Perhaps you are right in the casinos being interested in making their chips an attractive collectable. There is still the point to be made that unlike the pins at the HR they do not profit on the chips beyond the difference in cost, say .40 or .50 cents and the $5 in face. Anything beyond that the casino does not have any interest in. I think that when a casino puts a limited edition of 500 or 750 they may be acting in the way that you describe. However when they put out a LE of 150 or 200 chips then I still have to question their motives or influences. Editions that low are crazy. Now I do not know what the typical edition of $25 chips is. That is one of the issues as with the Palace Station Boxers chips. I would venture a guess though that 50 each of a four chip set is not average. 200 chips total between 4 chips would be rediculously low. Maybe 200 sets would have been average.

As for your mention of Employees intercepting part of a release and selling them on eBay? That is very interesting and I would not doubt it. I had some friends who worked in convenient and grocery stores in 89. That was when the infamous Billy Ripkin card came out in packs of fleer cards. I tried to get a box or two as it was known that there was one error card in each box of a certain edition. All you had to do is check to see which player was on the bottom of the box and you knew what would be inside. Guess what. My friends could never get me the cards as all the boxes would dissappear as soon as they arrived. Employees who were stocking shelves would personally buy all the boxes and sell the Ripkin cards for huge profits.