Poker chips as an investment (1 Viewer)

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AlmostWinnin

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Hi guys,

Do poker chips increase in value much over time? If you had a set of Paulson chips but don't use them for example is it worth holding on to them as an investment?

Thanks
 
There's no escaping the fact that prices of high quality chips have risen dramatically over the past decade or two. That trend will probably continue, though perhaps not at the same rate.

That said, we are a community of enthusiasts, not investors. We typically move sets that aren't used or loved into hands that will use or love them, often at prices well under "current market value", and often with the intent to curb such price shifts.
 
Eh. Is it possible. Yes.

I would say the huge peak is occurring in value of some sets right now. This would mean we're behind the time to buy and wait. If I knew what I know now when I started six years ago, I might have bought a few select sets. But alas, I think the best direction is to grab sets you want and play them. If ya get lucky, sweet. If not, you still have some great chips to play with...
 
Thanks for the responses. I guess the same is true of a lot of things people collect, i.e. they might increase in value but that's not the reason for buying in the first place. I wouldn't call myself an enthusiast but I bought a 500 chip set of Paulson Pharaohs a few years ago and they are just sat upstairs gathering dust. So now I'm thinking of selling them to someone who would get more enjoyment out of them.
 
To answer your question, no, I wouldn't consider poker chips, even Paulson's and investment.
Buy them because you like them and if you decide to sell them at some point, consider yourself lucky if you don't lose money.
 
If you want a nice ROI, scour the bargain basement deals on online classifieds (Craigslist/Offerup/Letgo/etc). However, a ton of time is required to find these deals and you have some very savvy competition. In addition, dealing with potentially unsavory, non-PCF sellers introduces some risk. Higher risk yields a higher return. Proceed with caution.

In terms of sets I bought from PCF members and sold to PCF members, I've never made profit and am totally fine with that.
 
There are better things to invest in, however, most nice chips won't lose much value (with the exception of ceramics and possibly new CPC chips) so that can be an incentive to buy.
 
Consider that the biggest driver of the current spike in prices is the fact that Paulson stopped serving the public market. IF they will return, I believe prices in sets such as yours might decline significantly. These are now trading at 2$ each, back in the days at 1$ and during financial crisis even lower. As some mentioned before, now might be a good time to make some cash if you dont intend to use your chips for yourself. Prices might go further up but I think it has slowed down since people are not willing to pay higher what is asked for now. Selling in smaller quantities for little higher prices could also improve your roi but is very time consuming.

Probably a total different story are the gents who collect single chips...
 
More broadly speaking think about the popularity of poker and casino gaming. Collectors are just a small subsection of poker players and casino guests. I know many guys that play poker and none of them are interested in paying more than 100 bucks for a set of chips. Everyone I know only uses dice chips or other really cheap chips.

The popularity of collecting and having nicer sets is just fallout from the poker boom. The poker boom is over... I don't think poker is going to disappear but at the same time the game isn't attracting players as it once was. Fewer buyers=less demand=lower prices.

I could be wrong but I don't see prices going up from where they are now. Assuming the economy stays ok then I expect prices to be stable and maybe decrease slightly.
 
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There is a very narrow market of buyers for expensive chip sets. Selling nice chips often requires you sell them a rack at a time ... can be time consuming.

That makes chips potentially illiquid and should be treated as such when looking at them as an investment.
 
Jeff said:
There is a very narrow market of buyers for expensive chip sets. Selling nice chips often requires you sell them a rack at a time ... can be time consuming.

That makes chips potentially illiquid and should be treated as such when looking at them as an investment.
Click to expand...
I was just going to reply with that. Go take a look at our classified section for evidence of this. There's lots of for sale threads with no replies other than "GLWS", "bump", "bump", "bump with price drop TODAY ONLY", "bump", "bump FINAL PRICE DROP" etc.

Just because you want to sell your chips today doesn't mean anyone wants to buy them today, tomorrow, or ever. The fact that you paid $10 a chip and some idiot later paid $15 doesn't mean you'll have a line out your door when you try to unload at $20 or even $15.

Last point - shipping is like broker's fees on steroids. When you're dealing by the rack and it costs $13 bucks to ship that quickly eats your margins.
 
Lemonzest said:
I don't think poker is going to disappear but at the same time the game isn't attracting players as it once was.
Click to expand...

Not to get too sidetracked, but I'm not sure this statement is accurate...

When I entered poker (now about 4-5 years ago), there was a complete dearth of live poker action. I remember scouring YouTube for old Poker After Dark clips, etc., and watching clips 10x and 20x times, just because there was nothing else out there. Fast forward to today and we have the 3rd highest WSOP ME attendance ever (next to 2006 and 2010), the return of Poker After Dark, regular Poker Night in America streamings, and now Bellagio is getting in on the action by streaming their $5/$10 NLHE table on Twitch (see BellagioPots).

I know this is only conjecture, but it seems to me that poker - and NLHE specifically - has seen a bit of a resurgence in the last year or so.
 
justsomedude said:
NLHE specifically - has seen a bit of a resurgence in the last year or so.
Click to expand...

Thank god its on the decline in our home games. I think we played one orbit of NLHE on SAT night. That was one orbit to many :)

What is this "twitch" thing that you speak of? ok, that question sounds funny lol, but I'm serious. I'll probably google it later, but I have to hit the road.
 
detroitdad said:
Thank god its on the decline in our home games. I think we played one orbit of NLHE on SAT night. That was one orbit to many :)

What is this "twitch" thing that you speak of? ok, that question sounds funny lol, but I'm serious. I'll probably google it later, but I have to hit the road.
Click to expand...

I know NLHE is considered passé by a lot of poker veterans, and this was discussed at length at the Divide, but for newer players NLHE is still a good place to start off (at least in my opinion). The games I host include a lot of newer/entry-level players, and NLHE is more than enough to keep them interested/challenged while they learn the ropes, and I do want to keep them happy (the more people to get interested in the game the better, right?). I'll get them hooked on the more degen games in due time. :sneaky:

As for Twitch, it's a free streaming service. Snag the App and follow some good channels to get instant updates for when shows start. You can also watch on the desktop on your browser...

https://www.twitch.tv/pokernighttv
https://www.twitch.tv/bellagiopots

Poker After Dark is only on PokerGo and that, unfortunately, requires a subscription...

https://www.pokergo.com/
 
justsomedude said:
I know NLHE is considered passé by a lot of poker veterans, and this was discussed at length at the Divide, but for newer players NLHE is still a good place to start off (at least in my opinion). The games I host include a lot of newer/entry-level players, and NLHE is more than enough to keep them interested/challenged while they learn the ropes, and I do want to keep them happy (the more people to get interested in the game the better, right?). I'll get them hooked on the more degen games in due time. :sneaky:
Click to expand...
Not to continue the derail too much, but I agree with this. I play poker maybe 7-8 times a year, always NLHE. I don't watch poker on TV or the Internet, nor do I keep up with the pros. NLHE is never boring to me because a night out playing cards is purely for fun, and it's an escape that I seldom get. This is why 3 straight days of circus games at a meetup is a little overwhelming, not just for financial reasons, but also because my poker interest/stamina will be severely tested. For that reason, I consider my first meetup as a time to shake the hands of some of my good friends and bust balls in person, not necessarily to play a shitload of poker.

However, I can completely understand how folks who play 1, 2, or 3+ times a week and/or attend multiple meetups a year would get bored with NLHE. You get your poker fix on a regular basis and strive to create/play interesting variations to keep things novel. I would be doing the exact same thing.

All I know is that I haven't had $1000 in my pocket at a poker table in about 12 years, so this will certainly be a new adventure.
 
justsomedude said:
Not to get too sidetracked, but I'm not sure this statement is accurate...

When I entered poker (now about 4-5 years ago), there was a complete dearth of live poker action. I remember scouring YouTube for old Poker After Dark clips, etc., and watching clips 10x and 20x times, just because there was nothing else out there. Fast forward to today and we have the 3rd highest WSOP ME attendance ever (next to 2006 and 2010), the return of Poker After Dark, regular Poker Night in America streamings, and now Bellagio is getting in on the action by streaming their $5/$10 NLHE table on Twitch (see BellagioPots).

I know this is only conjecture, but it seems to me that poker - and NLHE specifically - has seen a bit of a resurgence in the last year or so.
Click to expand...

I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of what is happening in NY, LA, and other major cities. I am in bloody Canada but I do follow the poker world fairly closely. The one good thing poker has going for it is the WSOP Main Event. Apart from the ME the mainstream world doesn't really care.

My point was that collectors or people willing to buy expensive sets are a very minute subset of the poker/gambling world. There simply isn't the influx of new players that there was in the early 2000s after Moneymakers win. Online poker is all but dead and left a bad taste in many people's mouths. Lets say for fun 1 in a 1,000 poker players is willing to buy a Paulson set. How many NEW players got into poker in 2017/2018? My feeling is not very many.

The arc for most people was getting into poker in the mid 2000s play poker online and in casino...watch some WSOP main events....move on to the next thing.

Again I could be wrong thats just how I see it.
 
MegaTon44 said:
However, I can completely understand how folks who play 1, 2, or 3+ times a week and/or attend multiple meetups a year would get bored with NLHE. You get your poker fix on a regular basis and strive to create/play interesting variations to keep things novel. I would be doing the exact same thing.
Click to expand...

I'm not even sure it's people getting their fill of NLHE, rather, I think it's an issue of parity. There is just SOOO much information out there on NLHE, that after a few months of play/study, pretty much anyone can become a decent NLHE player. It's very hard for anyone to have any significant edge anymore.

Just look at the NFL - they have achieved their goal of parity across teams/the league (from a talent/performance standpoint, for the most part) and now we are treated with have a very vanilla/boring product that is losing eyes by the week. Is the NFL disappearing tomorrow? No - but people are turning away in droves - and political statements aside, the product on the field is a very real part of their viewership problem.The big names/plays/wow-factors, just aren't there anymore.

Getting back to poker, I don't think the newer variations are giving the players any kind of novelty, so much as they're giving them an edge on new games/probabilities that the majority of players do not (yet) comprehend.

That's just my $0.02.
 
justsomedude said:
I know NLHE is considered passé by a lot of poker veterans, and this was discussed at length at the Divide, but for newer players NLHE is still a good place to start off (at least in my opinion). The games I host include a lot of newer/entry-level players, and NLHE is more than enough to keep them interested/challenged while they learn the ropes, and I do want to keep them happy (the more people to get interested in the game the better, right?). I'll get them hooked on the more degen games in due time. :sneaky:

As for Twitch, it's a free streaming service. Snag the App and follow some good channels to get instant updates for when shows start. You can also watch on the desktop on your browser...

https://www.twitch.tv/pokernighttv
https://www.twitch.tv/bellagiopots

Poker After Dark is only on PokerGo and that, unfortunately, requires a subscription...

https://www.pokergo.com/
Click to expand...

thanks for the information. I'll have to look into it to see if I can stream it on Kodi.

As for poker. I've been playing for about 15 years. The first 7-10 years was almost exclusively NLHE. I simply got bored with it. PLO8 and Big O are probably two of my favorite games. I still wouldn't want to play them exclusively either. I like a variety. Different games brings different challenges to the table. I find that I stay more in tune with the game if its changing every orbit or so.

MegaTon44 said:
However, I can completely understand how folks who play 1, 2, or 3+ times a week and/or attend multiple meetups a year would get bored with NLHE. You get your poker fix on a regular basis and strive to create/play interesting variations to keep things novel. I would be doing the exact same thing.
Click to expand...

I probably average three times a month. I also play for fun. I also play for the competitiveness, hanging out with a great group of guys/gals. First and foremost this is a hobby to me. I am lucky enough that I have a hobby that pays for its self (for now).
 
Considering Paulson chips go for 2-3 USD what about just buying a few racks of $1 chips from various casinos and putting them up on eBay?

Specifically the NYNY $1 are aesthetically nice. I might try this next time I am in Vegas just for sngs.

I bet if I put up 100 NYNY $1 on eBay for 175 they would move. Even if they don't sell I will just clean them and integrate into a cash set down the road.

Question: If I walk up to the cage and ask for 100 $1 will they give them to me? Seem like it would be a weird request.
 
I only rent my poker chips from other members of this forum. I wouldn't sell them to people that aren't enthusiasts and I wouldn't gouge even if I could.

If I ever stopped using the chips, I would put them back out there.

With that said, limited supply is obviously a factor. The manufacturers of clay chips are limited. That will make chips that are nicer but in less quanitity more expensive.

However, on several occasions I have even simply given a handful of chips to members that needed or wanted to complete a set or denomination.

And in return that gets paid back or paid forward. Amazing right? Chip karma is real.
 
I don't think Hold em is going anywhere. In the poker rooms I frequent, 90% of the tables are dedicated to hold em.
You're not gonna get many beginners sitting down at a PLO table, and if they did, they wouldn't last long. People need hold em to ease their way into the poker world. Its a shame that most of them don't make it any further than that, but the casinos don't care, as long as they're raking.
 

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