I don't know about this specific chip, Charles, but most of the Caesars Palace and Tahoe high-face NCV's were given to high-limit players and could actually be played in any of the table games. They were frequently given NCV chips valued at 1-3 times their average bet. This practice was still common as recently as a year or so ago, and many times older chips which were technically "expired" based on the date on the chip were still used. Harrahs may have changed this since they purchased Caesars recently.

Since the chips are serialized, the pit was supposed to record the number before "dropping" the NCV at the table so they could verify the player was the one awarded the chip. I know this was sometimes not done, particularly if the player was well known to the pit-boss and was playing lots of the chips.