Editor
Nearly $60,000 worth of old poker chips from a defunct Atlantic City Casino were floating in New Jersey, where a man attempted to cash in 40 years after they viable. His attempt was denied.
The unidentified man from New Jersey had purchased the chips in an online auction and tried to cash them at the New Jersey State Treasury Department’s Unclaimed Property Administration.
There were 389 individual chips in total, making up $59,000. Though you may think they were won in games such as five-card poker and seven-card stud, they were acquired through dishonesty.
The chips came from the Playboy Hotel and Casino, which operated in Atlantic City from 1981 until 1984. It is safe to say they can no longer be used for poker in New Jersey.
According to the New York Post, there is an administration that handles matters like this. There have been cases where old chips are cashed in situations like this. But in this case, it is unlikely that anyone expected a redemption attempt over 40 years later, and the amount of time was just too great.
The chips were worth $59,500, which could have been a pleasant, quick influx of cash for the man, especially after he purchased them from an online auction without knowing their source. However, it is unknown how much the man paid for the chips, so whether or not he wasted a lot of money on them is left only to the man in question.
When Playboy Hotel and Casino closed, it hired a company, Hernando, Mississippi’s Green Duck Corp., to destroy the chips. However, a former employee allegedly pilfered several boxes of unused chips around 1990. The employee put them in a bank deposit box but claims to have forgotten about them for years following his declaration of bankruptcy in 2010.
How did the auction house come into contact with the chips? They gained possession of them after the bank, where the chips were stored, and confiscated them.
After a thorough investigation over two years, the New Jersey State Police eventually determined that the chips no longer held any value because of the confiscation and the passage of time.
The man’s claim for the money was first rejected in June 2023. The appeal led to a longer decision, which went until April 1, 2025. The appeal was rejected. The final decision was that the $60k in chips was now just some historical remembrance souvenirs of the Playboy Hotel and Casino.
