You may have noticed that roulette chips do NOT have a denomionation printed on them. This is because the value can be made different based on the time of day or horse-power of the player.

Late night, in an effort to get more players, a casino may set 50 cents as the value of a roulette chip. During the more busy periods, they may make $1 the value amount, and if a high roller wants the value amount to be $25 or even $100 (or more) the casino can accomodate that by simply marking that color of roulettes as being valued at $25 and not $1.

What these people were doing was to take (or "harvest" as some collectors call it) some roulette chips at the $1 level. That player would then leave the table, pass the harvested chips to an accomplise, who would then go to the table and ask to play at a higher level and that he wanted a specific color (the color his accomplise was playing). After a bet or two he would then cash out with the extra chips and getting $24 extra for each $1 chip handed back in.

I hope this explains it.

Jim