Eventually, gambling houses began manufacturing their own coin-shaped chips from sand and clay. Their history in gambling is rooted in the gold rush of the mid 1800s, when casinos accepted precious metals as currency. Right now, I am looking at a $5 chip from the original MGM Grand”-where much of the chip inventory was consumed by fire in 1980-“and it’s selling for $95.”

“A lot of people like chips from the Stardust because it was famously mob run. “We had a chip sell for $5,500 it was from the Vegas Club and just one of seven in existence,” says Oscar Lappalainen, head of production at Spinettis Gaming Supplies, a Las Vegas purveyor of casino collectibles. A $5 offering from the Frontier Casino snags $675. A $1 chip from the nearby Dunes, depicting a sun rising over its golf-course green, now fetches $40. More people than ever are collecting casino chips (eBay has thousands for sale), coveting memories of Las Vegas in its glory days-and making bank. Flying home from Vegas, with chip in pocket, might have been as lucky as the gambler got on that trip. A 1960s $5 Caesars Palace chip, showing a smiling Caesar, now goes for $400. But gamblers who choose not to cash in their casino chips may be the smartest of all. But the guy who invented chips was a genius. It’s been said that whoever invented gambling was smart.

Caesars palace poker chips