True, I can't see why anyone would walk with a large amount in a casino's chips. Unless it is where you are staying and you decide to leave and take a stroll on the strip and don't want to wait in a line and cash them right away. Like I said though. That might be where you would want to deposit them in a safe deposit box or hide them in your room. Incidentally, I usually carry my valuables when I leave the room in the morning. I carry a backpack with me and will keep my camera, extra money, etc. with me when I go down to breakfast etc. Then, when I go back to my room after eating and playing a little, if the room has been cleaned already, I usually feel comfortable leaving things there. At least, with the hotel that I usually stay at. I feel safe and comfortable there.
As a collector, I don't think the chips, themselves, would be that expensive that they would be that concerned. As it stands right now, chips cost the casinos, as I understand, around .50 to .75 ea. Possibly less. One reason that many casinos are reluctant to produce chips for less than a buck. People tend to take the low denomination chips. They have to keep the dollar value higher than the cost of the chip or they will loose money on walking chips. Otherwise they don't care. When the burden on the books gets large enough, they can issue a redemption notice. After a period of time dictated by gaming regs, if chips aren't turned in they become worthless. That is in NEVADA. New Jersey requires the casino to give the state an amount of cash to support outstanding chips, after an audit, when they discontinue an issue. That way the player can always send the chip to the state for redemption and the casino washes their hands of all burden. Other states may do things different altogether.
One casino I play at, they have $3 blackjack in the afternoons. You get Blackjack and they need to pay you $4.50. They usually give you 4 $1 slot tokens and a US .50 piece. Their chip rack consists of standard denominations of $1, $5, $25, $100, $500... I haven't had anything bigger than a $100 myself. They use $1 tokens mostly instead of the chips. I don't know why. They use $1 chips at the Craps table and at Roulette, I think. For Blackjack they use the tokens. Maybe it has to do with limiting the number of $1 chips that can possibly walk. And, tokens might be cheaper to mint. Further, the ugliest or simplest designs are the $1 chips. Casinos where I have seen $2.50, $5, $8, $10 chips are usually much nicer and sometimes special collector editions. Maybe marketing shows them that these chips are of denominations that would be popularly low to walk and by making them nicer they are encouraging some people to take them as collectibles or souvenirs. Many LE or limited edition chips will come out in $2.50, $5, $8, $10, $25 and/or $100 denominations. I have never seen a collectible or limited edition chip less than $2.50 or more than $100.
In closing, as for the issue of the RFID tags that might be inserted into the chips, they aren't supposed to be that expensive. The first casinos, like Wynn to use them might pay a lot because they are so few in production. But as more and more casinos order the chips, the price will probably be negligible. The article that I saw earlier of the people cracking the codes for the RFID tags stated that as more companies like Walmart and the Airlines and Shipping Companies start using these tags to track and secure merchandise, baggage, packages.... and as the government uses them more and more for licenses, IDs, passports, tollway tags like IPASS etc. Credit Card companies like Speedpass and so on, the price is supposed to be, I think it was, about a nickle each.
The bigger part of the cost of the the chips and all, to the casinos is going to be fitting the systems with the readers and scanners and computer interfaces and software, automated tables, antennae around wherever they want to track movement of chips... all to utilize the technology. For startups like Wynn that might not be as big of a concern because they are setting up all new. Take Mirage or MGM or Hard Rock that already has investments in systems that will have to be changed, replaced and refitted and it becomes a much more difficult issue to change over. But, reading the benefits of improvements in efficiency and security I don't know how they can afford not to change over in the long run.
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