I agree completely. In what other business can you 'sell' a product and have the customer give it back in only a few minutes. What a wonderful business.

But the advent of 'chipping' has caused a slight change in the program.

Before chipping became popular most casino chips were really pretty boring (one color and a hot stamp, with only a few inserts to add a little variety), and very few left the casinos.

As the chips became more colorful and attractive, thus becoming more 'collectable', they were also becoming more expensive for the casinos to purchase(I assume).

When I started chipping it was immidiately obvious to me why almost all LE/Commerative were $5 denomination. A $.25/.50/1 chip 'out the door' is a net loss. A $5 chip 'sold' is a %400 profit (again, wouldn't I like a piece of that business!).

Now I am only discussing chips of less than $1, fractionals.

Each time one of these chips is harvested the casino takes a small financial hit. If these chips were circulating through the populace like coins there might be some advertising benifit to imbue a loss-leader status. But I contend that %99 of them go into boxes and binders, never to be seen again, and therefore are a total loss to the casinos.

Under these circumstances I would not be surprised to see many more casinos eliminating fractionals.