As an attorney, I'll start with the obvious - if you are complaining about the decline in value, you probably cannot afford to hire an attorney. A case like this would cost more than $50,000 and very likely more than $100,000. Because of the legal issues involved and the precedent it would set, a case like this can be expected to go to the highest appellate courts in the state, doubling that figure. That is money that would have to be put up by the plaintiffs (those suing). Some attorneys will take cases on a contingent fee basis, but for class action cases those cases have to be sure winners. This one isn't.

If you can put together enough stakeholders to raise at least $50,000, I should be able to find an attorney in New Jersey specializing in class actions.

You are right to focus on "negligence" since there is no contract-related claim, as you have never had a contract with the state gaming board. To prove negligence, you must show a duty, breach of that duty, and damages that result from the breach.

You will first have difficulty showing a duty and the duty is owed to you. The state does not owe a duty to collectors to preserve the value of investments or collectibles. The only duty here may be to the casino itself and to the fund set up to redeem old chips, to assure that fraudulent or destroyed chips do not make their way back into commerce where they can be redeemed for face value [although I think it is likely that the state did not handle destruction, it only ordered them to be destroyed by a licensee, so there may be no duty at all]. Even if chips have been retrieved from the ground, they are not being circulated or redeemed at face value, in part because they carry telltale signs just like drilled chips.

You would also have difficulty showing a breach of any duty - that is, that the state - at the time it slated the chips for destruction - did something wrong. What was there, in the selection of a demolition contractor for the chips, that the state did wrong? Did they pick a company with a history of shoddy work? The key focus would be the selection process, not the way the company eventually buried the chips. Again, if the state did not actually select the contractor, you have an additional problem because now you would have to show that the casino negligently selected a bad company and the state negligently approved the proposal.

As for damages, you would not be able to compare mint chips with defective chips' values. You would have to show the decline in value of chips comparable to those in your collection. Minty chips have not fallen to the same price range as the dig chips; they still have a premium attached because of their condition.

Finally, you would likely have to deal with the defense of governmental immunity. I do not know the specifics under NJ law, but generally discretionary decisions are protected from lawsuits.