David wrote.......

"all missing chips are taken by souvenir hunters/potential sellers"

There will always be players looking to cheat & bring chips back into play in the future, in any tournament. In the majority of tournaments they would out number the collectors or sellers.

But, we are talking the WSOP here, that means that the collectors & sellers would out number the cheats taking them. Even those who did not enter the tournament as a collector, would have the thought go through their mind to take one. Thinking about how nice it would be to have one or more of the chips as a reminder of how they played in the main event.

Andy - Las Vegas