Most casinos use two types of casino tokens: small colored plastic disks called chips and metal casino tokens used generally for slot machines.
Casino tokens can be bought at a cashier station, called the cage, usually located at the entrance to the casino, at the gaming tables or at slot machines. Casino tokens can be changed back to money only at the specific casino they belong to.
Until 1964, American slot machines were operated by 1 dollar silver coins, but after the increase in the silver value these coins stopped circulating, and casinos received a permission from US Treasury to start using their own casino tokens, which in that period were mainly minted by The Franklin Mint.
Today, most casinos are not allowed to use currency in slot machines, but slot casino tokens also are slowly disappearing and being replaced by bar-coded credit tickets, that a player can receive in exchange to banknotes in the slot machine itself or in the casino cage. Winnings are paid in the same form and can be cashed out or used as a credit for other slot machines.
Chips are used for table games. They usually have the same size and a specific color for each value. Chips are much more convenient to use than coins or banknotes, because, being much thicker than a coin, having the same size and colored according to the value, they can be arranged in stacks and counted easily, which simplifies the banking process and prevents errors.
Chips also are more difficult to steal, and, as was observed by casinos, players gamble more freely using chips instead of real currency.
Chips have become a part of numismatics, called exonumia collecting. They are an integral part of casino ambience and replacing them will most probably be very unpopular.
Chips denomination scheme may vary from casino to casino, but most of them try to choose colors similar to those of standard scheme to not confuse the players. The following scheme is regular at US casinos:
- 1 dollar: White (rarely blue or grey)
- 2.50 dollars: Pink
- 5 dollars: Red
- 25 dollars: Green
- 100 dollars: Black
- 500 dollars: Purple
- 1000 dollars: Orange (normally oversized)