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Ceramic chips such as those made by ChipCo International and Nevada Jacks were introduced in the mid 1980s as an alternative to clay chips and are still very common in casinos as well as being readily available to the home market. Ceramic chips are often referred to as clay or clay composite but they are in fact solid white, injection molded, plastic disks with a "ceramic like" feel, which are simply printed on.
The Bud Jones brand is one of the very few injection molded plastic chips used in casinos. They are produced by Gaming Partners International and not produced for the home market.
The chips used in North American casinos rarely weigh more than 10 grams and are usually between 8.5 and 10 g. There is no official weight, however, and some, particularly coin inlaid chips, can weigh more. The chips sold for home use vary substantially more, sometimes weighing as much as 13.5 g, depending on manufacturer and construction.
What the BPO lured top players over from the US whom had not played in the UK before, such as the current World Poker Champion Greg Raymer, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer and this in turn brought the BPO further exposure.
The inaugural BPO was eventually won by Adam Dujmovic, a semi-professional from Chicago whom after qualifying for the tournament online, collected a prize just shy of 100,000 pounds.
The success of the BPO 2005 inevitably bought along the BPO 2006 a year later. The 2006 version had a pot of 100,000 pounds to be won over 6 heats and a final. Noah Boeken collected around 56,000 pounds.
Amateur poker players can find poker tournaments, poker charity games, video poker and poker homes games to play poker with friends, co-workers, neighbors and poker players from across the globe.
In casinos, uniform poker chip colors and sizes are sometimes specified by the Gaming Control Board for consistency. For example, regulations in New Jersey and Illinois specify similar uniform colors. Notably, Nevada has no regulations regarding color, which is why Nevada casinos may use white, blue, or gray as $1, though $5 and higher are almost always consistently colored. All states require that casino chips have a unique combination of edge spots for identification, the name and location of the casino and the chip's value, if any, impressed, printed, or molded onto the obverse and reverse of the token.
$2.50 chips are almost exclusively used for blackjack tables, since a "natural" (a 21 on the first two cards dealt to a player) typically pays 3:2 and most wagers are in increments of $5. However, the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey has used pink chips in $7.50-$15 and $10-$20 poker games.
$20 chips are used mostly at Baccarat, Pai Gow tiles and Pai gow poker because a 5% commission charged for all winning banker wagers at Baccarat and winning Pai Gow wagers converts evenly (a $20 wager has a $1 commission). These chips are almost never seen away from those games.
Low-denomination yellow chips can vary in value: $20 in Atlantic City and Illinois (which also uses "mustard yellow" $0.50 chips); $5 at most Southern California poker rooms; $2 at Foxwoods' poker room in Ledyard, Connecticut and at Casino del Sol in Tucson, Arizona; and $0.50 at Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Blue chips are occasionally used for $10, most notably in Atlantic City. In Las Vegas and California, most casinos use blue or white for $1 chips, though many Las Vegas casinos now use $1 metal tokens in lieu of chips.
Chips are also available in larger denominations of $1,000 or more, depending on the wagering limits of the casino. Such chips are often yellow or orange and of a large size. Casinos in Nevada, Atlantic City, and other areas that permit high wagers typically have chips available in $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, and higher denominations; the colors for these vary widely.
Denominations above $5,000 are almost never encountered by the general public; their use is usually limited to "high limit rooms" where bet sizes are much larger than on the main floor. Casinos often use gaming plaques for these higher denominations- these plaques are about the size of a playing card, and must be marked with serial numbers. The largest value placed on a plaque to date is $10 million, used at the London Club in Las Vegas. Televised poker tournaments and cash games often use bundled paper bills for high denominations.
European casinos use a similar scheme, though certain venues (such as Aviation Club de France) use pink for €2 and blue for €10. European casinos also use plaques rather than chips for high denominations (usually in the €1000 and higher range).
