Bally's Las Vegas house-mold chips and the $100
A collector hunting for a single Bally's house-mold $100 chip, to use as a sample, is looking for a chip from a resort with an unusually layered history. The building has had three names, and chips with the Bally's name come from only one of those eras. This article summarises that history and what the one relevant collector thread says about the chip.
In this guide
The resort behind the chip
The property opened on 4 December 1973 as the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, designed by Martin Stern Jr., with 2,100 rooms. On 21 November 1980 a fire that started in a casino restaurant killed 85 people and led to fire-safety changes worldwide. The resort reopened on 29 July 1981 after an eight-month, $50 million reconstruction. Bally Manufacturing bought it in April 1986 for $550 million and renamed it Bally's Las Vegas. Caesars Entertainment rebranded the property Horseshoe Las Vegas on 15 December 2022.1
A "Bally's" house chip therefore comes from the years from 1986 to 2022, and the chip in question is described as issued in 1992.
What is known about the chip
In the wanted thread, a collector says the chip is a house-mold $100 with shaped inlays and notes it was "issued 1992", citing the ChipGuide. He says the other denominations of the series (ones, fives and twenty-fives) have similar styling and are far more modestly sought after.2 The page does not state who made the chips.
Putting that together:
- House mould means a mould shape belonging to the casino rather than a generic stock design, so the chip can be recognised by its shape and inlay.
- Shaped inlays are inlays cut in a design rather than a plain circle; check the inlay outline in photographs.
- The $100 is the sought-after piece. The thread treats the lower denominations as the easy part of the series.
Verifying a Bally's chip
Use the Museum of Gaming History's ChipGuide to compare issue date, colour, mould and inlay for the 1992 series, and ask a seller for photographs of both faces and the edge. Because Bally's also operated other casinos, confirm the chip says Las Vegas before relying on a Las Vegas history.3
Matching the Bally's $100 to a sample set
For a sample collection, the useful unit is one matching issue across several denominations. Photograph the candidate $100 next to the $1, $5 or $25 already in your collection, then compare the lettering, inlay outline and raised or recessed rim design. Matching the brand name alone does not establish that the chips belong to the same series.
Try Bally's Las Vegas 1992 house mold $100, Ballys shaped inlay 100 chip and Bally's Las Vegas sample set. Including the city helps exclude chips from other Bally's properties, while removing the apostrophe can find listings with simpler titles.
| A listing says | The follow-up question |
|---|---|
| House mold | Can you show the entire molded rim clearly? |
| Shaped inlay | Is the outline the original inlay, or a later label? |
| Issued 1992 | Which catalog entry or reference supports that date? |
| Mint condition | Are there edge nicks, surface scratches or inlay damage? |
Are Bally's and Horseshoe chips interchangeable?
They may refer to successive names of the same Las Vegas property, but the printed branding is different.1 A Horseshoe-branded chip will not fill a missing Bally's denomination in a period-matched display. Keep the casino's naming history in your collection notes and identify the chip by the name actually printed on it.
Sources and further reading
- Horseshoe Las Vegas, Wikipedia: history from MGM Grand to Bally's to Horseshoe.
- Bally's house mold $100 single chip, Poker Chip Forum: wanted thread.
- ChipGuide, Museum of Gaming History: example of the database's entries.