I can answer based on one experience, buying a $100 Valley View chip on eBay for something like $30. The seller stated that she "forgot to cash it in" and left the casino for a distant location, and then found the chip. She had no plans to return to Valley Center, CA, so was willing to take a deep discount to be rid of it. The cynical among us may think: Yeah, right, it was her faithless boyfriend's chip and she was gonna get back at him bigtime. The chip is worn but is not a counterfeit. Maybe she found it somewhere around the casino grounds, dropped by a drunken blind sailor? Maybe it was her "lucky chip" until the next utility bill that she couldn't pay came in?