New Jersey – A New Jersey man’s hopes of striking it rich were dashed after a state appellate court ruled that more than $59,000 worth of casino chips he purchased online were essentially worthless.
Keith Hawkins believed he’d found a goldmine when he bought 389 gaming chips from a 1980s-era casino at an online auction in 2022. The chips came from the now-defunct Playboy Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, which operated between 1981 and 1984.
In 2023, Hawkins tried to cash the chips in at the New Jersey State Treasury Department’s Unclaimed Property Administration (UPA), hoping to redeem their face value. But the administration — and now the appellate court — says the chips were never legally issued.
“We are satisfied that the evidence in the record supports UPA’s conclusion that the chips presented by claimant were ‘unissued Playboy gaming chips that were to be destroyed,’ and therefore ‘ineligible for redemption,’” the court wrote in its ruling.
A 40-Year-Old Gamble
According to the court documents, when the Playboy Casino closed in 1984, it transferred funds to the UPA to cover redemption of chips that had been legally issued to players.
But an investigation revealed a twist: the chips Hawkins bought had been stolen.
A former employee of the company hired to destroy the leftover chips admitted to police that he took several boxes of unissued chips around 1990 and stored them in a bank deposit box. After declaring bankruptcy, he forgot about the stash — and in 2010, the bank confiscated them.
Twelve years later, the chips made their way to an auction house, where Hawkins unknowingly bought a piece of gambling history — and a legal dead end.
Despite the chips’ historical value, Hawkins won’t be seeing a payday. The court confirmed they’re nothing more than collector’s items.