Poker Chip Values and Colours that Casinos and Tournaments Use

Poker chip values are one of the first things that you should master when learning poker. Whether you are playing in a land-based casino or back home with a few of your mates, knowing each chip’s denomination will significantly speed up the process and make each round a lot more fluent.

As you know, each chip has its own monetary value represented by a different colour. While it may take some time to memorise all the colours, our guide will help you learn about chip’s values and denominations, which will help you host a poker game at home and easily calculate the blinds and new bets.

8 Quick Facts About Poker Chip Color Value

• Poker chips are mostly made out of clay, but some casinos make them out of ceramics.
• Some casinos use plaques as chips, which are most often used among high rollers in private rooms.
• The value of every colour for poker chip denominations can vary from one casino to another.
• Tournaments use their own poker chips with different colours and denominations designed to fit the event.
• White is generally the lowest value poker chip at casinos.
• If you are hosting a poker event, use a 4:3:2:1 ratio for your poker chips and make sure that the majority of your chips are the lowest denomination.
• Oversized poker chips at tournaments are a lot more valuable than the regular chips.

Poker Chip Value Guide

Poker chips are generally described as compression moulded chips and are made mostly out of clay. In today’s time, most casinos custom build their casino chips, and some even make them out of ceramic. Chips’ weight, design, and colour are all carefully controlled, and a lot of casinos go as far as to embed poker chips with microchips to make them impossible to counterfeit.

When it comes to poker chips’ colour value, it can vary from one casino or a tournament to another. However, while there might be some slight differences between the colours, most of the colours are standardised.

In the following few examples, we will show you how most casinos and some of the biggest poker tournaments around make poker chips with different colours.

Poker Chip Colours & Value

When it comes to standard poker chip denominations, most casinos use the same colours to mark the same denominations.

• White $1
• Yellow $2
• Red $5
• Green $25
• Orange $50
• Black $100

In some casinos, depending mostly on the size of the blinds, you might see even more variety in colours. Some of those additional chips can be blue or grey, for example. When it comes to the blue poker chip value, it is generally worth $10, while the grey chip is worth $20.

Additionally, as you move up in stakes, casinos will add even more variety of chips to the game, making it significantly easier to bet precisely:

• Pink $250
• Purple $500
• Yellow $1,000
• Light Blue $2,000
• Brown $5,000

Even though pink is not used that often, it still makes an appearance in some casinos. Moreover, a yellow poker chip can be worth $2 in some casinos and $1,000 in others. At the same time, burgundy or grey can also make an appearance as $1,000 chips instead of the yellow ones.

Apart from being able to distinguish what colour value poker chips are, you should know that some casinos will also use plaques that are usually the size of the playing cards. Plaques are generally worth a lot more than regular poker chips, and the value of each plaque varies from casino to casino.

Plaques come in denominations of $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, and sometimes even higher. Of course, these plaques will rarely, if ever, make an appearance in public games and are used by high rollers in private rooms.

Poker Chip Value by Colour at Tournaments

Just like casinos, poker tournaments have their own sets of chips, and each of them has its own unique colour. When it comes to the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the poker chip values are as follows:

• Green $25
• Black $100
• Blue $500
• Yellow $1,000
• Orange $5,000
• Dark Green $25,000
• Lavender $100,000
• Beige $250,000

When pots often reach millions of dollars at the final stages of the game, you will often see WSOP players using oversized poker chips. While the regular red poker chip value is most often set at a mere $5, at WSOP, the oversized red chip is worth $500,000, while the oversized yellow chip is worth $1,000,000, and the oversized purple one is worth $5,000,000.

Another extremely popular tournament among poker players, the European Poker Tour, also uses its own variation of poker chip values. While some are rather similar to the chips used at WSOP, there are several differences.

• Green $25
• Black $100
• Purple $500
• Red $1,000
• Yellow/Orange $5,000
• Blue $10,000
• Grey $25,000
• Pink $50,000

How to Host a Poker Event

If you are hosting a private event at home, you can determine poker chip values and denominations yourself. Of course, whether you are hosting a tournament or a poker night with your friends, make sure that everyone knows the value of each poker chip before you start playing.

For ten players, it is generally recommended that you have at least 500 chips. As far as poker chip colour value goes, you should have at least three to four differently coloured chips. Lastly, the ratio of your chips should be split in 4:3:2:1, which means that the majority of your chips should have the lowest denomination.

Since most poker players are already familiar with each poker chip’s values, a good idea would be to simply lower the denomination on each chip and retain the same colour structure. For example, since white is the lowest value poker chip, instead of it having a value of $1, it can be worth 10¢.

If you follow the structure from the basic poker chip colours and standard values, your new values can look something like this:

• White 10¢
• Yellow 20¢
• Red 50¢
• Green $2.5
• Orange $5
• Black $10

As we mentioned before, you are not limited by any rules, and you know the best how much you and your friends can spend. For that reason, simply create a poker chip colour value chart and adjust the colours and denominations so that they fit your blinds and your preference the best.

Summary

While most poker chips have the same colour for a specific denomination, some casinos might make slight adjustments here and there to cater to their player base or to simply offer something a bit more unique. Because of that, you shouldn’t carefully inspect every chip once you sit down to play and determine its denomination.

Moreover, if you are uncertain, you can always ask the croupier (or check the conditions if you’re playing at one of the online poker sites we recommend) about the poker chip values, just to be on the safe side. After all, it is a much better option than suffering a bad beat because you bet a lot more than you wanted to.