BELGIUM, NAMUR, casino chip, (1945-50)

Description

I went googling for when the Grand Casino de Namur was founded and found nothing. I’ve had game chips from this casino in zinc, probably 1920s-30s. Can someone tell me anything interesting?

The basic idea of gambling with chips instead of money, is the hope that you’ll leave and not cash in some of the chips, so free money for the casino. We were certainly gambling before we used money.

people have gambled since before the beginning of money. But sometimes money was unavailable, or gambling was illegal, so people would use things other than money for their bets, so they could say they weren’t gambling. Or the gambling house would want the edge that you get by using house tokens. As long as the gambler doesn’t cash in the tokens the house gets to use the money.

The word “exonumia” is used to describe all kinds of things that are “like” coins but are not coins. I wrote a blog post on that subject. Basic categories: 1. used like a coin but not issued by a national government, 2. looks like a coin but not made for spending, 3. other things that we are interested in.