As some people may be aware, the Stanley Casino chain of casinos in the UK has been rebranded to Gentings. Fortunately they have continued with the previous system of having individual chips for each location rather than using generic chips and so this means lots of new chips to collect!

With a few days off work, and having decided to have an overnight stay somewhere, my wife agreed that we could pick somewhere that had a few casinos for me to get chips on (such a wonderful woman - not only just for putting up with me in the first place but it helps that she likes to visit casinos too ) and so I picked Birmingham as among the 7 casinos are 3 Gentings ones that I figured would have new chips for me.

So off we went yesterday, and started with the Star City casino on the edge of the city. Star City is an entertainment complex - restaurants and bars, bowling alley, cinema etc along with the casino that uses Star City as the name on the chips. We started with a new card (for some reason I never remember my player card and so always have to get a new one - go figure!) and as this was our first time at this location we got some vouchers and a free gift token to celebrate Chinese New Year. Our 'gift' was 8 x £1 free blackjack side bets which we had to redeem from the cashier's desk. I was very hopeful for a handful of special chips, but they were cardboard chips - as seen in the 2nd row of the scan.

So we figured we should use those first and found a blackjack table open that offers 2 side bets - perfect pairs (a pair in the first 2 cards gets paid, with higher odds if the same colour and even more if they are the same suit) and an Aces bet that pays if your cards, from the first card dealt, are aces - so AK for example pays 3-1, AA pays more, AAA (after splitting) even more and so on, but KA doesn't pay as the King comes first. It was only after playing a few hands and losing the free bets that I noticed some unusual red chips in the tray. Although the perfect pairs side bet uses regular chips on the main layout, the Aces bet uses a special chip that activiates a lighted spot (the red cardboard chip also activated the light, but the regular yellow chips don't). When you play a regular £1 chip on that spot, the dealer changed the chip for a red chip, the light activates and the cards are dealt. I was trying to work out how to get hold of one of the chips when I won one of the bets, and so got paid my 3-1 but the dealer pushed the £3 and the £1 red chip over to me. No doubt they expect you to then play the red chip on the next hand, but somehow a couple of these chips after we won somehow stayed in my stack - result!

Not only did this mean some new chips including one that I hadn't expected, but we also got some of the regular plain blue 50p chips and Jackie won on the slots so all was good for our first casino. Note that Gentings do not use TITOs though - all winnings are held on the player card and you take the card to the cashier to get your cash out!

We then headed off to check into our hotel and have a meal before heading into the city for the next casino of the evening - Gentings second location, in Edgebaston - this used to be the Midland Wheel casino many years ago and very different from the new Star City complex as it is housed in a large old (Victorian?) building. Interestingly we got another new member ticket and here we got match-play £8 for the slots, but when they tried to load our cards they wouldn't work - we needed to have the versions with microchips in, and so we ended up with a different players card.

We also picked up the new £1 and £5 chips plus a different 50p variety and did very well on a hold-em variety of table game poker so we were now quite a bit up on the night, 2 players cards and more chips. Very good so far!

Next stop was the independant Rainbow casino only a couple of minutes away. Like the Edgebaston Gentings, this casino is located in a large old building although this has been greatly modernised since the one and only previous visit around 15 years ago. No membership card here, but they did say that a membership pack would be mailed to me, so maybe a card will be there - I'll have to wait and see!

I already had the new 50p and £1 chips, so it was just the £5 for my collection, but also because they don't use player cards there were also TITOs so I picked up a couple (that was quite easy as I found a couple of machines with just 1p left that people hadn't bothered to cash, so I could just press the button and get a ticket!).

Next stop was the final Gentings casino in Birmingham - Hurst Street. This was the location of the old China Palace and it is easy to see how that name came about as the casino is in the centre of Birmingham's China Town. The clientelle was also mainly asian inside the casino and also by far the busiest of the night (although it was also now a little later and so that would also have a little to do with it). No free gift this time, so I just changed some cash at the blackjack table, played a few hands and left with my chips.

I didn't stop at the other casinos in the city as I didn't need any chips from the Broadway, Gala or Grosvenor casinos (well, maybe a 50p from the Broadway, but that may have to wait for another day), but a good haul from these 4 casinos.

I have listed one each of the £1 chips on Ebay, but have one more of the red chips, and a couple each of the others (along with the 50p chips and some of the cardboard freebie chips) to trade - any UK chips I need, or Paris LV chips, roulettes and keys.

And I'll be sure to tell you about the next road trip!

Jason

http://www.ebay.com/sch/chipperuk/m.html?item=150986711829&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&_sop=10