How To Make Casino Chips At Home

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Being a supplier of poker chips we are often asked what a good breakdown is for a poker game. Our immediate response is normally, “it depends”. Is it a cash game or tournament? How many chips do your players like to have in front of them? Do you ever see your stakes rising in the future? How deep do your players get by the end of the night?

Dia de los Muertos poker chips
There are many factors to consider when figuring out a breakdown of chips for your poker game. Make sure to consider them all. Take some time and work out your breakdown in writing so you can visualize the chips being used.
Let’s consider a poker game that is only a tournament. This is the most common type of game that is being played in home games.
Try to not think about just how many “chips” that a player starts with. You can have a player start with 100,000 chips but if the blinds are 1000/2000 in the first level they will have shorter stacks compared to a player that starts with 5000 chips with the first blinds being 25/50. In the first situation the player starts with 50 big blinds while in the second situation the player starts with 100 big blinds. That is a big difference!
So, try to think about how many big blinds (BB) you want each player to start with. A good rule of thumb is that most tournaments start with 50-100 BBs but some players prefer deep-stack tournaments that start with 100+ BBs.
Now, consider how many actual physical chips you want each player to start with. Most players like to have a HUGE stack in front of them, but you have to realize that players need to start with a smaller stack or else you will have to purchase a very large number of chips. In a normal home game tournament players will start with 20-30 chips.
Tournament
Finally, consider how many players you will have in your tournaments and how long the tournament will normally last. If there are a lot of players (20+ players) it will mean that there will be a lot of initial chips on the tables. There will be so many chips that you will have to “color up” the lower denomination chips at some point during the tournament. So, you will need to have higher denomination chips than the initial starting poker chips.
Let’s look at an example set up:
Total players: 20
Starting blinds: 25/50
Starting stack: 5000 (100 BB)
Number of poker chips to start with: 21
Initial chips that each player has in front of them:

How To Make Casino Chips At Home
  • 4 – “25” chips = 100
  • 9 – “100” chips = 900
  • 8 – “500” chips = 4000

The chips were extremely easy to order, and arrived even earlier than expected! They are great quality and make a wonderful gift or marketing tool. Casinos usually have custom-designed chips with the monetary value and the name of the casino printed or engraved on the face. The chips may be multi-colored and stylized with patterns. The color-coding may follow the values noted above, or individual gambling areas or casinos may have their own unique color-coding systems. You can make plenty of poor choices in a casino, including paying for your drinks, not tipping, and throwing your money away on Horn bets. These are the worst decisions you can make in a casino. Finally, the casino chips are placed into a mould and heated up to 149°C and densely compressed. The inlays are made from paper covered with plastic and added before the compression process. These inlays are the graphics that appear on the casino chips. When the casino chips are moulded the inlays become part of the casino chips and can no.

Starting stack of our Nevada Jack Skulls poker chips.

Total number of physical poker chips to start with: 21 X 20 = 420 poker chips
At some point during the tournament the “25” chips will be useless since the blinds will be in even “100’s”. At that point you can “color up” the “25” chips. So, you will need more “100” and possibly more “500” chips. So, it is suggested that another 20 “100” chips be added.
Extra “100” chips for coloring up during the tournament:
  • 20 – “100” chips


This brings the total chips needed for this game to 440 poker chips. At this point it is suggested that extra chips are added for a few reasons. Maybe you will have a game where 22 people show up. Some chips may get lost over time, etc.
Extra chips for special circumstances:
  • 30 – “25” chips
  • 20 – “100” chips
  • 10 – “500” chips


This brings the total count of chips to:
  • 110 – “25” chips
  • 220 – “100” chips
  • 170 – “500” chips
  • 500 total poker chips


That is a general overview of how to figure out what poker chips to get for a tournament. Let’s discuss a cash game since this will be a bit different.
Cash Game
It is understood that cash games can vary drastically in stakes. Therefore, let’s not focus on the actual value of the chips but think in terms of big blinds (BB’s). I will discuss a $1/2 NL Holdemgame, but will mention BB’s.

How To Make Casino Chips At Home Order

The difference with a cash game is that players are often able to rebuy many times. Also, in many games the buy-in is not capped so a player can typically buy-in for 50 BB’s, 100 BB’s, 200 BB’s, or sometimes much higher. So, by the end of a game the value of chips can far exceed what you start with. However, home cash games generally do not involve more than 10 players.
Let’s consider an uncapped $1/2 NL Holdem game that has unlimited rebuys.
On average, the initial buy-in may be 100 BB’s per player ($200). So, let’s figure out the starting chips for each player:
  • 15 - $1 chips = $15
  • 17 - $5 chips = $85
  • 4 - $25 chips = $100
  • Total – 36 chips = $200

This brings the total number of chips starting out on the table to 360 poker chips (36 X 10 players).
As mentioned, players will often How To Make Casino Chips At Homerebuy (sometimes many times) and players may be allowed to buy-in for more than 100 BB’s. This means we have to consider the extra poker chips needed for the game.
The starting value of the chips on the table is $2000 (10 players X $200).
During a typical game, the total value chips at the end of the game will be 2-3X the starting value. So, let’s figure out the extra chips needed if the value is up to 3X the starting value:
  • 100 - $5 chips = $500
  • 20 - $25 chips = $500
  • 10 - $100 chips = $1000


This brings the total chips needed to (490 = 360 + 130).

How To Make Casino Chips At Home E.on


As with the tournament, it is best to add extra chips for the situations where the game gets very deep. You also may want to prepare for if the game grows into a higher stakes game such as $2/5.
Here is a suggestion for extra chips that will cover deep games and slightly higher stakes:
  • 80 - $25 chips = $2000
  • 30 - $100 chips = $3000

How To Make Casino Chips At Home Depot


Also, consider adding extra poker chips for the occasional lost chip:
  • 50 - $1 chips
  • 50 - $5 chips


As you can see, with the cash game there are more poker chips to purchase. This is often the case, but you are also prepared for a deep game and for future games when the stakes move up. For this situation the total poker chips suggested is (490 + 120 + 100 = 700).
There are no rules regarding the poker chips needed for a game. You may find that your games don’t need as many poker chips or you prefer to have more. The most important thing is to write out what chips you think you need. Try to break down your game like the examples above. It is much better to be prepared before your game starts than to find out that you do not have the poker chips you need to run the game.


It’s no secret that craps is my favorite gambling game. It’s just more fun than any other game I can imagine. Sure, I wish it had a skill element, and I don’t believe in dice setting, but it’s still a wicked amount of fun.

And if you stick with the bets which have a low house edge, it’s one of the best games in the casino.

But what if you want to play craps at home for some reason?

What are your options?

That’s what this post is all about.

Buying or Building Your Own Craps Table

Craps tables are big. If you want to play craps for real money on a table similar to what you’ll find in a casino, you need to make sure you have a space big enough to put it in. For some people, the garage or the basement is the only option.

Buying your own craps table isn’t cheap, either. You can expect to spend close to $1000 for even a cheap one, and if you want one that’s actually nice, you should expect to spend closer to $2000.

Even that $2000 one won’t duplicate what you’d play on at a casino. It’s going to be a little smaller and not quite as high-quality.

Still, if you’re determined to play casino-style craps at your house with your buddies, you have the option of buying one.

Another option is to build your own craps table. You can find plans for craps tables online easily enough if you’re a do-it-yourselfer.

Just be ready for building a craps table to be harder and take longer than you expect.

A friend of mine once told me he was going to build his own smoker, and he didn’t realize how hard that was really going to be until he embarked on the project.

But yeah, you have options.

Street Craps

How To Make Homemade Poker Chips

People have played craps on the street for decades. You don’t need a special table at all for this. Just a pair of dice and some folks who understand what the game is all about.

Normally when you’re playing street craps, you have some players who are willing to bet on either side of the game. In other words, some of the bettors are betting on the pass line, while others are betting don’t pass.

You need someone to place a bet, but you also need someone to lay that bet.

Prop bets are less common in street craps, although you can still have them. You just need to find someone willing to cover the other end of that bet.

I should point out that in most jurisdictions, street craps is illegal. That doesn’t seem to slow down the action on such games, but I’d be irresponsible if I didn’t at least mention it.

Free Craps Games Online or Off

Of course every traditional online casino I can think of offers its entire suite of games to players for free. This includes their craps games. The big drawback with these free craps games is this:

You can’t win any money playing them.

The big selling point to these free online craps games, though, is this:

You can’t lose any money playing them.

When you play the free games at an online casino, the casino gives you a specific number of play-money chips to bet with. Your balance goes up and down, but these chips don’t have any monetary value. They’re just a means of keeping score.

You can compare playing online casino games with free chips to playing poker for matchsticks or toothpicks as a kid. It’s a way to keep score in the game without risking anything with any actual monetary value.

Online casinos provide these free games with the hope that you’ll like them well enough to sign up for the casino and play for real money. They’ll usually give you a significant sized signup bonus when you make your first deposit, too.

These signup bonus offers come with strings attached, of course, in the form of wagering requirements. You can’t just sign up at a casino, claim a bonus, play craps for 2 or 3 hands, then withdraw the free money they gave you.

The casinos require you to wager your deposit and your bonus a minimum number of times before cashing out.

And most of them don’t count wagers on craps toward those wagering requirements.

The house edge on craps is too low.

Your other option for playing craps on a computer is a software package like “Hoyle Casino”, which also offers animated versions of casino games you can play without risking any money.

But with a software program like that, you don’t have the option of trading up to real money play even if you want to.

I also want to caution you about one thing:

I’m confident that the real money versions of craps have the same odds attached to them as regular craps in a traditional casino. There’s plenty of mathematical edge built into the game as it’s traditionally played that casinos have little or no incentive to cheat.

But with the free casino games, I suspect that they tilt the odds slightly in the players’ favor.

I have no evidence of this, but in my first online casino experience, I just couldn’t lose when I played their free online blackjack game.

And that changed dramatically after I made a deposit and started playing with real money on the line.

Internet Casinos for Real Money – Simulated Craps

When you do play online craps for real money, you’ll usually be playing an animated game that’s powered by a random number generator. This random number generator has been programmed to offer the same kinds of odds and probability you’d find in a traditional craps game.

Some people suspect online casinos of cheating, but I think that’s the least of your worries. They don’t need to cheat. There are no bets at the craps table where the player has an advantage, so why would they need to cheat?

But for someone who’s used to playing craps in an actual casino, playing a simulated video game version of craps lacks a certain something. It’s just not the same as throwing the dice yourself or watching another player throw the dice.

It reminds me of playing craps in the casino a few years ago in Oklahoma. They offered craps, but they weren’t legally allowed to use dice. They used playing cards, instead, and each card represented a different result of throwing 2 dice.

It just wasn’t the same.

Live Dealer Casinos

The more exciting way to play craps online is to play at one of these new live dealer casinos that are becoming more popular. These casinos use webcams and chat software to power their games. And their craps games use real dice.

Of course, you don’t get to hold these dice in your hands. The dealers throw them for you.

But I have friends who are skeptical in the extreme about the fairness of most casino games. They think that all of them are rigged except craps. They claim that you can cheat with anything but dice, and the casinos do.

No matter how hard I tried to explain to my one conspiracy-minded friend that this isn’t the case, he refused to believe me. His mind was made up.

Of course, he also believes that the earth is flat, so there’s that.

Practicing Dice Setting and Dice Control Techniques

I’ve already mentioned that I don’t put much stock into dice setting and dice control techniques, but if this is an “advantage” gambling method you’d like to try, you WILL need to practice at home.

To have any hope of success, you’ll need to make sure that you’re practicing on a craps table that’s the same size and shape as one you’ll find in the casino. This means spending some money and doing some research.

You’ll need to research the exact dimensions of a standard craps table and either build one or have one built to those expectations.

If you’re not practicing in conditions that are similar to the conditions you’ll face in the casino, you won’t have any way of knowing if you’re actually going to get an edge over the house.

Also, when you practice, you’ll need to track your results on a consistent basis to be sure that you’re actually doing well and not just seeing a statistical anomaly.

That means thousands of dice throws.

Conclusion

How do you play craps at home?

You have multiple options, depending on what your goals are.

If you want to practice dice control, you should probably have a craps table built to casino specifications.

How To Make Poker Chips At Home

Otherwise, you might as well play on the street or on the internet.