Pete, you wrote "Of course since the profit margin on the $100 chips is so much anyway a casino could mint 500 of them and then only release 25 of them destroy the remaining 475 and still make money."

This statement, if held true and the casino were to do it, would harm the hobby as there would be less trust in the casino's by both the NIS and the chippers.

Reason: this year we drove to Las Vegas many times to get chips on the day of release knowing that the low mintages might prevent us from getting the ones we need for our collection; we had just decided to let NIS handle the chore for us gladly paying a slightly higher price. Now comes this rule, if the casino only releases 25 chips, out of the anticipated 500, then by not being there we have to rely on the NIS to be there, but, the NIS believes the casino and gets there a little late and no chip - so, I guess we have to either go back to driving to Las Vegas or pay the NIS an additional amount to provide an incentive to get there early.

Also, instead of destroying them, which they have to get NGB permission for under regulation 12, they just store them waiting for the price to go up and then sell to themselves, making a very nice profit. Hmmmmmm!, this seems all to familiar.

Please tell us we're wrong.