A long but educational story about how the Atlantic City Tropicana treats chip collectors!

For anyone that has never been to an Atlantic City Limited Edition Chip release, it’s usually done the same way at all the chipper friendly casinos. A time somewhere between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM is announced ahead of time. The casino will choose a closed roulette table and open that table at the designated time. After going through all the formalities, the Limited Editions are brought out and put on the table and sold to the chippers in a fair manner until either everyone purchases all the chips they need or the chips are all gone. This is how Trump Marina, Trump Plaza and Resorts have been doing it the last couple of years. There are a couple good reasons the casinos take this approach. It allows those standing in line to buy chips to get in and out very quickly. Since the table has just opened and there is no live gambling quite yet, the casino doesn’t have to interrupt the game to allow the purchase of the chips. A very logical and smooth approach.

Today, several chippers were told the chip release would occur at the Tropicana at Noon on one of the roulette tables. About 10-20 chippers showed up before Noon only to find the chip release would occur at 1:00 instead of 12:00. Even the people in the cage thought it would be 12:00. Well they opened a roulette table at Noon but no chips. At about 12:30 I saw one of the pit bosses walk by and I asked if the chips were about ready to come out. He replied, “Not until 1:00 today. Someone was mean at the last release so we’re not releasing them until 1:00”. That mean person was standing next to me and we just laughed at the cat and mouse games they started to play. There was no reason to hold up this release for an hour other than to P*I*S*S us off. At about 12:45 the chips arrived at the roulette table that had been open since Noon. We started to form a line and the first person got his 5 chips. Of course the game had to be interrupted because it was now full of gamblers. This was probably about 12:50 or so. Then the chip sales stop. The people in the pit talk to the dealer and say “The chips are not to be sold until 1:00”. Oh my, a major screw up by that dealer! No break for you buddy!

Ahh, the chip sales start back up and I get my 5 chips. We decided to get back in line to see if they were going to enforce the 1 time through the line rule, and oh yes, those keen bosses pointed us out and told the dealer we couldn’t go through the line a second time. Then things got interesting…

I found someone to buy me the last 5 chips I needed and they got in the line to purchase them. Well, those managers/pit bosses don’t miss a beat at the Tropicana. After all, that’s what they are getting paid for, right? They immediately told this person she could NOT buy chips for me because they saw me give her the money. Then one of them said they were calling security on me! I said, “Be my guest, go ahead and call them – for what?” In the mean time, I tried to find a second person to purchase these highly coveted limited edition “James’ Salt Water Taffy” chips and I’ll be damned if they didn’t see me give that person the money as well and told him, NO CHIPS.

Sure enough, then the head of security shows up to talk to me about this whole mess we have. I had a very nice discussion with him. A completely civil person except he couldn’t grasp that I had drove 70 miles one way to get these chips and NO I couldn’t come back again tomorrow to get more and all I wanted to do was buy 5 more of the damn things and I would be long gone.

So, with a little more discretion, I found my third person to try and purchase the chips for me. This was a success. But then the ultimate slap in the face occurred. As I was leaving and walking by the table, I stuck my head in and said to one of the congenial managers that had harassed me to know end, “You have a real nice day”. I didn’t notice but she must have made a bee-line to the head security man with a couple of the other managers that treated us so well and when I walked by the Security Manager, she said to him, “And that guy is walking by and saying nasty things to me.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Say what?

I would like to see the Atlantic City chip collectors work together to get an article of this nature published in the Quarterly Club Magazine with all the facts so that every single chip collector can make an educated decision on what casino they want to patronize when they visit Atlantic City. As devoted and obsessed LE collectors, the choice is hard to say NO, I won’t put that Trop chip in my collection. But, we all have a choice on where we will gamble, drink, dine, lodge and spend our hard earned money when we’re in Atlantic City!

I tried to write this in the most civil manner possible – which is why I waited 8 hours and even then I had to edit the thing multiple times to pass the profanity rules. I’ve made my decision on what associations I will have with that entire place from top to bottom.

I will only spend my money and time at the Marina or Plaza.

You have a nice day!

Scott