I've been reading all these posts about how it is wrong to "harvest" chips and I am a bit confused. To me, whether you remove a house chip, roulette chip, tournament chip, etc. from a casino it is all the same. A casino exchanges your cash for chips. I would think they expect ALL chips back either by losing them back to the casino (my case most times) or cashing them in. Just because you sit at a blackjack table and put down $100 and pocket a $5 chip it is the same thing with a roulette or tournament chip. I understand that a roulette can be brought back into play later at a higher value or you can use a tournament chip at a later date for an unfair advantage but isn't this what we do to get chips for our collections? Most people here (I'd like to think all) are "harvesting" for thier collections or to make available to other collectors and not trying to take advantage of a casino by returning at a later date. It seems to me there wouldn't be much of a hobby without this practice. I'm pretty sure most everyone on this board has harvested or atleast purchased a chip that they know had to be harvested. Are we saying it is unethical to remove ncv's and roulette's from a casino or to purchase them on Ebay since they had to have been harvested?

While the person who removed the 2 5000k chips from the South Point had a cast iron set between his legs and shouldn't of done it if they requested you don't remove them, (not all casino's make this request, I was in a craps tournament the week of the convention at the Orleans and heard no such request), and yes, I "harvested" a ncv 5. Does this mean I violated club policy? I'm not asking this to be a wise guy, I'm asking because I sincerely would like to know since I'm a member and wouldn't want to be doing something the club doesn't approve of. Is the club pissed because this person at the South Point "harvested" or because he harvested and got caught with a direct connection to the club.

For the record, I was not in the poker tournament but I have been to the last 8 conventions and agree that the South Point by far is the nicest venue the club has had for our convention and would hate to see it moved from there because of this. I hope this person returns them to get back in good graces with South Point but I still do not get the "harvesting is wrong" conversations when this is where alot of transactions on this board and on Ebay originate from. Are we all thieves for removing any chips from a casino without going to the cage and telling the cashier "I'd like a $5 chip and I will be removing it from the casino for my collection".

Just looking for clarification in this matter.