question: This prompted me to look through my stamps.  Not a collection, just those recenly bought to mail stuff, and some leftovers from who knows when or how.  I see that "Forever" stamps have no price on them.  Yet I have 15 Ronald Reagan stamps with 0.37 cents, 14 Navajo Jewelry stamps with 0.2 cents, and one 0.19 cent stamp with a baby deer/fawn.  They don't have "forever" on them, just the amounts. I hope I can piece them together and use them for mailing.  I guess I should have done so a long time ago.

Candy

Roy Furukawa Sep-26-2021

Coin Buckets

Even the old coin buckets from casinos are collectible. I like the LV collectibles because a lot of the older casinos had really great logos and script and you can buy most of these things on Ebay. Of course Boyd was the one to change the iconic Stardust sign script into standard font lettering.

Question of the Day - 26 September 2021

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