Weirdest Things Ever Accepted as Casino Chips

While a casino not having enough casino chips for all players is unheard of now—that wasn’t always the case. Back in the days of the wild west, many weird items made their way onto poker tables. Plus, at home poker games, you can’t expect the play to always only contain chips.

Read on to discover some of the weirdest things ever accepted as poker chips at casinos, and a word of advice—don’t try any of these at your local casino.

1. Clothing

In the Wild West, clothing was scarce; thus, it wasn’t uncommon to walk into a saloon and spot clothing on the tables with the pile of chips. Belt buckles, bollo ties, and other metal pieces were common, though old wives’ tales often detail shirts and shoes being added to the pot when an individual wants to keep playing and doesn’t have anything else.

Of course, to add a shirt to the pot, everyone at the table had to agree—and sometimes we think this likely led to a duel outside rather than a continuation of the game.

2. Clay Chips

The only thing harder than operating a saloon during the wild west was operating one during American prohibition. Not only was alcohol illegal and only served in underground clubs—but many of these featured poker games as well. Unfortunately, the police could bust in at any moment, so there was no point in designing fancy chips.

Rather, these prohibition-era casinos spent their time using whatever they could find, which was somewhat uniform and easy to toss in the trash if the authorities showed up. Most of the time, that meant clay chips, though plastic ones were also used.

3. Weapons

Weapons have long been used as currency during poker games, especially during the days of the Wild West. While this is much less common in this century, there are still rumors of underground games where guns, knives, and swords can be used to buy your way into a game.

Now, we suspect that these weapons are presented to the game owner and swapped for chips nowadays, but back in the day, cowboys were definitely laying down their weapons directly into the pot during a hand.

4. Animal Bones

We can’t forget the 1850s, when thousands of individuals traveled west to try their hand at panning for gold. Unfortunately, the gold didn’t work out, often leading to the men having free time and not a lot of resources for running a professional-style poker game.

This led to the use of animal bones as chips during poker games. Not only that, but if the animal bone supply ran low, individuals would often throw their gold panning tools directly on the table as well—if there was even a table at all. We highly suspect that many of these games took place on dirt floors or in decommissioned fire pits.

5. Driftwood and Ivory

Poker goes way back, with origins far earlier than the wild west and American gold mining era, in fact, in the earliest days, individuals simply bet with whatever they could find, including driftwood and bits of ivory.

We imagine that these games couldn’t be that serious, and that the winner was mostly playing for bragging rights—unless you won an entire pile of ivory, of course!

6. Food

Now, this one is a little off topic, as we aren’t suggesting that food was actually used as tender in a casino recently, but snacks have long been used as poker chips in home games, especially those used to teach children how to play.

In our house, we used M&M’s, though a quick search of the forums reveals individuals learning poker with everything from pretzels to goldfish crackers—whatever their parents felt had value for learning to play!

7. Rare Antiques

Now we doubt you will be invited to any game with rare antiques in play, but we have heard of underground card rooms allowing them to be added to the table. These antiques are often small and expensive trinkets—such as the plaques from the Casino Royale movie, and other well-known movie props.

Of course, we know casinos don’t officially accept these types of trinkets, but still, the rumor mill is there, especially when it comes to the high roller rooms where the regular gamblers aren’t allowed to enter.

Can You Make Fake Poker Chips?

Believe it or not, poker chips actually take a long time to make, and are made in such a way that it is almost impossible not to get caught. This is namely because of the RFID technology and other digital technology used to “fingerprint” the chips—making it easy for casino workers to spot impostors.

The most recent semi-successful scheme happened in 2013, when a former Navy commander worked to change several $1 chips into higher denominations. This worked temporarily because he was covering previously existing chips, but they, too, were eventually caught after leaving his DNA beneath he adhesive he used to change the chips from $1 to $500.

There is another story of a man attempting to pass fake chips at Harrah’s in Atlantic City in 2013, but he was caught quickly. To avoid detection, he tried to flush the fake chips down the toilet, thus breaking the plumbing at the casino. He was arrested and charged, both for the value of the fake chips he passed and the repair cost of the plumbing. He also spent time in prison for his crimes.

Overall, though other items have been used as casino chips over the years, currently, casinos are only obligated to accept the chips they manufacture. Of course, if you are a high roller and know differently what happens behind the curtain in the high roller room, feel free to share that information. Otherwise, don’t attempt to pass anything else off as a poker chip; otherwise, you may find yourself banned from the casinos, or worse.