Stacking Chips in a Wager, Smallest Denominations on Top

By John Grochowski on Monday April 18, 2011

gaming, gaming-strategy, tourism, tunica

The first time I ever played table games in a casino — and this goes back a few decades — I watched while another blackjack player pushed a stack of different colored chips into the betting circle. I’m not quite sure what he had out there, but if memory serves there were green $25 chips, red $5 chips and white $1 chips all willy-nilly in the stack.

The pit supervisor came over to have a look. “Looks like you have a barber pole there,” the supervisor told the dealer. The dealer chuckled a bit, then sorted the stack so the green chips were on the bottom, the red chips in the middle and the white chips on the top. He told the bettor, “Highest values on the bottom.”

No doubt most of you know the reason, though I didn’t at that time. I was a novice after all. And none of that came into play with my bets. I was wagering a single $5 chip on every hand.

This isn’t some random requirement. There’s good reason for stacking the chips that way. If the lowest denominations are always on top, a would-be cheater can’t just drop a higher-denomination chip on top after he’s seen cards. And an orderly stack makes it easier for a dealer or supervisor to read quickly how much you’re betting.

That’s something for table games novices to keep in mind. When betting chips of different denominations, stack them in order starting with the highest value on the bottom.