Rick,
This may shed a little bit of light on the subject.
Yesterday morning I spoke with a poker dealer at the Plaza and she told me that they were not able to open all of their poker tables because they did not have enough of the new chips.
Last night I tried to purchase some additional chips at the Gold Spike and was told that I could not buy them because they did not have enough chips to run the table games (all 4 of them ) but that I could come back on Tuesday when the new shipment arrived and that I could buy all of them that I wanted.
On the night of the ownership change, I was able to buy some chips directly from the cage at the LV Club, but not as many as I needed. I proceeded to a craps table that was stocked with new chips but had not yet opened. I waited while they shut down a craps table with the old chips on it and opened the other table which had the new chips on it. I bought in and asked for "all white" and the dealer questioned if I was SURE that I wanted all white chips. I assured him that I was. Before the first dice were rolled on the new table I turned and started to walk away. The pit boss said " you are not going to walk with my chips are you?" I said that it was my intention to do just that. He said he needed the chips to run the game and gave me an "evil" eye before he told me to go ahead and leave with the chips.
It seems that the new owners severely underestimated the number of chips needed OR chip collectors have already carted off a large amount of chips
BTW I was able to purchase uncirculated chips directly from the cage at the Western as recently as this morning.
Best Regards,
Murph