Poker Forums

I want to buy some chips for playing poker at home with my friends... I've seen plenty of offers on ebay. They are not very expensive... somebofy has ever bought from ebay this stuff? Can you suggest/reccomend a seller?

Thank you!
miz.

Hi miz,

 

I have just brought a foldup THNL table on ebay - check it out. I don't know the specific sellers well enough, but I think it's the best place to start for cheap poker goods, so you are on the right track.

Also have a browse of our online poker store here (sometimes the new prices are the as cheap as ebay prices). And lastly, if you do buy something on ebay, please try to link through one of the auction ads on the right hand side of the store page (it punches through to the poker side of ebay and I get a few cents from ebay ;)

thank you rod, I'll have a look soon. I'll reach ebay from your links, of course.. :-)

Hello miz,

I am currently starting a monthly home tournament for 20 players.

I just bought 1600 chips for this purspose and did a lot of research and bought a lot of samples on e-bay to decide on which ones to buy.

My goal was to recreate the "casino feel" within my budget. Paulson chips were my first choice . . . but they are very expensive. It would be something I would invest in if the monthly tournament becomes a big success.

First off . . . THERE ARE A LOT OF BAD CHIPS FOR SALE ON E-BAY !! My first stab at it was a big disappointment . . . a set of 1000 for $39 + $30 shipping. The stickers in the middle were of bad printing quality; 23 of them had stickers only on one side; worst of all ONLY 19 WILL FIT IN A STANDARD ACRYLIC RACK ROW !!

AVOID ANY ABS PLASTIC, METAL INSERTS, ANY 11.5g OR MORE WEIGHT CHIPS (casino chips are 9 or 10g).

For home games it is more practical to buy NCV (No Cash Value) chips without any values printed on them . . . but the problem is finding one that looks good. I love the look and feel of clay chips as opposed to Chipco type ceramic chips.

There is one seller on e-bay (HOME IN ONE) that sells 14g, no metal insert, injection molded chips in various designs. I bought samples of these. While these feel and look nice, the material is quite soft and easy to scratch with your fingernail and the colors in reality is not as vibrant as it looks in the pictures shown on e-bay. None of the offerings from this seller was NCV So I decided against these.

I found another one called the DESERT PALMS chips. Its a custom designed chips manufactured by the Blue Chip company for the only vendor on earth, The Chip Room. Just do a search on e-bay under category Collectables-casino with key words DESERT PALMS CHIPS. This design mainly comes in two variety - COMPRESSION MOLDED CLAY (just like Paulson) and INJECTION MOLDED CLAY COMPOSITE. The coolest is that the cheaper injection molded chips ALSO COMES IN 6 COLORS OF NCV !!! I ordered a 50 of the red ones as samples. If you go to the individual listed item, at the bottom of the description are links to two chip reviews. In the injection molded composite category, this is the only chips that recieved 10/10 on Looks, Quality and Feel.

When the samples arrived, I was very pleasantly surprised. The mold is excellent. I liked the looks of the chips in reality better than the photos on e-bay. Very nice colors. And the feel is very nice. The material used is much harder than the 14g chip I mentioned before. It is a liitle more slick than the Compression Molded Clay chips. The sticker in the middle is almost impossible to scratch or remove with your fingernail. The plastic coating on the sticker has a very nice texture to them. Its a bit difficult to shuffle them brand new . . . because the EDGE IS VERY CLEAN & SHARP !! I took 10 and kept shuffling them when I play on-line . . . after about half an hour THEY REALLY STARTED TO FEEL GOOD !! The sound is pretty good too . . . just a little more muted than the Compression Molded Clay chips. THESE ARE THE ONES !!

These are normally $0.25 ea. I contacted the seller and asked for a price for 1600 chips and gave me a price of $0.21 ea. I placed an order for just the chips without cases, card or dice etc. When I got the shipment I went through them carefully. Out of 1600 chips ONE black chip was missing a sticker on one side. 8 of them had the sticker off-center just slightly . . . I mean Very Slightly . . . you'll never notice these in play. ONE BAD CHIP OUT OF 1600 . . . THAT IS EXTREMELY HIGH PRODUCTION QUALITY.

GET THESE CHIPS !!! YOU WON'T REGRET IT !! These ARE the only budget NCV chips out there. Note that The Chip Room refers to tese as "Pure Clay Chips" and the Compression Molded big brother as "Clay Chips". The difference in cost between the two types is about $0.70 more for the "Clay Chips".

These are the BEST COMPOSITE CHIPS YOU CAN BUY . . . HANDS DOWN.

Hope this helps :)

UPDATE - Desert Palms chips :

I ordered MORE of these chips to accommodate cash game on the open table. I brought out my old ABS plastic chips . . . everyone hated them . . . specially after playing with the Desert Palms chips in the tournament. My tournament is growing and it seems I would be running 3 tables of 8 to 10 players.

I ordered another 1000 chips. I still got the $0.21 per chip price. When I got the chips, again I went through them to inspect for any defective chips. WOW . . . not a single chip was missing a sticker and I only found 4 chips with the sticker just very slightly off center. None were bad enough to make me want to re-position the sticker. Again . . . really excellent production quality.

Here is my total count 2600 chip of following:
WHITE = 500
RED = 650
GREEN = 500
BLACK 500
BLUE = 250
PURPLE = 200
----------------------------------

TOURNAMENT CHIP VALUES:
RED = 5 / GREEN = 25 / BLACK = 100 / PURPLE = 500 / BLUE = 1000 / WHITE = 5000

START / RE-BUY STACK = 2000 :
10 - RED / 10 - GREEN / 12 - BLACK / 1 - PURPLE

ADD-ON STACK = 2000 :
3 - PURPLE / 5 - BLACK
----------------------------------

CASH GAME CHIP VALUES :
BLUE = $0.25 / WHITE = $1 / RED = $5 / BLACK = $10

No-Limit Cash game - $30 buy-in (max re-buy stack $35) - Blinds are $0.25 / $0.50
Limit game - $20 Min buy-in - Blinds $0.50 / $1

---------------------------------

With my chip set, I can run a T2000 tournament with up to 30 players. Since at least one table has to be open to start a Cash game and its usually after the first Color-Up where all the RED chips are retired, the combination of WHITE & BLUE chips (rarely used for tournament) and the retired RED chips gives me enough chips for the cash game.

I added up my cost. $546 for 2600 chips, and $55 for total shipping cost. This is a pretty good deal for 2600 chips that are of this quality. Now that I've owned these . . . IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to justify buying compression molded clay chips at $0.80 or more per chip.

If you have any questions about the Desert Palms chips, post them here. I'll try to answer them.

BUY THESE CHIPS !! :)

You can find decent quality poker chip sets pretty easily these days. For instance, I saw a 500 piece set with aluminum case for around $40 in my local Walmart.

And if you buy online, remember that you have to factor in shipping - and chip sets are quite heavy, even at 10 or 11 grams each.

ive got some pokerchips ...... there the cheep ones often available in the uk ..... i can ensure that 10 players can get 1500 in starting chips .... but alas they are totaly  plastic ..... and i hate them ..... if your buying chips ..... spend the extra money and go for the chips with weight 11g minimum

Andy Bee

I just bought some new chips in Australia from a website (which I can dig out if any one is in Aus who wants them). I paid $60 (about £25) for 500 in a aluminium case, and they weigh 14.5 grams - almost too heavy! But I left all my crappy plastic ones back in London for my mates to use as I did not have space...

I agree Andy - go for the heavier chips as it justs makes the game a lot more fun (that, and winning ;)