Having been sent on a business trip to sunny Swindon (home of Honda and lots of corporate offices and not much else!)I needed to find something to do on a Monday night, and so though I'd visit the 3 casinos of one of Englands newest casino groups, Blue Chip Casinos. If you look on a map you will see that Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley, some of the West Mildands nicest towns (hmmmmm) are not exactly en route between Essex and Swindon, but they were the nearest casinos that I hadn't been to and that I needed chips from.

So, 160 miles later of motorway driving and I arrive in Walsall, to find the Walsall Illuminations event happening - I kid you not! Finally found somewhere to park and visited the Sorrento casino, a small but new and bright casino. Now, ok this was Monday evening at 7pm, but even so - there was one person playing roulette (4 tables, one open), one on the slots, 4 playing touchbet roulette - and that was it! No-one on any of the card tables, but a BJ dealer standing ready so I sat down, we shuffled up and away I went. It was a £3 table, so changed £60 for 20 £1s and 8 £5s - now, how to get them away. Well, the approach was the same at each casino - play one show, then take my chips as I went to the bar for a drink, promising to come back so no need to change them up, and off I went. I did change some of the remaining £5 chips into cash, but came out a grand total of £2 down and with a couple of 50p chips courtesy of the blackjacks while playing £3 - no £2.50 chips at Blue Chip casinos.

Next off was the Rubicon in Wolverhampton (no relation as far as I'm aware to the old Rubicon casinos in Coventry, Northampton and Leicester) 7 miles away.

Same style of casino, but with a few more slot and touchbet players - and one player already on the BJ. Same approach and 10 minutes later I was back on the road to the next casino with chips in pocket!

The Castle Hill in Dudley has been there for a while and is the only casino that Blue Circle took over as opposed to opening from scratch. Again very quiet, with no-one on the BJ, but they were very happy to open up for me. Again I took my chips, but also tried to find some of their original foil centre chips from their independant days - I was sent to the manager, but he insisted they had all been destroyed. Ah well.

Overall, 3 quite nice but very small casinos, all with very friendly staff and now more accessible as the 24 hour membership rule has been abolished.

Chips are in the scan below, all with the common backs. The 50p is the same hot stamp on both sides. £25 chips are the same but black.

Chips are available for trade (UK and Nevada chips please)

Jason