Poker chips are the most basic and essential component of every poker game. This article will demonstrate to you everything that you need to learn about buying and caring for poker chips, whether you’re just searching for a fun set of chips for home games or you’re a professional player seeking a costly collector’s piece.
Should you decide to take a break from playing at the best online casino Philippines sites to play at your local land-based poker table, there are lots of cool facts to know about poker chips. We’ll go through how to determine the values for your chips, which ones work best for which games, and a ton more.
A Quick Interesting History of Poker Chips
Poker chips have a rich history, with games originally played with gold coins and nuggets. After years of development, modern chips come in an array of shapes, sizes, and materials.
Before the invention of standard poker chips, gamblers would use anything of value to make wagers. In the early days, back in the 1800s, players would actually utilize gold nuggets, coins, and even dust to put their wagers. As a result, universal tokens for gambling were developed, most frequently crafted from bone, wood, or ivory.
In the Philippines, it was believed to be all sorts of sea shells. These were easily counterfeited, though, so in the late 1800s, American gambling dens and poker clubs began producing clay chips, ushering in the modern era of poker chips.
The Types of Poker Chips to Choose From
These days, chips come in a wide variety of colors, styles, and denominations and are often composed of plastic or a clay mixture. The varieties now on the market and their primary distinctions must be learned first.
Plastic Chips
This is the most standard material seen at the best online casino Philippines websites. It’s also the cheapest kind of chips you can buy and the most common kind you’ll see in stores like supermarkets. Originally made in the traditional red, white, and blue colors, they are now also available in a wide variety of different hues.
Clay Chips
Regular poker players typically utilize clay chips, which typically weigh between 10 and 14 grams. Most chips on the market are made of clay or clay composite, and they are very popular. There are a ton of different styles to choose from, so every player will find something they like.
Ceramic Chips
Poker chips made of ceramic are among the best available, but their great quality comes at a considerable cost. The grittier surface of ceramic chips makes them more stable when stacked. The typical weight of a ceramic chip is 10 grams, and they include grand, renowned, and daring designs.
Metallic Chips
The rarest and most difficult-to-find variety of chips is made of metal, and it comes in colors like silver, gold, and bronze. The thing that makes them stand out is the fact that even the pickiest gamers may find a configuration and design that suits their needs. They can be extremely cumbersome, however.
Assigning the Value of Poker Chips
Blank chips can be purchased online, but their purchasers may be unsure of how to put them to use. This is trickier than it looks, and there are a lot of considerations you’ll need to make. In low-stakes home games, the white chip is usually the least valuable, followed by the red and blue chips, and then the green or black chips, which represent the largest stakes.
Keep in mind that you need a sufficient number of each chip denomination to ensure a pleasant game without anyone running out of chips too quickly. In most cases, this means amassing a large quantity of low-value chips, as they will be exchanged more frequently.
Anti-Counterfeit Poker Chips
In addition to the foregoing, you’ll find RFID technology (yep, the same RFID for NLEX, SLEX, etc.!) incorporated in poker chips at most high-end casinos. The use of radio frequency identification (RFID) in casino chips has numerous applications and helps with things like chip security to avoid fraud and imitation chips, notably in the context of poker.
The hosts of casinos and games are the ones who take the risk of using fake chips. That’s a huge problem that could result in a significant financial loss for them. Most gambling establishments use security ink to detect and prevent the use of counterfeit chips.
UV security printing is available for use as an additional customization and anti-counterfeiting measure. Typically, the surface will feature printing of a logo or text that will only become legible when exposed to UV light.
Closing Thoughts
You can always head to the best online casino Philippines websites for some quick poker action at any time. But if you’re the type of player who prefers the genuine feel of holding actual poker chips in your hands, you’re at least prepared and informed as you now know better.