Hi Leonidas,

Jetons cost the casino much more than a regular casino chip. When the Paris first opened, my first thought was "finally, a roulette chip for me!". While I haven't been able to nail down a specific cost for each jeton that the Paris casino has used on their French roulette table, most estmates put it at $2.65 to over $3.00, and some of these estimates have included a provision for these prices to be based on a minimum 10,000 piece order. It is quite possible that they met the minimum order with plain red $5 jetons, they frequently use them with more than one player. That's gotta be part of the reason (or has turned into it) they have three dealers regularly working the table, along with a dedicated floor person, gotta keep track of everyone's bets.

Yes, I did bring home the $500 jeton in the scan below, wanted to show it off, and thought about keeping it, sold it to Skip for face plus postage. It did cost the Paris somewhere around $3.00 to have made, and they would be happy I'm sure to sell as many of them to collectors as are willing to buy them, which is why there are may be 100 each of the plain and 100 each of the three stripe $500 jeton varieties made. I'd call preserving gaming history making sure that someone has one of these......not taking stacks of non-denominational chips...

Just my opinion,
Bob