Jeton de casino — the full Canadian guide

Jeton comes from Middle French jeter, to throw or cast, via the mediaeval practice of throwing counting discs onto a board to do arithmetic (you still see this idea in the English word jettison, unrelated to counting but from the same verb root). By the 18th century jeton was a metal counter used in board games and trade. Casino gaming inherited the word, and today in French — including Canadian French — jeton de casino is the standard term for the disc a player slides across the felt.

In Canadian English you'll hear chip or casino chip. On a Montréal poker table you'll hear both, often in the same sentence.

Short glossary of the terms a first-time visitor meets at a Canadian casino chip-room. This complements the physical-chip sections below.

Most Canadian casinos — Casino de Montréal, Niagara Fallsview, Edmonton's River Cree, Vancouver's Parq — use variations on the same colour palette. This palette was popularised by U.S. casinos in the 20th century and is now close to a continent-wide convention. The WSOP uses a recognisable version of it.

Variations exist — a few casinos use blue for $10 or for the $1 chip, pink for $2.50 in blackjack rooms, and ceramic multicolour "fracs" for $0.50. Check the chart at the cage on arrival.

Casinos don't actually use pure clay for durability reasons; what's called "clay" is a compression-moulded composite. Weight on its own does not indicate quality — an 11.5 g ABS chip weighted with a metal slug exists. Hold one in your hand before you judge.

Above a certain denomination, casinos switch from round jetons to rectangular plaques. Plaques usually start at $5 000 or $25 000 and go up to very high denominations at high-limit rooms. Functional reasons:

• Plaques are easier for a dealer to scan and count without picking them up.
• They're harder to palm than round chips.
• They're easier to apply serial numbers and anti-counterfeiting features to.

In casual French you'll sometimes hear plaquette or plaque rather than jeton at that denomination.

A regulated Canadian casino chip typically carries:

• The issuing property name (e.g. "Casino de Montréal").
• The denomination, clearly visible on both faces.
• A distinctive inlay — often a hologram or UV mark.
• Edge spots — alternating coloured patches that make quick denomination-reading easier for dealers.
• Sometimes a serial number or RFID tag (higher denominations).

The casino-chip Wikipedia entry covers the security-feature standards in more depth if you're curious.

• Tournament home games: a 500-chip set with 4–5 denominations is plenty (T25 / T100 / T500 / T1 000 / T5 000). Start everyone at T10 000 or T20 000.
• Cash home games: use denominated chips that match how you buy in. If you play $0.25/$0.50, you want $0.25, $1, $5, $25 chips. Avoid buying one giant set of T-chips and "assigning values" on the night — it creates disputes.
• Colour coding: stick to the standard set so visiting players don't have to learn your colours.
• Racks and cases: an aluminium case with foam cut-outs is fine; for regular play, a poker table with recessed chip trays is worth the money if you host monthly.

Specialist suppliers have better build quality than big-box retailers. Ranked roughly by home-game community reputation:

1. Canada Billiard — Montréal-based, billiard and casino accessories since 1965. Carries clay-composite sets and custom printing.
2. Québec Billard — similar to Canada Billiard, bilingual site.
3. Palason — Montréal retailer, walk-in showroom.
4. Game Room Depot — custom-printed chips, useful for tournament series.
5. Amazon.ca — huge selection, mixed quality. Sort by reviews, not by price.
6. Walmart.ca — entry-level sets; fine for occasional use.

Before casinos, jetons were counting discs used in commerce and in royal accounting across 15th–18th century Europe. They were often struck in brass or copper and sometimes carried decorative mottoes. Early gambling houses in 18th-century France adopted them as placeholder currency to avoid handling coin directly on the table. By the 19th century, jetons de casino had become specific objects with fixed denominations, and the convention followed the word across the Atlantic. The physical form we use today — the composite disc with edge spots and a recessed inlay — was standardised by U.S. Nevada casinos in the mid-20th century.