Last week, I checked into The D Las Vegas (formerly Fitzgerald’s), a cool hotel and casino.
The ‘D’ might stand for its neighborhood, Downtown Las Vegas, its owner Derek Stevens or his hometown, Detroit, Michigan.
Whatever the case, the joint radiates appealingly old-school vibes befitting of Stevens, who made the tricky and unusual jump from casino gambler to casino owner.
One of the first things I noticed upon entering my room: was a print secured to the bathroom wall (yes, a pitstop was in order upon arrival). The framed print artfully depicts the D’s chips in denominations from $100 to $1,000.
Golden Era and $5,000 Confiscated
It made me instantly nostalgic for the days when managers of casino cages asked fewer questions about the origins of a gambler’s chips.Those clay discs functioned as a fiat (traditional payment) alternative – with real cash serving as bonafide backup. Before Bitcoin, accepted for non-gaming purchases at The D, casino chips were the local currency in Vegas.
They were used to cover anything from paying personal debts and groceries to purchasing a used car.
For me, that golden age ended when a buddy of mine tried to cash a $5,000 chip at a casino I’d rather not name. He was asked where the chip originated, and he honestly stated that it was given to him to pay off a debt.
Then he pushed it to the attendant who promptly confiscated my guy’s $5,000 chip. He was told that he had to have personally won it in the casino or else it was the casino’s property. He disagreed and might have litigated.
I don’t know how it all shook out, but it was at least a headache and at most a hosing.
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Casino Chips as Currency
Considering Stevens was here back in the day, gambling it up at craps before buying a piece of the old Riviera, I had to ask him a question. What did he think of chips as currency?“I remember when bookmakers drove up and down the Vegas Strip; in their trunks they had little suitcases full of chips,” he said, maybe longing for those less corporate times.
“They would have chips from every casino. And chips were a lot more efficient than cash. If a guy buys something for $20,000, the cash needs to be counted” – and paperwork might need to be filled out. “It was easier to give four chips and say, ‘I’ll meet you for a drink.'”
Asked if that Vegas is gone for good, Stevens revealed that he is not 100% sure: “I think some of the poker players still live in that era.
“There’s a reason for safe deposit boxes in poker rooms [Stevens’ casinos, do not have poker]. They’re loaded up with a whole lot of chips.”
I remember talking to the blackjack player John Chang, a founding member of the MIT card counting team, and he told me about the time he packed up to move to a new house and, between him and his wife, they found $100,000 in chips scattered around his digs. “I thought I was a little short,” he said with a smile.
Stevens, who’s no longer stashing chips at home, pointed out that he currently possesses something as good as casino tender: “I’ve got a couple of winning sport-betting tickets from the end of March Madness; they’re sitting in my safe.
“Those tickets are a little like having chips in paper form – and I like it. I’m going to get to the counter [to cash them out] before football season starts.”
As for Chang and his assortment of chips, Stevens acknowledges that gamblers felt empowered by having a cache within easy reach.
“People didn’t necessarily believe in banks,” he says. “But if you had a coffee can full of chips, well, you felt pretty good.”
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Michael Kaplan
Gambling Author and JournalistMichael Kaplan is a journalist based in New York City joined Techopedia in November 2023. He is the author of five books ("The Advantage Players" comes out in 2024) and has worked for publications that include Wired, GQ and the New York Post. He has written extensively on technology, gambling and business — with a particular interest in spots where all three intersect. His article on Kelly "Baccarat Machine" Sun and Phil Ivey is in development as a feature film.