Depending on local laws, some casinos are required to destroy chips when they are no longer in use. Either because the chips were replaced with a new set of chips or the casino went out of business. In locations were chips are not required to be destroyed, cruise ships are a good example, the chips are often sold off along with the furniture and fixtures when the casino closes. Most of the higher denomination chips entered the collector market after the casinos closed, so no one paid face value for them.

Atlantic City is different. Local gaming laws require a casino to always make good on the face value of the chips they issue. They are treated like deposits in a bank. If the casino goes out of business, the chips can still be redeemed at the NJ State Gaming Control Commission or at the casino that replaced the closed casino, if one exists. So there are actually collectors who walked out the casinos with $100 and perhaps $500 chips from Atlantic City casinos, knowing that they can always be redeemed at face value.