Best Clay Poker Chips

#5 Yin Yang Clay Poker Chip Set This 500-chip set features two decks of playing cards, five dice, a dealer button, and 500 13.5-gram clay chips (each chip is slugged for the additional weight). The face of each chip contains a graphic of a poker hand, and the chips come in denominations of 1, 5, 25, 50, and 100. Clay Chips – This type of poker chip is considered the best quality there is and is the type most often used in casinos. Clay poker chips are easy to stack, do chip tricks with, and are the easiest to handle as well. They are the most expensive traditionally as well.

The age-old saying goes something like this: 'The guy who invented gambling was brilliant, but the guy who invented chips was a genius.'

The reason behind this saying is that chips remove from gambling the real world of money.

Gamblers tend to have very short memories. Once they purchase chips, they easily forget their real world value, making losses on the green felt seem relatively painless — at least until they go to cash out.

Home poker has largely embraced this concept.

Games that used to be played with silver change and paper money are now often played with the best poker chips.

Clay chips are made using a compression molding process where unique designs can be molded right into the chip. These are the easiest chips to stack, handle and do chip tricks with. Contrary to the popular belief, the heaviest chips are not the best quality ones. The clay casino chips usually weight 8 to 9 grams. Weight img source: casino.org.
This Pro Clay Poker Set provides the most authentic experience possible and comes with some extra items not found in many other poker sets. The chips are made from casino-grade clay, so they are heavy with an authentic feel. There are 320 chips in total. Chips are labeled with 1, 5, 25, 50, 100, 500, 1000.
Poker chip color combination: 100 white, 100 red, 100 green, 50 blue, 50 black, 50 purple, 50 yellow Poker chip set includes an aluminum carrying case, 2 decks of playing cards, 5 red dice, and a dealer button 500 piece 13.5 gram casino quality clay poker chips Poker chip design has denominations.

If you're hosting a home game, you may well be considering the purchase of a cool poker chip set.

The best poker chip sets contain:

A set of 500 poker chips
Poker chips in three or four colors for different denominations
A deal button
A Big Blind button
A Small Blind button
Two decks of French cards

A poker chip set for home like this should be enough for your typical game of one to two tables.

Finding the best poker chips for your home games depends on your tastes and your budget.

Here's a summary of what's out there to help you find just the right chips for your game. To get a really good sense of all of your options, I suggest that you check out the online stores that specialize in poker supplies.

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Cheap Poker Chips: Plastic Chips

At the very lowest end of the chip market are the very lightweight, 2 gram or so, thin plastic poker chips that many of us played with as kids or in high school and college.

They are typically sold in packs of 100, often in red, white, and blue.

These are the chips available for purchase in nearly every large pharmacy and in groceries, right in the same area as the packs of playing cards.

They'll run you $2.50 to $3.95 or so. If you look around you might find a really inexpensive version of them in the dollar stores — selling for $1.00.

You can buy plastic poker chips online, too. In these case, these are your best options:

100 Poker Chips by RINCO(Red and Blue)
600 Poker Chips by U.S. Toy Co.(Red, White, Blue)

These cheap plastic poker chips are fine in a pinch, or with young or inexperienced players who have never been to a public poker room or casino.

But they feel and sound so much cheaper than what you'll find in a casino or other public poker room, that they may be inadequate for your more serious players.

Imitation Clay Poker Chips

One step up, and what I first purchased back in the early '90s when I started playing in casinos around the United States, are solidly colored, imitation clay poker chips.

These poker chips for home games are made of heavy plastic weighing 8 grams a chip or so.

Cool imitation clay poker chips for home games are generally marketed as 'super diamond chips.'

They can be purchased online for between $.06 and $.10 per chip, and sell in 'sleeves' of 25 single color chips.

These are the best poker chips of this kind:

These imitation clay poker chips are perfectly adequate for your home game, especially if you are running multi-table tournaments and want to be able to afford a lot of chips for a relatively little amount of money.

Since they lack any striping, spotting or design, some players might not prefer them.

But I've used mine in large tournaments and in home games for 25 years and never had a complaint (at least not to my face).

Clay Composite Chips

Slightly more expensive, and by far the most common chips that are sold to poker players today, are the metal filled, clay composite chips, with a myriad of different designs, strips, and spots.

Clay poker chips are usually sold as part of chip set, including an inexpensive aluminium carrying case.

These can also be purchased in sleeves of 25 from some companies, but are more typically sold in units of 500 or 1,000 as part of a poker chip set for home games.

These clay composite chips come in a large range of prices.

The 500-chip sets, for example, can be purchased online for anywhere from $39 or so up to $300 (not including shipping), based on the quality, design, and weight of the chip. Each chip weighs anywhere from 11 to 14 grams.

If you are looking for the best poker chips and you want to top chip set for home games, pick one of these. You can't go wrong with any of them.

I've noticed that at the very bottom of that price range, the clay composite chips tend to be of unacceptably poor quality.

I once purchased a 1,000-chip set for $90 and paid $45 to ship them (they're heavy, and shipping is generally expensive). The chips arrived with 20 red chips equaling the height of only 19 white chips.

They had many other defects in them as well.

I had to send them back for a refund — and got stuck with one way of the shipping.

If you are ordering these metal-filled chips, then, I recommend you order no cheaper chip than the ones selling for about $150 for 1,000.

Customized Ceramic Poker Chips

The next step up are the Ceramic poker chips that sell for about $.40-$.75 or so each.

Nevada Jacks is the most popular brand of these chips. These also come in sets of 500 or 1,000.

A nice poker set of the best home poker chips in ceramic is known for their brilliant colors and sharp detail.

These are the best poker chips to buy. They are not metal filled, and they don't make the metal clanging sound when they bump together.

Players rave about them.

The most expensive, regularly produced variety of chips are the casino-quality clay chips made by the Paulson company, typified by the Top Hat and Cane design.

These chips cost roughly $1.25 a chip, or from $1,100 to $1,400 for a set of 1,000.

If you want your home poker chips to be just like those in a casino and you don't mind paying for them, these are the ones for you.

The best ceramic poker chips for home games are:

Brybelly 500 Count Nevada Jack Poker Set - 10 Gram Premium Casino Grade Ceramic Chips with Aluminum Case

There is another option to consider.

Some chip manufacturers will customize your chips with your own design.

These can come as a 'hot stamped' imprint, as a printed label that is permanently affixed to the chip, or in the case ceramic chips the design can be built into the chip itself.

Prices for this option vary widely, so shop around if this interests you.

Poker Chip Cases

Keep in mind that you'll almost certainly want a case in which to store and transport your poker chip ser. There are a few options in this department as well.

The most common are these thin aluminium or vinyl attaché cases.

These are most frequently made with room for 500 chips, and a few extra spaces for cards. There are also chip cases that accommodate 250, 350, 750, and 1,000 chips.

They sell for between $20-$50 and can vary some in quality, though it's usually next to impossible to tell from the pictures which ones are more sturdily made. Look for reinforcements in the corners.

Also, the 1,000 capacity chip case, when filled with chips, will be too heavy for some to easily carry around.

You might be better off ordering two 500s instead. There is also, now, a 2,000-chip case that comes with wheels for easier transportation.

If you run tournaments or move your game from place to place, you might be tempted to get it, but I don't recommend it.

From everything I've read and heard, it is not built with sufficient sturdiness to survive much use. Tales of handles and wheels falling off upon first use are a legend.

There are a few other chip case options. One is a clear lucite chip case. It is built for 1,000 chips, stacked in chip racks of 100 each, and sells for about $50.

This is very useful if you run tournaments and want to easily have your chips organized for simple distribution to a large group of people.

It's also extremely sturdy, easy to stack, and doesn't dent, scratch, or otherwise deteriorate from regular use (unlike the aluminium and vinyl cases described above). It's what I use, and I recommend it highly.

Finally, for those who care about how your chip cases look, there are some very nice wooden storage boxes. They tend to be cube-shaped, come in a dark finish, and have shiny, small metal handles, one on each side of the box.

They aren't easy to carry, and so would be awkward and inappropriate if you transported your chips regularly.

But they do look nice sitting on a shelf. They sell for about $50 separately, but like all other chip cases, they are often included in the price of a chip set.

Other Recommendations

I would immediately rule out the very cheap plastic poker chips and the very cheapest of the metal filled chips.

Beyond that, however, I don't think there is really much of a difference in how your poker-playing guests will react to the chips.

I've played in home games with the best ceramic poker chips and with Paulson's. They were beautiful to behold.

But I noticed no one really seemed to care.

I've found that poker players are typically so completely engaged in how much they were up or down that the look of their chips was the last thing they cared about.

That being said, you might care about that, and might take great pride in having a truly beautiful set or chips that remind you of what you play with at the nearest casino.

One last item to consider — there are very few brick-and-mortar stores that sell a wide variety of poker chips (The Gambler's General Store in Las Vegas is a great exception).

Amazon, Target, Walmart and a few other retail chains may have boxed sets for sale, but the chips themselves will still be hidden.

That means for the most part, you'll probably be looking online at an image of a chip — not the real thing — when you contemplate a purchase.

For that reason, I recommend that before you buy a complete set of chips, especially an expensive one, that you either purchase or ask the company to send you for free some sample chips.

Catalogs, computer screens, and the like don't really do a chip justice. For that you'll need to see, hold, and use the chip itself.

Sure, it may cost you $5 or $10 to get a small sample set of chips from the manufacturer. But that's a much less costly option than ordering chips you don't want and having to return them.

About the Author

Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of articles as well as Winning 7-Card Stud (Kensington 2003). He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.

_{This article was originally written by Ashley Adams in August 2016. Last update: December 2019.}

^{Photos: 'Ready for poker,' Laura, CC BY 2.0; 'Poker Chips,' Indi Samarajiva, CC BY 2.0; 'Poker XII,' Bastian Greshake, CC BY-SA 2.0; 'New custom ceramic chip set,' BigMikeSndTch, CC BY 2.0; 'Poker anyone?' uzi978, CC BY-SA 2.0;.}

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Everyone who loves playing poker knows how important good poker chips are. This fun activity is great if you want to spend some quality time with your friends and even earn some extra money.

If you own a casino or if you are in charge of buying the things needed for it, you are probably aware that the right type of chips will add that luxurious touch to the place and will make people feel like they are in one of the Vegas’ casinos.

Finding the best poker chips is not an easy task, especially if you are a beginner in casino games. We are going to help you with it and we are going to help you learn how to recognize which chips are good and which are most likely to get damaged in no time.

Types of Poker Chips

These are the most common types.

Plastic Chips

There are 2 under types of common plastic chips. The cheapest ones are usually in a set found in a round carrier. Of you are playing poker at home, they will do the job and can be purchased in any major chain store.

The second type is Diamond chips, that are standard casino size and are a bit heavier than the first type. Diamond chips have solid color and are great for friendly poker games.

Composite Chips

Most common chips used in home games. These chips usually weight 11.5 grams due to the metal insert. The most common complaint about these chips is that they are slippery, but they work fine for small stakes games where the risk of running out of chips is minimal.

If you play games at your home, but you are a serious player, you can get customized composite chips and these types are definitely the most popular ones that get ordered online.

There are a thousand different designs and you can even get ones that are hot stamped, have engravings or label stickers on the chips. There are variations where there is no metal insert in the chip and they weight less than the usual weight of 11.5 grams.

Ceramic Chips

These chips are mostly used in casinos and have a smooth porcelain feel. They can be designed with detail that a person cannot reproduce on other types of chips.

Ceramic chips are really durable and they will stand the test of time. The only downside is that they have a higher cost, so most people who play friendly games at home don’t buy these chips.

Clay Chips

The most expensive and best quality chips. They are used in casinos and you can rarely see them in someone’s home.

Clay chips are made using a compression molding process where unique designs can be molded right into the chip. These are the easiest chips to stack, handle and do chip tricks with.

Contrary to the popular belief, the heaviest chips are not the best quality ones. The clay casino chips usually weight 8 to 9 grams.

Weight

If you don’t want to just buy clay chips, the weight of the chips is one of the most important factors when choosing the best chips.

Heavier chips are more durable and lightweight ones are usually cheaper. If you want to buy something that will stand the test of time and won’t need replacing, it’s better to opt for heavier ones.

GamblersDailyDigest advices that players prefer heavier chips because they are easier to riffle and maneuver.

Common Poker Chip Weights:

Best Custom Clay Poker Chips

7.5 grams
8.5 grams
9.0 grams
11.5 grams
13.0 grams
13.5 grams
14 grams

Design

There are a lot of different design options and here are the most popular ones.

Standard Design

Most of the manufacturers offer a lot of designs that can be printed on the chip. You can either buy a pre-designed one or pay a bit more to get a customized chip.

Stickers

You can get stickers in almost any poker design place and put them on your chips. You can even buy blank stickers and customize them on your computer.

The stickers are a great way to hide some flaws or damages on the chip. If you buy stickers to mark your chips, make sure to stick to the common color denominations rather than one chip color with different labels to protect yourself from people trying to scam you out of money.

Gold or Silver Foil Stamping

Most of the poker chips can be hot stamped with silver or gold lettering. The most common thing people put are initials or dollar denominations.

You should be aware that the foil stamping, sometimes flakes off the chip with wear, especially if the manufacturing is low quality.

Best China Clay Poker Chips

Engraved Poker Chips

Anything you want to have engraved it is possible with the right manufacturer. If you choose engraving you will protect yourself from someone trying to sneak chips into your game or if they try to counterfeit your chips.

If you want to have both sides engraved, you will have to pay double and the best way to make counterfeiting difficult is to scan your signature and to have it engraved on the chips.

Quantity

Poker Chips can usually be purchased in sets or per chip. The sets from 100 to 1000 chips are common. No matter if you are buying a set or individual chips, you definitely need an idea of how many chips to buy.

Best Way To Clean Clay Poker Chips

The first thing you need to cover is that you need enough chips to cover the number of players. In case you are running tournaments, you want to get what is equivalent to one chip stack per player up to the maximum players permitted. Plus, you’d need a few extra replacement stacks.

When you make the calculations of how many chips to order for a live poker game, you need to overestimate a bit. You can never be sure if your game will escalate to higher stakes, so to avoid the risk of running out of chips, it’s better to overestimate the number of poker chips you will need for your game.

On the average, you will need 100 chips at the minimum per player. Remember that the majority of your poker chips comprised of the two lowest denominations.