Remember that Vegas heist a few weeks ago where a motorcyclist made off with some $1.5 million in chips from the Bellagio? Many were of the $25,000 denomination and the hotel has now announced that they're discontinuing that model of chip; that holders of them have until April 22, 2011 to cash in any they have in their possession. So is that an admission that the hotel didn't have some sort of tracking info embedded in their $25,000 chips? Or is it an attempt to get the thief to think his aren't easily identifiable and he'd better hurry up and bring them in for conversion to real money? I'm going to guess the latter…and maybe there's another reason beyond all that.
A place like the Bellagio feeds off "whales" — gamblers who come to town now and then, stay there and gamble away huge sums of cash. If anyone is holding onto a batch of legit $25,000 chips, it's a whale…and the hotel is always looking for ways to lure whales back to the gaming tables. I can just imagine each one now receiving a cheery call: "I wanted to make sure that if you're holding onto any of those 25K chips, you get them redeemed by April…and yes, of course you could FedEx them to us and we'd credit your account here but wouldn't this be a great time to come visit us again? Your favorite suite is available in February…"
In other Vegas news: You may recall a few days ago, an item here about someone who robbed the Salvation Army there of over $13,000. Well, the Station Casinos chain has come forward and volunteered to replace the loss. Good for them.