Recently picked these up because I'll never actually have the chance to own a 1st edition Bellagio set. They are ceramic chips and they are textured. I understand the concerns about these chips and I made a video about them when I first got them talking about them, the slight differences that you can see via pictures to tell whether they are fakes or not. To me it's pretty clear to tell what's real and what isn't. You also have to think about where you've seen such chips in quantity. I think the max amount of real Bellagio $1s I've ever seen in a picture was 7 racks and a few racks of $5s. Those are the two chips that you'll see in quantity, nothing else. We all know how hard it is to get Bellagio $5s in nice shape into our collections. Now, think about the $10s, $20s, $25s and higher... Those are going for a few hundred a piece at least. Recently there was a $10 that sold for $70 if I remember correctly. That was a good price and in nice condition too! You'll NEVER see $25s, $100s, $500s, $1000s, $5ks, $25ks or $100ks in quantity.... If you do and someone is trying to sell them as something real you know it's someone uneducated and trying to rip people off.
The one other thing I want to get across too is that these chip sets are being solely bought to be able to play with such chips in home games. I'd like to think everyone on PCF is smart enough that they wouldn't be able to cash these in even if they tried. 1st edition Bellagio chips aren't able to be cashed in anymore, I see a few people talking about Mirage 1st edition chips, I'm not sure about that. Aladdin has been gone for a long time, Bal Tabarin too and everything else doesn't exist so there shouldn't be any worries there. These are replica sets to commemorate people's favorite casinos that they either have always wanted chips in quantity from or know that they'll never be able to get them because they were destroyed or lost in some way. Please remember that, people making these sets are NOT trying to make money by selling these chips as "real" chips. There are differences between the real and fake chips.
Now, enjoy some pictures!
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