What are Poker Chips Called? A Deep Dive into Poker‘s Most Iconic Accessory

As a lifetime poker enthusiast and semi-pro player, I‘ve handled my fair share of poker chips. Those weighted ceramic and composite discs make their way around countless card tables each year as casual home games and major tournaments drive a multi-billion dollar poker economy. But there‘s much more to poker chips than meets the eye. Behind the simple clay tokens that fuel cardplay worldwide lies a rich history intertwined with casino culture and technical innovation. There‘s even a competitive niche of chip collection and trick manipulation known as "chipping". As both a poker insider and chip connoisseur, I‘d like to share some insights into these underrated accessories that are deeply rooted in gaming lore.

In the Beginning Were Clay Composite Chips

While poker origins can be loosely traced back over a thousand years using tile and bone substitutes for currency, casino-style clay poker chips as we know them today trace back to 1800s saloons and Mississippi riverboats. With gambling illegal in many old west towns, opportunistic profiteers would fabricate their own currency substitutes usingeverything from gold nuggets to clay shells. These early composite clay chips featured handmade imperfections and uneven shapes unique to each gambling hall that also prevented theft and fraud across establishments. They offered a universal gambling currency that could plausibly have an illegitimate origin as a legal workaround.

Over decades of gambling evolution, injection molded clay chip fabrication improved, incorporating plastic and other binding composites into nearly flawless molded discs. Esteemed chip manufacturers like Paul-Son Gaming and Bourgogne et Grasset introduced unique molding processes that are still used today to prevent counterfeits. By the early 1900s, the distinctive 11.5 gram clay composite poker chip became standardized across most casinos and home games.

Vintage clay composite poker chips featured unique molding imperfections before modern mass production

The Rise of Ceramic Casino Chips

As casino gaming expanded in the 1950s and 60s, high roller baccarat and craps players demanded chips that exuded elegance and luxury worthy of five and six figure wagers. Clay composite materials no longer sufficed. This led to a wave of ceramic poker chip innovation, kicking off with the 1969 opening of the Las Vegas Hotel Casino. Its opulent 14-gram ceramic chips featured a sleek uniform edge and intricate face molding that conveyed sophistication. They completely transformed public perception of poker chips from mere clay tokens to coveted symbols of wealth and power.

While ceramic chips never fully displaced classic clay composites from widespread poker play, custom ceramic chip design took on a prominent role in branding for prominent card rooms and their marquee tournaments like the World Series of Poker Main Event. Limited edition ceramic chip designs emphasized traits like weighing precision, edge spotting security, proprietary molding and tournament branding that attracted afffluent players. Well-heeled poker aficionados scooped up these exclusive ceramic chip sets for personal bragging rights in home games. Top quality clay composite poker chips also became status symbols among serious players.

I‘ll cover some leading poker chip manufacturers later on. First, let‘s get into some poker chip lingo and slang terminology commonly used at the tables.

Poker Chip Nicknames and Slang Terms

Poker players love nicknames almost as much as they love stacking chips. Let‘s run through some prominent poker chip slang terms:

Cheques – Refers to cash value tournament chips

Clays – Standard clay composite chips used widely in cash games

Ceramics or Designer Chips – Custom ceramic chips that convey luxury

Plaques – Large 1000+ value tournament chips

Rack – A chip carrying tray with columns used to transport many chips

Race – Running out lower value chips when color ups are needed

Some prominent high value chip nicknames:

Casinos will often stock lower denomination value chips in secondary colors to quickly differentiate chip stacks at the table. It‘s quite common to see blue or grey $1 chips as well as black $5 chips. Unique nicknames for chip values really took off as televised poker entered the mainstream in the early 2000s. Commentators would sprinkle in poker vernacular to appeal to gambling enthusiasts. Let‘s get into the psychology behind…

The Psychology Behind Poker Chip Colors

Long before mass casino gambling…