Since you are a car guy, let me go that way.

They make Replica Cars. Some GT-40s are pretty nice. They are "REPLICAS" not fakes or counterfeits.

If someone was to make a fake part for a 1957 Chevy and claim it was real, that would be a fake, being sold as the original. However a replica part is clearly designed as a copy.

Counterfeit is pretty much the same, however, if someone is trying to pass off a Fake as the real thing, say playing them at a casino to defraud or selling them to someone as the real thing, then that fraud changes them from a plain old fake, into a counterfeit. (It's how they are used in other words, but both are the same)

Some of the Fantasy chips may be confused with real chips, because they have similar design elements. While the intention of the person making these, was probably NOT to defraud or make a counterfeit, there can be confusing.

Paulson made store chips for home play that looked very much like old real chips, in fact some are the same designs, molds and use the same centers, but may have different colors. That can be confusing. They were not designed to be counterfeits or fakes. Not even replicas. Just Fantasy store, home play, poker chips.

In this whole tangled web is one answer. It's not the chip that makes itself into something, or the design itself, it's the way the person who has it, uses it or the way that someone could mistake it for a real chip, that causes the problem.

If I take some Paulson store chip, that's obviously a home play design and try to play it at the casino, and they take it... that's fraud. Paulson didn't design the chip with that in mind.

If someone makes home play sets that look identical to real Las Vegas tournament chips, or lettering that looks like a real Puerto Rico casino with minor spelling variations, maybe with some other small color variation, they aren't trying to make fake chips or counterfeits, but if someone else gets that chip and sells it, as a real chip, intentionally or because of ignorance, then we have a problem.

So what it comes down to is the look and feel of the original, leading to the potential problem, and that problem is how the chip gets used.

Fakes can be replicas. Fakes can be counterfeits. If someone takes a replica and represents it as real, it's now a counterfeit.

They are all FAKE chips however.

Now that GT-40 (remember that? ) It has serial numbers, documentation, many ways to verify that's it's not the real thing.

A little disc of compressed plastic, has nothing saying "this is a replica casino chip, using the original designs and looking just like the real chips, except for a slight color variation." or "This is a very similar design to a real chip, but it's not." Or, "this chip isn't a tournament chip from a real casino, not from Las Vegas, and in fact made for my entertainment at home..." Even though the chip says Las Vegas, and has a logo on it that looks like a real casino logo!

Don't get hung up on the definitions. They are all fakes. How it gets used is just a further definition of what kind of fake it is.