Sat Jul 14 2007

By David Sanderson
THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

NEVER mind larger jackpots or more Tony Orlando concerts. All Ray Smith wants from the Casinos of Winnipeg are some new poker chips.
"They haven't changed chips at (Club) Regent and McPhillips (Street Station) since they opened," Smith says, shaking his head. "And I've pestered them, let me tell you."

Smith's yearning isn't born of bad luck. Rather, the 68-year-old retiree hordes clay gaming chips. He's collected close to 10,000 -- that's 10,000 uncashed chips! -- from gambling meccas worldwide.

"I've been to every casino within a thousand miles of Winnipeg," he boasts, mentioning that prior to a pair of heart attacks he mapped out so-called "chip trips" on a semi-annual basis. Smith and his wife would hit the road for days at a time, doubling down on every hard 10 that crossed their path.

"Usually you have to play in order to get chips, so what I would do is buy way too many, then slowly take a few off the table." (Smith warns that pit bosses often frown on customers pocketing chips as souvenirs. "Take the 50-cent and $1 ones," he says. "It costs the casino more to buy them than they're worth so they don't like to lose too many.")

"A lot of times the trips paid for themselves," Smith says, adding that his best day at the table, ever, saw him up $1,700. (Worst day? "Oh, down about $1,700.")
"Sometimes I'd go away and come back with $200 more in my pocket than when I left -- plus my chips."

Smith's hobby began innocently enough 30 years ago. On his way out of a Grand Forks, N.D., restaurant, he paused for a few hands of blackjack.

"The chips were kind of attractive so I decided to keep a few," he says. Those, along with the rest of his colourful cache, are now filed geographically by country and/or continent in a series of photo-type albums.

"My target is to have one of every chip ever made in Canada," Smith says, estimating that he's about three-quarters of the way toward his goal. That's thanks, at times, to Lady Luck herself.

"About eight years ago, there was an illegal casino on the Dakota Tipi First Nation (near Portage la Prairie) that I heard the RCMP was going to invade any minute," he says. "So I went out there, played some blackjack and took home a few $1 chips. A day or two later, the Mounties moved in and shut the place down, confiscating all the chips."

Lately, Smith does most of his collecting through eBay. He also has trading partners in Australia, Spain and the U.S.

"But I'd love to find somebody else in Winnipeg who does this," he's quick to add. "I've left my phone number and card at the local casinos, but so far, I haven't run into another person in town who collects chips." (Smith can be reached via e-mail at rns52039@mts.net.)

"Collections can become huge," says Sheldon Smith, publicity and education director of the 19-year-old Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club (CCGTCC). "There was an auction about a year ago for something called the Platinum Collection: it sold for $1 million. And I believe that the most a single chip has ever sold for was $77,000."

The U.S.-based CCGTCC has close to 3,000 international members.

For more information, visit the club's website at www.ccgtcc.com.