About the Real Casino Chips:
Right off the bat, the first thing that comes up with the real casino chips is their weight.  All of these chips weighed in at between 9.1 and 10.5 grams.  So, just because a chip out there is bragging it's 13+ grams, doesn't mean that makes it more 'Casino Like'.  Of all my samples, all but Luxor are a 'clay' style chip.  The Luxor chips are ceramic.  I had purchased a $25 Bud Jones chip for this comparison...but in a drunken fit of mindlessness, lost it while on a run at a Roulette table.  That's Vegas, baby. 
 

Comparison#1 - Casino Ceramic vs Home-Use Ceramic:
This is first, because it's easy.  Luxor's ChipCo ceramic chip is *exactly* like 90% of the ceramic chips out there.  Feel.  Sound. Weight.  Everything.  Examples of home chips would be Apache, Rounders Casino, Crystal Oyster, Chipco 'Casino', etc.  Nevada Jack's 'Dead Man' Ceramics have a completely different surface texture than any of the previously mentioned chips, so when you are doing a direct comparison, the 'Dead Man' ceramic doesn't match the Luxor chip.

By far the biggest difference between the Luxor chips and ALL of the current home-use ceramics is the edge-spot quality.  The Luxor chips have beautiful, crisp, clear edge spots, where as all of the home-use ceramics I've handled have 'OK' spots at best....and many of them are just plain crappy.

So, long story short, you can pretty much purchase any of the current ceramic chips out there and know you're going to get the same weight and feel you'd have in a real Vegas casino.  The variable here is just the appearance of the chips.

Showdown Winner: Real Casino due to cooler edge spots.

Comparison#2 - Casino Clay vs Home-Use Clay:
This was the toughy.  The various top-end home use clay chips all get close to the real thing...but not a single one really hits the ball out of the park.  In my reviews, I give several chips a high score for 'feel' because they had sort of a rough, chalky texture to them.  None of the Vegas chips felt remotely like them.  The Vegas clays are all relatively smooth when compared to chips like BuyPokerChips.com's or Nevada Jack's clays.

Note: The Vegas clays are not smoother just from use.  I was told by a couple of the cashiers that some on my chips were pretty much brand new.  I have been playing with the BuyPokerChips.com chips at my office since I got them and have hundreds of shuffles on them. They feel, most part, exactly the same as when I first got them.

So that in mind, we'll just go down the list and compare by the difference characteristics:

Sound: I shuffled.  I splashed.  I stacked.  I dropped. Not a single Home-Use Clay chip got it 'just right'.  The chips that got closest were the Viva Las Vegas and Fan of Cards chips sent to me from Dice702.  Close seconds were the Pokerchip.com and James Bond clays.  An even closer third was Nevada Jack's and BuyPokerChips.com clays.

Feel: The hardest of the comparisons for me to try and be objective on.  A lot of just holding chips in my hands with my eyes closed.  In the end, the ones I kept picking were Pokerchip.com, James Bond and King's Crown, with the Martini Club chips coming in a very close second.

Looks: I can't really rate this, because the Casino chips physically vary so much in their appearance.  Just note that many of the clay chips found in real casinos have multiple colored edge spots.

There's no clear, obvious, winner in the clays.  However, if I was forced to pick a winner that best matches the look, feel and sound of a real Casino clay chips it would be a toss-up for me between the James Bond and Martini Club chips.
 

Comparison#3 - Casino Chips vs Plastic and Composites:
The plastic chips just don't compete on any level with the real Casino chips. I could go on, but I don't like beating a dead horse. 

A couple of the Composites, however, did give it a good go.  PokernStuff's ProClay Composites did an admirable job, especially in the area of 'Sound'.  I was amazed at how close they came to replicating that 'casino sound' when handled.

However, in the end, the closest composites were from WeDoItAllVegas.com. They also do a great job of matching the casino chip sound, and what pulls them into first place is their great feel.

Revision 10/29/04: Big change here.  Two chips actually make a challenge against the real casino chips.  First, is an ultra-low end chip that WINS, out and out, the best 'sound' of ANY home use chip.  Period.  The extremely inexpensive 10 gram Dice chips are outstanding in everything but their very simple looks.  On the other end of things is comfortably the best injection-molded chip out there for the home player, The Poker Chip Company Ltd's chips can legitimately be called 'Casino Quality' without a bunch of B.S. tagging along.  The manufacturing quality on these chips is stunning, and they have great feel and good looks.

Showdown Winner: Casino chips win here.  However, the new additions have made the race *extremely* close.
 

Comparison#4 - Casino Bud Jones vs Home Use Bud Jones
This one isn't pretty.  I received a variety of Bud Jones chips recently and upon comparing them to the home-use chips available out there...the casino chips slaughter the home-use chips.  If you took the composite material used in The Poker Chip Company Ltd's chip and combined it with a Bud Jones design, you'd nail the casino chip on the head.  As it stands, the current Bud Jones style home chips' "composite" material is WAY to slick and WAY to plastic/hard feeling.  It's really a shame, because the the chip designs are fantastic and the manufacturing quality appear very good as well.

Showdown Winner: Casino chips win here...big time.

Last notes:
A number of Casino's use metal chips for some of the lower denominations.  (Bellagio is an example). I didn't buy any of these, but I did handle a few, and found that the Tangiers brass chip available for home use really looked much better than anything I saw in Vegas.

The whole issue of the sound not quite matching between the home use and real Casino clays continues to baffle me. I destroyed a $5.00 Monte Carlo chip to see if there was an insert or something that could change the tone.  Didn't find a thing.  Clay through and through.  Weird stuff.

I'll be updating this comparison continuously as more chip samples arrive.  Check back on occasion to see if anything may have changed.

Questions, comments or want to advertise on
pokerchipreviews.com?
Please email me. info@pokerchipreviews.com