The deadline has snuck up on us CCA’ers!

Tomorrow is the final day to submit your nominations for our 2021 CCA OTY Awards! This is the last chance you have to send in your nominations, the deadline is approaching fast! The nomination period will be officially closed at midnight on February 28th, 2022. Let’s see a flood of last- minute nominations! Here are the rules:

We have 3 active categories of casino collectibles that you may nominate for the 2021 CCA OTY Awards:

1. Chip of the Year (COTY).
2. CCA Silver Strike of the Year (SSOTY).
*As a point of clarification, this is the CCA Silver Strike contest. There is a separate annual award contest held by the Silver Striker’s Club which often causes some confusion. I am a member of both clubs, if you enjoy collecting Silver Strikes and are not a current club member, I encourage you to consider joining the Silver Striker’s Club. You can find additional information or complete a membership application on Silverstrikers.com if you are interested in exploring membership.
3. Slot Card/Room Key of the Year (CKOTY).

Here are our 2022 nomination rules:

• To submit CCA OTY nominations, you must be an active CCA member in good standing.
• Your choices for nominations must have been released in a casino in the year 2021 to be eligible for the contest.
• Nominations are now limited to 3 eligible casino items per category. You may nominate less if you wish.
• Nominations must be received by the deadline to be counted, prior to midnight (CST) February 28th, 2022.
• Due to a lack of physical ballots received for the 2018 contest, we discontinued physical ballots in 2019, we will continue to take all nominations through email only. If you would like to submit a nomination and do not have access to email, please reach out to a fellow CCA Member that can submit your nominations on your behalf.
• Any items that were not released in 2021 will not be considered and will have to be resubmitted for consideration for next year's contest.
• After the nomination period has closed, I will publish our finalists in March, along with details on our voting process to choose the final winners that will be announced in June at the 2022 CCA convention.

If you need help reviewing options to choose your nominees, here are some helpful tips on locating images of chips, silver strikes, room keys, & player’s cards that were released during 2021:

To look at 2021 COTY casino chip options:

1. Go to the The ChipGuide. (www.chipguide.com).
2. Click “ChipGuide Query Facility” from the options under the “Features” section on the left side of the page.
3. In the filter section, for Casino Status, select “Open”. There are 2 filters that you will need to check, for Collectible Type, choose “Table Chips”, the Date Range needs to be “Equal”, and finally type “2021” in the Date 1 section. Then click “Query”. After you review the options presented from your first search, you will need change the Collectible Type filter to “Limited Edition Chips” and click “Query” again to see the remaining nomination options.

• Take note of the “Issued” date to make sure your choice is eligible.

To review eligible 2021 SSOTY silver strikes nominees, access each of the following links online:

• http://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/ElCortezLVnv/El-Cortez-LVnv-Page-10.php/
• http://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-23.php/
• http://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-25.php/
• http://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-39.php/
• http://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/PlazaLVnv/Plaza-LVnv-Page-10.php/

• Pay special attention to the “Issued” date to assess item eligibility.

To browse player’s cards/rooms keys that were released in 2021:

1. Go to the The ChipGuide. (www.chipguide.com).
2. Click “ChipGuide Query Facility” from the options under the “Features” section on the left side of the page.
3. In the filter section, for Casino Status, select “Open”. There are 2 filters that you will need to check, for Collectible Type, choose “Player’s Club (Slot) Cards”, the Date Range needs to be “Equal”, and finally type “2021” in the Date 1 section. Then click “Query”. After you review the options presented from your first search, you will need change the Collectible Type filter to “Room Keys” and click “Query” again to see the remaining nomination options.

• Again, please reference the “Issued” date to confirm nomination eligibility.

Credit for these images go to our fellow collectors that are members of both the CCA & Silver Striker’s Club that love our hobby and kindly submitted them to both the Chip Guide & to the Silver Striker’s Club for posting on the websites. Since both websites rely our fellow collectors for image submissions, every piece released in 2021 may not be represented at this time. If you notice that a favorite item of yours that was released in a casino in 2021 is missing from any of the search queries, you are still welcome to nominate the piece for the 2021 CCA OTY Awards contest. Please send a scan of missing item when you submit your completed nomination form for eligibility verification.

I have 2 different email addresses that you may send your nominations to:
OTY@CCGTCC.com & link2179@juno.com.

When you submit your 2021 CCA OTY nominations be sure to include the following information:
• Your name & CCA Member number.
• For each nominated item, please specify the category (COTY, SSOTY, CKOTY), the casino name, the denomination (if it applies), a description, the city/locale, & the state/country that the nominee was released in.
• An image of each nominated item if available.

I want to extend my gratitude to those fantastic Members that have shared their nominations with me so far! Thank you so much for participating in the contest! For all you other CCA’ers out there that wish to send your nominations in, you still have a little time! What are you waiting for?!

Please watch for additional 2021 CCA OTY Award updates in our monthly newsletter, issues of the CCA Casino Collectible News, and on our chat boards.

Waiting with Anticipation,

Trey Warren
CCA OTY Chairman