Poker Chips – Colours and Values

There are few more integral accessories to a poker game than poker chips. They aren’t just placeholders for money either; they define the stakes and strategy of this classic card game. 

If you plan to sit and play in a live poker room, you must be familiar with poker chip colours and their values. Even if you plan to host a home game with friends, mastering poker chip colour values will be important in setting up a fun and fair game for all.

Understanding poker chip denominations is also essential in making accurate moves, such as the sizing of the bets you place at the tables. Below, we’ll discuss the value of poker chips in various settings, including cash games, multi-table tournaments and even basic home games. 

We’ll explain the nuances between cash game poker chip values and those for poker tournaments and the history behind poker chips.

Cash Games vs Tournament Chips

The poker chips you use in cash games and multi-table tournaments may look and feel the same, but they have different representations and values. If you’re an Aussie new to the game of poker, making this distinction between poker chip values early will help you to feel more confident at the tables.

In cash games, poker chips have real money value. For instance, if you buy into a cash game for $100, you’ll receive chips in various denominations totalling $100. 

You may get 10x $1, 6x $5, and 3x 20$ chips. The important thing is that you can cash out your cash game chips for fiat currency whenever you like. Since they have a genuine monetary value, you must keep on top of cash game chip stacks for bankroll management.

At the other end of the spectrum, tournament poker chips do not have a fiat currency value. They merely denote the players with the most and the least chips at the table. 

The player who finishes with all the tournament chips at the end of the final table wins the event. In a poker tournament, you’ll pay an entry fee to compete. You’ll receive a starting stack of tournament chips to accumulate more chips throughout the event.

Poker Chips Denominations in Cash Games

Poker chip values in cash games denote real-world monetary values, so you must understand this topic. While no official industry standard for poker chip denominations in cash games exists, most leading poker rooms and casinos will utilise the same denominations that make up a buy-in or chip stack.

The idea is to ensure that regular poker players can adjust when playing between venues. One of the players’ most significant rookie errors at the cash game tables is assuming each casino’s chip colours have the same values. 

Double and triple-check the denominations before your first hand. The last thing you want is to bet with a coloured chip that you think is low-value when it carries a high monetary value.

Popular Values of Cash Games Poker Chips

Below, you’ll find a list of standard poker chip denominations operated by many poker rooms, specifically for their cash games:

• White/Blue Chips: $1

• Red Chips: $5

• Green Chips: $25

• Black Chips: $100

• Purple Chips: $500

• Orange/Yellow Chips: $1,000

Note: If you plan to play high-stakes cash games in high-limit poker rooms, rectangular plaques may be used as an alternative to chips for even greater chip denominations. It’s not uncommon for plaques to denote $10,000 or even $25,000 values.

Confidence in poker chip values at cash game tables is essential to managing your chip stack. With every chip directly impacting your overall bankroll, you must master how much you’re prepared to risk when you bet, raise or re-raise your opponents.

Poker Chips Denominations in Tournaments

We’ve already ascertained that tournament poker chips don’t have a real monetary value. In addition, each major tournament may have its own established value system for determining the results of its events.

Below, we’ll explore the chip values in tournaments held within the world’s most significant poker circuits, namely the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the World Poker Tour (WPT). Both of these circuits tend to inform the chip values of other regional circuits, like the European Poker Tour (EPT) and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT).

WSOP Chip Values in Tournaments

• Green Chips: 25

• Black Chips: 100

• Light Blue Chips: 500

• Yellow Chips: 1,000

• Orange Chips: 5,000

• Dark Green Chips: 25,000

• Lavender Chips: 100,000

• Beige Chips: 250,000

• Large Red Chips: 500,000

• Large Yellow Chips: 1,000,000

• Large Purple Chips: 5,000,000

WPT Chips Values in Tournaments

• Black Chips: 100

• Red Chips: 500

• Yellow Chips: 1,000

• Blue Chips: 5,000

• Green Chips: 25,000

As multi-table poker tournaments progress, a process called “colouring up” occurs, whereby lower chip denominations are removed from play in favour of larger values. As the chip stacks of poker players in tournaments rise, more players are knocked out; reducing the number of chip denominations in play helps to simplify the competition in the mid-to-late stages.

Dealers at tournament tables will often handle the colouring up process for each active player during intervals or breaks. The benefit of a colour-up is that players can focus more readily on their tournament strategy and less on managing an unwieldy stack of poker chips.

How Many Chips to Use In a Poker Event

If you’re preparing to host your own Texas Hold’em poker tournament between friends, family or locals with a similar passion for poker, it’s essential to adopt the general standard for starting chip stacks.

Whether it’s a friendly home game or a larger gathering, deciding on the number of poker chips each player needs is essential to the game’s fairness and integrity.

If you’re hosting a poker game involving two to four players, most game hosts will need a chip set of at least 300 poker chips in play across the table. This results in 25, 100, 500 and 1,000 chip denominations.

Poker games involving five to eight players will need a chip set of 500+ chips in active play across the table. The same chip denominations should suffice for a game involving two to four players.

Games involving nine to ten players will require a 1,000-piece poker chip set or more to ensure every opponent has a comfortable starting stack.

The idea is that all tournament players receive a chip stack featuring a balance of smaller and larger denominations to enable betting and raising during hands.

If you’re hosting a poker game at home, you have carte blanche to assign chip colour values to suit your game. You don’t always have to follow the standardised value system used in tournaments or cash game tables. Therefore, the poker chip denominations can be tailored to your personal preferences, those of your players, and the stakes you plan to play for.

All you need to master when defining chip value in home poker games is to abide by the three following steps:

1. Decide a Buy-In Level
   Agree on a buy-in figure for every player. This will determine how many poker chips each player receives. 
2. Give Poker Chips Values to Every Chip Colour
   Assign values to each poker chip colour relative to the desired stakes and buy-in. 
3. Distribute Even Starting Stacks
   Make sure every player begins with an even starting stack. If you’re hosting a tournament, ensure each stack has sufficient low-denomination chip values for early betting rounds.

History of Poker Chips – Where Did Poker Chips Come From?

Before the late 1800s, players would use any small, valuable items as wagering objects for casino games. It didn’t matter whether it was golden nuggets, actual pieces of gold or silver, or even paper money; as long as it could represent value, it was accepted by gambling houses and saloons.

However, before too long, attempts were made to standardise the betting objects that would become the casino chips we use today. High-end gambling houses and saloons introduced tokens manufactured out of bone or ivory. Others constructed casino tokens out of shellac and paper. The latter had flaws, as they became easy to replicate and forge.

In the late 1880s, clay chips were produced of uniform sizes using a technique known as compression mould. They are genuine ancestors of the poker chips we use today. Casinos and poker rooms soon deemed clay-based chips too fragile, eventually replacing them with a hard-wearing clay composite that still looks the part. Today’s poker chips are typically branded by the casinos or poker rooms in which they’re used.

The Bottom Line

Poker chip colours and values play a vital role in poker. They serve a dual purpose of value and stakes at cash game and tournament tables. Mastering poker chip colour values and denominations is critical in making informed, balanced betting decisions with a positive expected value (+EV) to your chip stack.

In cash games, poker chip values have a direct real-money value, while they serve as a means of ranking and progression in poker tournaments. When managing home poker games, you’ll have the flexibility to assign chip values that suit the size and stakes of your game.

For more insights and know-how on poker strategies, gameplay and game variations, please browse the rest of the Betsquare blog for our comprehensive resources aimed at improving the poker skills of our readers Down Under.

FAQs

How do casinos know you’re using only their chips to cash out?

Most casinos or poker rooms will brand their poker chips to maintain legitimacy. Some operators will also embed radio frequency identification (RFID) into their chips, making them easier to track and prevent them from being stolen.

Can you play poker without chips?

Using play money or board game pieces, you could substitute poker chips in home games. Monopoly’s play money could be the ideal replacement, while board game pieces like Scrabble tiles may work to determine player rankings so long as you have enough to go around.

What’s the colour of the lowest poker chip value?

White chips typically denote the lowest-value poker denomination in all forms of poker.

What’s the size of a standard poker chip?

Today’s poker chips are manufactured with a diameter of 39mm and a thickness of 3.5mm. The weight of poker chips varies, but most poker rooms will pay for chips weighing between 8g and 14g apiece.

Are home game poker chips made the same as casino chip sets?

Home game poker chips are often constructed using cheaper plastic materials. They are lighter and thinner than professional chip sets, but still offer the look and feel of chips used at high-end casino floors and poker rooms.