Pretend you’re opening a card room…How many chips? (1 Viewer)

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TwoHomie

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Had this thought while playing in one of the newer, smaller card rooms here in Austin last night. This place has 5 tables (typically only 1-2 of then playing, though, and spreads 1/2, 1/3, 5/5 ROE, and supposedly the super rare 5/10.


So pretend you were going to do this. (I’m not, I promise!). How many chips are you buying, and in what denominations?


Parameters:
-5 tables
-Poker only, no table games
-NL, PLO, ROE, and bomb pots
-Need to spread 1/2 ($300), 1/3 ($1k, match the stack), 5/5 ($2k, match the stack), 5/10 (uncapped)
-For fun, plan to also run a 3/6 or 4/8 limit game occasionally
-Number (and cost) of chips is irrelevant, but shouldn’t be ridiculous. We probably don’t need 100k of chips or $20mm in bank.


Whatcha got?
 
You will need at least 11,000 chips if the Chicken Chips are anything to go by.
CrazyEddie said:
If I’m opening a card room, I’m getting a couple thousand cash chips and a couple thousand tourney chips.

Then I’m sitting down to figure out what the card room needs.
Click to expand...

TwoHomie said:
Had this thought while playing in one of the newer, smaller card rooms here in Austin last night. This place has 5 tables (typically only 1-2 of then playing, though, and spreads 1/2, 1/3, 5/5 ROE, and supposedly the super rare 5/10.


So pretend you were going to do this. (I’m not, I promise!). How many chips are you buying, and in what denominations?


Parameters:
-5 tables
-Poker only, no table games
-NL, PLO, ROE, and bomb pots
-Need to spread 1/2 ($300), 1/3 ($1k, match the stack), 5/5 ($2k, match the stack), 5/10 (uncapped)
-For fun, plan to also run a 3/6 or 4/8 limit game occasionally
-Number (and cost) of chips is irrelevant, but shouldn’t be ridiculous. We probably don’t need 100k of chips or $20mm in bank.


Whatcha got?
Click to expand...
 
I will say for 5 table at least 1k chip will be need per table so 5 table will need 5k and multiply that by 5x so ideally you will want to have 25k of chip as stock I will presume
 
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LeLe said:
I will say for 5 table at least 1k chip will be need per table so 5 table will need 5k and multiply that by 5x so ideally you will want to have 25k of chip as stock I will presume
Click to expand...
If you say he needs 1000 chips/table, with 5 tables, wouldn't that be 5000 chips total? Or am I missing something obvious?
 
To maybe spur discussion, what about:

3000 x $1
5000 x $5
3000 x $25
1000 x $100
400 x $500
100

Just for the cash set? Little over $500,000 in bank? Way too much or way too little?
 
If it's all just for pretends, then why not like, pretend bigger!

100,000 x 1c
100,000 x 5c
250,000 x 10c
250,000 x 25c
250,000 x 50c
1,000,000 x $1
500,000 x $2
500,000 x $2.5
500,000 x $3
500,000 x $4
1,000,000 x $5
500,000 x $10
1,000,000 x $20
500,000 x $25
200,000 x $100
100,000 x $500
25,000 x $1,000
10,000 x $5,000
1000 x $25,000
100 x $100,000

Did I miss any?
 
davislane said:
If it's all just for pretends, then why not like, pretend bigger!

100,000 x 1c
100,000 x 5c
250,000 x 10c
250,000 x 25c
250,000 x 50c
1,000,000 x $1
500,000 x $2
500,000 x $2.5
500,000 x $3
500,000 x $4
1,000,000 x $5
500,000 x $10
1,000,000 x $20
500,000 x $25
200,000 x $100
100,000 x $500
25,000 x $1,000
10,000 x $5,000
1000 x $25,000
100 x $100,000

Did I miss any?
Click to expand...
Inventory check is going to be a nightmare
 
I've actually considered opening up a card room in Texas, so I have actually considered the total amount of chips needed.

Let's begin with cash.

$1 - 1,000 chips. That's right, just ten racks. You're not taking a rake, and most of the action is with $5 and higher denoms. Only blinds and dealer tips will use the $1 chips, and there's no real need to have more than a barrel per player on the table. 50 barrels = 500 chips plus those waiting to get in the game plus whatever is in the dealer's toke box. With 1k whites you can be secure in the thought that you won't run out even if all 5 tables are running (and they won't be)

$5 - 10,000 chips. The $5 chip is the predominant workhorse of any poker room. You need to have 2 racks for every player at every table that can be running. This should be enough to cover all games as well as having some in the dealer's toke box and in the racks of wait listers. 200 chips per player x 10 seats per table x 5 tables gives you 10k chippies.

$25 - 5,000 chips. These chips will see service in all your games, even the 1/3 when it gets later in the evening. One rack for every seat in the house should be plenty.

$100 - 1,000 chips. These will only see play in the high-stakes game during the weekend or on the stack on one player who is on an epic run. $100,000 worth of this is more than you will ever need.

That's 17,000 chips in total for cash

Tournaments are a lot simpler.
Plan around the largest tournament you'd ever hope to have, any other tournament will require fewer chips. In the case of this 5-table room we will host the Houston Poker Championship, which is a 3-day tournament with Day 1a on Friday, Day 1b on Saturday morning, Day 2 on Saturday Afternoon, and Day 3 on Sunday. This tournament will be a freezeout, and as such you will need 100 buyins to have enough chips.

Let's go with a normal deepstack tournament starting stack structure of:
8 T25 chips
8 T100 chips
2 T500 chips
8 T1000 chips
3 T5000 chips

This gives a 25k stack with starting blinds at 25-50 or even 25-25 for the championship if you so desire. This is a total tournament chip count of T2.5 million (25k starting stack, 5 tables of 10, two day-1's) The highest denomination chip in a tournament should never be more than 1% of the total tournament chip count, so in this case no more than T25k. Now, we know we need a T25, T100, T500, T1k, T5k, and T25k. Now, we figure out how many of each.

T25 and T100 chips will be raced off by the end of day 1, so you only need enough for each day of play. 8 chips x 50 players gives us a total of 400 T25 and 400 T100 chips.

T500 chips don't need to be used that much, as they are more a stepping-stone chip used for making change more than anything. 2 chips x 100 entrants = 200 T500 chips is plenty for any tournament.

T1000 chips will be added to the game to race off the T25 and T100 chips, so we will need the initial buyin plus enough chips to cover the color-ups. Initial starting stack for the T1k is 8 chips x 100 entrants = 800 chips. The T25 and T100 make up another 1k per person, so you will need another 100 T1k chips to handle color-ups. This brings the total to 900 T1k chips.

T5000 chips will be added to the game to race off the T500 and T1000 chips, and T25k chips will be added in the higher levels. To keep things simple, you should have for your to highest denominations enough chips to cover the total chip count of the tournament, in this case, 2.5 million. This means 500 T5k and 100 T25k chips.

Final chip requirement for tournaments:
400 T25
400 T100
200 T500
900 T1000
500 T5000
100 T25k

Only 2,500 tournament chips to cover any sort of tournament you could possibly imagine.

Grand total of 19,500 chips to open your own poker room with 5 tables with cash and tournaments. If you want an even 20k, you could consider adding 500 promotional "grand opening" chips in the $1 and $5 denominations, hoping that people will take them as souvenirs, maybe 400 $1s and 100 $5s... something like that...
 
allforcharity said:
I think it can be done with 3000 or less chips, especially if 3 tables or less typically running at once.
Click to expand...
It all depends how big of a game you want to run.... a game beyond 4 tables requires a heck of a lot management.

I ran a game where events would generally be 3 table tournament and 1 table cash or 2 cash and 2 tournament tables on several occasions back in my 20's when I was off my main job riding thoroughbreds during an injury....

I needed
2x sets got me thru that
"playmoney" sets --- 1/2 and 2/5 were the stakes generally and rarely .25/.50
Tourney games followed the 25/100/500/1000/5000 structure with either rebuy or single buy in games.

1 set was chips mold pharaoh's (they were sold to chipper, the fellow who bought these flew up to pick them up a few years ago)
players really liked these

1629095535837.png

Backup I had a Nexgen Lucky set (still have it) that would have a bunch of chips taped to a board with $ equivalents written beside them (oh yeah its was hoakie lol but worked without any complaints if needed)
LRaPKXF.jpg


Tournaments could play with $25+ on the pharaoh's with the .25/1/5 chips covering most .25/? to 1/2 single table games if larger chips were needed I had some others chips to play as $100's.

If Cash games were going to require the use of $25 chips for a full table or 2 table $ game then the Nexgen's would play as tournament chips.

It worked very well and at the time when I sold the Pharaoh's I think they had paid for their initial purchase and a bit more. I am sure they would net a higher price today but I think the deal was fair at the time.

I would recommend customs...I became paranoid over chip counts etc... never lost 1 chip, I never had a single accounting issue. The partners I had as clients, friends and associates at the track at the time were most of the players so were honestly very trustworthy. Imagine sitting in a room with people who breath gambling, racing and hard work everyday in one room...not a sole could pull a trick without it going unnoticed. There were some players that were "known" magicians that were forbidden to hold cards in non-dedicated dealer games...another player would handle the cards for them during their position as dealer.

below is my current set up with Horse Shoes with a similar theme and breakdowns as above. The set up put togehter for roughly the same number of players and introducing customs that are 1/2 of a two part custom Sloth Club set. The Cards mold "secondary" chips are pictured, with the awaiting production CPC custom "primary" chip waiting for the next Horse Head mold run.
N0diAgS.jpg
 
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If you use the custom ceramics like that group buy is trying to do, the entire cash/tournament setup of full-custom chips would probably run you like $5,000 with the new manufacturer... that's pretty fucking amazing IMO...
 
TwoHomie said:
Has this been asked/done before? I looked around a little bit, but admittedly not too hard.
Click to expand...
BG is alluding to the Boat Chip buy, which he was involved with. The Aurora Star, Empress Star, and Pacific Star chips were bought from Paulson / GPI after GPI had stopped selling to non-casino customers. A group of chippers put together a corporation that ostensibly managed casino operations on behalf of these non-existent cruise ships and were able to get GPI to produce the chips for them. You can learn further details by searching the forum for “NAGB” (which stands for Not A Group Buy, since these chips were not purchased in the typical PCF group buy manner).
 
I think there is an obvious gap that you are missing here and not taking into account. If your card room has a banging low denom chip like a frac or a $1 you have to worry about chippers showing up and harvesting your chips. Better have extra inventory of those denominations just in case!
 
I recall in the old Jim B. ASM interview (search), him mentioning that an order for 20K chips was a very small "Mom and Pop" casino...
Which seems in line with what @Av8tion mentioned above...
Don't underestimate extras lost/pilfered /kept chips , and the need for a secondary set . ...
 
I think 5000 chips per table is a rough, never run out sort of number.

So 5 table room means 25K in chips.

Probably something like 8K/8K/5K/2K of 1/5/25/100

Could probably justify more, but I think that's a good start.
 
If it’s a card room, I’d probably be less conservative than normal. You could run a table with 500 chips, but I’d lean toward 600-800 chips per table.

However, if you’re incorporating limit games, you have to add a ton of $1 chips. At least a total of 1K - $1 chips per table.

So conservatively for cash games only that’s 1400 chips per table x 5 tables which means on the conservative side you’d need 7k chips in total to run games across those games.
 
There is absolutely no need for a secondary set. Unlike Vegas, chips are not legal currency. If a ton of $100 chips get stolen, you cancel that line of chips and create a new one... stick to the $25s until the order comes in or make cash play on the table... just post a notice that chips are subject to cancellation without prior notice...
 
Per this thread you’d better get about 10% extra PER month just to handle chip losses. You can’t do anything about it either if your making a profit, cause you’d be a greedy fuck and you would deserve everyone stealing from you- you would deserve every bit of thievery and deceit you get. You deserve it you greedy capitalist. We now have a RIGHT to steal your chips. Unless you put up a sign that is.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/morals-ethics-legalities-or-hardcore-chip-harvesting.76892/
 
If you want to pay $1 to take home and keep the chips I paid 30c each to purchase you're welcome to them. even more so if you want some $5s...
 
Av8tion said:
$1 - 1,000 chips. That's right, just ten racks. You're not taking a rake, and most of the action is with $5 and higher denoms. Only blinds and dealer tips will use the $1 chips, and there's no real need to have more than a barrel per player on the table. 50 barrels = 500 chips plus those waiting to get in the game plus whatever is in the dealer's toke box. With 1k whites you can be secure in the thought that you won't run out even if all 5 tables are running (and they won't be)
Click to expand...
I probably would do as many ones as fives. I do get the mechanics of small NL games do not require as many ones, but each dealer should probably be carrying a rack in their tray to make sure they can always make change for players, and dealers should never be making change from their toke boxes so a lot of singles are just going to sit there for an entire shift. Not to mention harvesting risk, that will probably be the most harvested chip. I mean hopefully you order a quantity such that the unit cost on singles renders a profit on harvests, but still need to make sure there are enough in the room to operate. I think all of this above means operating on 1000 chips is going to be tight. And if I am ever fortunate to run my own place, the one thing I don't want to do is run tight.

Not to mention if you do get into 3/6 or 4/8 limit games, that would probably require a minimum of 3 racks per player to get to a "never run out" situation. If you don't do this, maybe running on 3K-4K singles is comfortable.

Also #TeamBlueDollar

Also @ekricket 's point above with regards to regular reorders is well taken. A few of us have suggested 25K to start, and I imagine every year or so, you would plan to replenish 5K-10K chips to account for harvested/lost/damage/etc.... But again, you are probably making money on the harvests so reordering shouldn't be a huge deal :).

Av8tion said:
There is absolutely no need for a secondary set. Unlike Vegas, chips are not legal currency. If a ton of $100 chips get stolen, you cancel that line of chips and create a new one... stick to the $25s until the order comes in or make cash play on the table... just post a notice that chips are subject to cancellation without prior notice...
Click to expand...
Yeah, but this might cause a headache and screw over good customers that just keep $100 chips instead of cashing them out. Just because you don't have to do something, doesn't make it a bad idea for the sake of the business.
 
JustinInMN said:
I probably would do as many ones as fives. I do get the mechanics of small NL games do not require as many ones, but each dealer should probably be carrying a rack in their tray to make sure they can always make change for players, and dealers should never be making change from their toke boxes so a lot of singles are just going to sit there for an entire shift. Not to mention harvesting risk, that will probably be the most harvested chip. I mean hopefully you order a quantity such that the unit cost on singles renders a profit on harvests, but still need to make sure there are enough in the room to operate. I think all of this above means operating on 1000 chips is going to be tight. And if I am ever fortunate to run my own place, the one thing I don't want to do is run tight.

Not to mention if you do get into 3/6 or 4/8 limit games, that would probably require a minimum of 3 racks per player to get to a "never run out" situation. If you don't do this, maybe running on 3K-4K singles is comfortable.

Also #TeamBlueDollar

Also @ekricket 's point above with regards to regular reorders is well taken. A few of us have suggested 25K to start, and I imagine every year or so, you would plan to replenish 5K-10K chips to account for harvested/lost/damage/etc.... But again, you are probably making money on the harvests so reordering shouldn't be a huge deal :).


Yeah, but this might cause a headache and screw over good customers that just keep $100 chips instead of cashing them out. Just because you don't have to do something, doesn't make it a bad idea for the sake of the business.
Click to expand...
Per your pint of reordering, you better consider everything you set out or have in the room to be “disposable” or likely to walk out on its own. Once you let people in and they pay money they feel entitled to take anything they want. You don’t have to believe me, just read the attitudes in the comments around here. Anything goes - and we won’t feel sorry for you either - if your running a successful business that has things they want.
 

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