Empress Star, Aurora Star, Pacific Star and NPS: collector chip sets
Collectors who ask for an "Empress Star $100", an "Aurora Star T5" or "Pacific Star fractionals" are usually looking for chips that look like casino chips but were never used in a casino. The names sound like riverboats or cruise ships, and one of them is easy to confuse with a real venue, the Empress Casino in Joliet, Illinois. This article explains what is known about these sets, what is only hearsay, and what that means if you are trying to complete a rack.
In this guide
Why these are not casino chips
These names appear in collector-market chip listings. Empress Star and Aurora Star are described as Paulson releases in the discussions cited below, while the Pacific Star maker is not established consistently in those sources.12 Identify the individual set before applying a manufacturer label to all of them. Posters on the Poker Chip Forum describe Empress Star as a "fantasy" set and say the names were created for casinos or cruise operations that never opened.3 Other posters dispute the cruise-ship explanation outright and say the sets were a private venture commissioned by chip enthusiasts; one poster in the same discussion said the chips were made for casino cruise ships that never sailed and another contradicted that flatly.1 The honest summary is that the origin story is contested, the people involved are not named on the pages above, and the details have been kept vague on purpose by long-standing members.
What is not disputed in those threads is the practical conclusion: Empress Star, Aurora Star and Pacific Star chips look new because they never circulated, they carry no casino history, and their desirability among collectors comes from scarcity and lore, not from a real venue.
Empress Star versus the real Empress Casino
The real Empress Casino was a riverboat casino at 2300 Empress Drive in Joliet, Illinois, opened on 16 June 1992 and sold in 1999 to Horseshoe Gaming; a sister casino opened in Hammond, Indiana, in 1996.45 Chips from that operation are covered in a separate article on the Empress Casino Joliet and Hammond house sets. The key distinction for buyers:
| Empress Casino (Joliet) | Empress Star | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | House chips used on a real casino floor | Collector-commissioned Paulson set |
| Condition | Shows wear from years of play unless unused stock | Typically unplayed |
| Fractional chips | Collectors report no true fractionals; $2.50 chips served as quarters | Fractionals exist, praised by collectors |
| Tournament chips | Not the focus of the house set | Primary and secondary tournament sets exist |
A forum poster explained the difference in exactly these terms: the Joliet chips were "used for years in an actual casino", while Empress Star chips look sharp because they never were.3 Another collector building an Empress Joliet set said he used Empress Star fractionals and ones as stand-ins while he searched for genuine Joliet chips, which shows that collectors treat the two as separate sets.6
What the sets contain
Specifics below come from collectors' posts and should be treated as owner-reported, not as manufacturer data.
- Empress Star. A collector who has tallied the sets described three runs: a cash set (denominations from 25 cents up to $500, including a $20) and two tournament versions, together roughly 95,000 chips. A trade request on the forum asks for primary tournament chips from T5 to T25k, secondary tournament T5k and T25k, and fractional chips, so tournament primaries, tournament secondaries, cash chips and fractionals are all recognised as separate groups by collectors.17 The same poster who wrote the trade request called the Empress Star fractionals perhaps his favourite chip ever made.
- Aurora Star. Described by the same collector as two sets, a cash set of about 135,000 chips (including $2 and $2.50 values) and a tournament set of about 70,000, with some 43mm oversized cash chips noted as particularly rare. Posters tell a long story about a secret group buy that was outed mid-order and a pricing dispute afterward.12
- Pacific Star. Mentioned in trade requests for fractional and $1 chips. One poster, in the Aurora Star thread, said the Pacific set was a Bud Jones one, unlike the Paulson Empress and Aurora sets. Another poster in the Empress thread could not confirm Pacific Star's involvement, so treat the maker as unsettled.217
All counts are one collector's tallies posted in a discussion, not published production records. Nobody on those pages cites a manufacturer's order sheet.
NPS: National Poker Series
NPS is a different case. Collectors on the forum read it as National Poker Series, a Paulson set whose inlays were designed by a forum member and which was produced through a poker chip retailer, according to a poster in a thread about finishing an NPS set.8 The thread describes a tournament-style set with a gray no-denomination chip, a purple 500 and a yellow 1000, and collectors complete partial sets by relabeling other Paulson chips with matching spots. A buyer in another thread asks for NPS T25, T100 and T1000 chips, especially yellow ones, to build a two-table set, offered as an alternative to "Le Paulson Noir" chips.9
The pages read do not say what Le Paulson Noir is beyond its being a tournament-chip series, so no more is claimed here. If you need to confirm a set, ask in a collector forum thread with photographs and the chip's mold and inlay details.
How to avoid buying the wrong thing
- Decide what you want. If you want chips with a real casino history, a fantasy set will not give you that. If you want a playable, mint Paulson set with a distinctive look, a fantasy set may be exactly right.
- Check the name carefully. "Empress" alone could mean the Joliet casino set; "Empress Star" or "ES" means the collector-commissioned one.
- Expect scarcity to be part of the story. Several collectors report that complete sets are rarely offered because owners fear not being able to buy the chips back. That is owner opinion.
- Ask for photos of the inlay and edge-spot pattern and compare with a known example in a collector database or forum thread before paying.
- Do not assume any listing's claimed origin. The cruise-ship stories are folklore; do not repeat them as fact.
For the forum's own indexed references, the Museum of Gaming History ChipGuide is the standard database for real casino chips, so a set that appears there as a casino issue is a different thing from a collector-made one.10
Use a set matrix when shopping for Star chips
For these collector releases, the set name is only the first filter. Build a checklist with columns for cash or tournament use, primary or secondary, denomination, size, spot pattern and original or replacement artwork. Mark a chip as a match only when the offered example agrees with the row you actually need.
| Searching for | Add these details to the query |
|---|---|
| Empress Star tournament chips | Primary or secondary, plus T-denomination |
| Aurora Star cash chips | Printed cash value and chip size |
| Pacific Star fractionals | Denomination and a matching reference photograph |
| NPS tournament additions | National Poker Series, color and point value |
A practical search might be Empress Star primary tournament T1000 or National Poker Series Paulson yellow 1000. Broad searches for 'Star casino chips' can mix these sets with unrelated venue names and generic home-game products.
Is a sample set enough to build a playing set?
A sample shows the designs and can help you decide what you like. It does not establish that matching quantities are available. Count your proposed starting stacks and color-up chips before buying isolated high denominations, then ask whether the seller's lot is a coherent set or selected samples from several runs.
Keep the commission story separate from the physical inventory. An interesting origin account adds context, but it cannot resolve a missing denomination, a mislabeled primary or secondary, or a replacement inlay.
Sources and further reading
- Empress Star and Aurora Star Poker Chips, Poker Chip Forum: owner discussion, origin disputed.
- Aurora star chips story?, Poker Chip Forum: forum retellings of the Aurora Star group buy.
- what are Empress and Empress Star?, Poker Chip Forum: forum posters on Empress versus Empress Star.
- Argosy Empress Casino, Wikipedia: history of the real Joliet casino.
- Horseshoe Hammond, Wikipedia: Empress Casino Hammond opened 1996.
- Found Empress Cash Set, Poker Chip Forum: collectors discussing Empress Joliet sets.
- Looking for ES pri tourney chips, a few PS, have stuff to trade, Poker Chip Forum: collector trade request.
- Finishing my Paulson NPS set with 25 cent chips for cash games, Poker Chip Forum: NPS set details.
- NPS tournament chips or Le Paulson Noir, Poker Chip Forum: wanted request.
- ChipGuide, Museum of Gaming History: example of a ChipGuide venue entry.