I think each market is different. In the case of the Vegas World chips, when they started selling the inventory, similar to the Horseshoe chips when they started showing up en masse on eBay from the former family members. Hard Rock was a little different, people lost interest at different times (some when the 2 Ozzy dogs chips came out and were unavailable at a decent price, some when the artwork started becoming less imaginative, some when they started putting out too many chips in too large a quantity).

Many people matured their collections and moved away from LEs like me. Others simply decided to leave the hobby (voluntarily or involuntarily). Of course the economy change in the past 10 years didn't help matters... Just my opinion.