[Ranman]

Manufacturer: Sun-Fly
Retailer(s): Palm Imports
Average Price: .275ea (non-aligned edges), .44ea (aligned edges)
Material: Ceramic

Full set (Smooth, Non-Aligned option)

Pros:
1. Price - Very affordable
2. Feel - Comparable to higher priced ceramic chips
3. Stacking - Comparable to higher priced ceramic chips
4. Sound - Comparable to higher priced ceramic chips
5. Durability - Comparable to higher priced ceramic chips

Cons:
1. Bleeding & Printing errors

I was looking for a good quality ceramic chip at an affordable price. I found it in the Palm Import’s Bellagio Tribute Group Buy. These chips were modeled after those used at the Bellagio, in Las Vegas, for the WPT Championship Tournament and in my opinion are a very good representation of those chips. I purchased a large set of these chips and am very pleased with them. This was an extremely large group buy somewhere in the area 170,000 chips purchased.

On a personal note I’d also like to add that this was Palm Imports first major group buy and I personally commend them for a job well done. Along the way they included offers for 600-1000 chip Birdcages, chips tubes, matching Dealer Buttons, Bounty, Re-buy, Show-em chips and different chip tray options intended to coincide with chip shipments. Also along the way there was a lot of selling, trading and changing of orders between the buyers (me included) that caused a logistics nightmare for Joe and the gang. They learned quite a lesson with this group buy and will be even better for it, but again, job well done guys.

I humbly submit the following review…

Price

Initially offered at .275ea for either a smooth or textured surface, later in the group buy process they were also offered at .44ea for the option of having edge spots aligned with the chip face. Basically 25%-45% of the price of other custom ceramic chips being offered, depending on the alignment option.

Feel

I have used my chips a number of times since I received them and I find the “feel” of these chips to be equal or better than any ceramic chip on the market. They are very smooth, but are not slippery. I’m not great at chip shuffling but I can shuffle these pretty well. When shuffling, my main problem is the tendency to loose control of the stack laterally if the chips are too slippery. When shuffling the less slippery Bellagios (smooth option) they don’t do this.
With the textured chips they seem to slide together a bit easier when shuffled. You would think the textured chips would have slightly more friction but I find this not to be the case. I think it’s a common belief that textured chips are better at holding a stack than smooth chips. In my opinion, if this were the factor for choosing between smooth or textured I feel the smooth chips are more than adequate in this aspect. I could not see or feel any discernable difference in the smooth or textured chips in this regard. See the “Stacking” section of this review for more detailed description, tests and comparisons I made.
The edges are smooth and square and the chips will stand on edge.

L to R - Bellagio, Nevada Jacks, BR Pro, Chipco, Chipco

Stacking

This should be fun!
The stacking ability of chips is one of those qualities that tend to be important to some but not very important to others. Personally, the ability to be able to stack chips higher than say 20 or 30 is not very important to me. I will endeavor to cover any and all stacking abilities, or lack thereof, in my evaluation.

What is important to me is a chip’s ability to hold the stacks I make. In other words I want my chips to remain stacked in case the table is bumped or moved in some way. I also like my chips to remain stacked when pushed onto the table. I have come up with some simple tests to check and compare a chip’s stacking characteristics. Most of these tests I have seen either here at ChipTalk or elsewhere on the web. I wish I could credit the creator(s) of these tests but I do not have that information. I certainly don’t assume any credit for these myself. So away we go…

First off I believe the Bellagio chips to be one of the best stacking and handling ceramic chips I own or have experienced. I own a number of different brands of ceramic chips, Chipco, BR Pro, Nevada Jacks, ABC etc, and will do my Bellagio comparisons and tests against them.

This is in no way a meant to be a “these are better than those” argument and I realize some of these chips are manufactured using the same blank but obviously, any differences found in these tests are most probably be due the manufacturing process and in no way is meant to rate any manufacturing method. I am just showing the difference. Good or bad is a matter of personal taste or preferences.

Test 1. De-Racking
In this test I checked the ability of the chips to remain in stacks while tilting them out of an acrylic chip tray. This is more related to the skill of the person de-racking the chips and normally there is no real issue here as the chips are generally held with one hand while tipping the rack with the other. I did this test without the use of a hand to hold the chips demonstrating their ability to hold a stack while being tilted and manipulated out of the rack onto the table. I tipped out a full 20x5 rack of chips, Bellagio, Chipco and BR Pro three times each onto the cloth surface of my table.

Bellagio (smooth):
1. 3 of 5 stacks fell
2. 1 of 5 stacks fell
3. 2 of 5 stacks fell

BR Pro (Kokopelli, textured):
1. 1 of 5 stacks fell
2. 0 of 5 stacks fell
3. 1 of 5 stacks fell

Chipco (standard surface):
1. 2 of 5 stacks fell
2. 1 of 5 stacks fell
3. 2 of 5 stacks fell (1 stack was very close to falling but stayed up)

I should note that when this test was done with racks where the chips fit loosely all brands experienced consistently more failures when tested. It didn’t matter which brand, if the chips were loose in the rack, stacks fell. I was able to find a rack where all brands fit equally, with little or no excess play but not forced in tightly.

Conclusion:
The textured BR Pro performed the best in this test with the Bellagio and Chipco performing equally. I think the better performance of the BR Pro was directly related to the texture of the chips. It should be noted that the BR Pro have a more textured surface than the textured Bellagio chips. Also, I do not have a full rack of textured Bellagios and could only test 1 full stack per tray. This stack remained up in all 3 tests. My guess is that the textured Bellagios would perform better in this test than the smooth version. I should also note that I had to combine Chipcos of various types to fill a rack since I don’t have any large sets of them. I used sets of Crystal Oyster, Egyptians, WSOP Replicas and other sample sets and individual chips. Just be careful if you try and tilt your chips out of a rack, and use two hands. If in doubt just take one stack out at a time.

In the following tests I will use one stack of Bellagio, Chipco and BR Pro chips with 20 chips per stack.

Test 2. Table Shake
This is a somewhat useless test since I have never experienced a table shaking for any length of time that would result in a stack of chips falling over. I guess this would be good information for those playing in areas more prone to earthquakes.
I put a stack of 20 chips of each brand side by side on the racetrack of my poker table. I then shook the table as best I could in a steady, even manner for approximately 10 seconds. I did this 3 times. Each time starting the chips in straight stacks, side by side with stacks lined up parallel with the table rail. I also alternated the stacks so each brand occupied a different position for each test (left, center, right). The results were consistent for all three trials. The chips would deflect to a small degree but remained stacked. The stacks themselves “walked” a bit with the left stack moving away from the rail, the center stack staying put and the right stack moving toward the rail. This phenomenon was interesting to me in itself since there was a different brand in each position each time. The following pictures show the results of one of the tests.


Conclusion:
The Bellagios will remain stacked equally as well as other brands of chips during a very minor earthquake.

Test 3. Table Bump
This is an occurrence I have experienced on more than one occasion. At both home games as well as in Casinos. My chips have been sent tumbling in varying degrees depending on the force of the bump. I will try to bump the table in as consistent a manner as possible to allow a fair result from the different brands of chips. I set the stacks of chips on the racetrack of my table and bumped it 3 times each, from one end of the table, in two degrees of force. The first “degree” of force is a gentle bump as if someone were standing up or sitting down at the table and inadvertently nudged the table. The second “degree” is a forceful bump as if someone may have tripped into the table. I put the chips at the opposite end, in the dealer location and at the end directly receiving the “bump”.

The first-degree bump resulted in no stacks falling or any discernable difference in the stack formation.

The second-degree bump brought about some interesting results. Again the different brands were rotated into different positions.

When the chips were at the end furthest from the bump the first round showed some stack deflection but no falling (note that the Kokopelli’s are in the center position). The second round resulted in the Chipco stack falling (center position). The third round resulted in the Bellagio stack falling (center position). The center position seems to be the danger zone of this test but the Koko’s survived.



When the chips were put on the racetrack in the dealer position no stack falling resulted although some very slight stack movement did occur.

When the chips were put on the racetrack on the end receiving the bump the first two rounds resulted in the previously invulnerable Kokopelli’s falling with the Chipco and Bellagios remaining stacked but showing some stack deformation. The third round resulted in all three stacks falling to some degree.



Conclusion:
Stacks of chips, no matter the brand, will fall if bumped severely enough. Don’t allow clumsy or intoxicated players to close to large stacks of chips.


Test 4. Table Tap
This test is, to a lesser degree, similar to the Table Bump, but meant to replicate a blow similar to a player either slapping the table in frustration or simply tapping the table in a congratulatory manner as to signify a hand played well by an opponent. I placed the chip stacks on the racetrack and basically gave the table a slight smack or gentle tap as described above. I first tested the stacks with the chips closest to the “tap” or “smack”. No falling or significant stack deformation resulted so I did not test the stacks at further distances since this would probably not show any different results.

Conclusion:
All chips tested could withstand slight table movement. Not the most exciting test for sure.

Test 5. Stack Tilt
I am not sure how to relate this to a real life scenario other than the de-racking test done earlier. This just shows the extremes a stack of chips can be tilted without falling over. Since this is basically a test of the friction generated by the surface of the chips to one another I suppose this could also relate to the ability of the chips to remain in stacks while undergoing external forces such as the bump, tap and shake as well as the stack push described in the next test. I placed the stacks on the end of a thin sheet of plywood 14” long. I put a measuring tape at the opposite end and raised that end noting the measurement at the point a stack failed. I alternated the stack positions as in the previous tests. Interesting results…

Round 1:
Bellagios failed at 4”
Koko’s and Chipco’s failed at 5-3/4” but only the top 10 chips on the Koko stack fell

Round 2:
Bellagios failed at 4”
Koko’s failed at 4” but only the top 10 chips on the Koko stack fell
Chipco’s failed at 5-3/4”

Round 3:
Bellagios failed at 4”
Koko’s and Chipco’s failed at 5-3/4” but only the top 10 chips on the Koko stack fell



Conclusion:
Results were consistent. The Bellagios appear to be a bit more “slippery” than the other two brands. Don’t tilt any of your chips at the table. They will fall over.

Test 6. Stack Push
This will sound weird and call me a goof but this is to test sort of a pet peeve of mine. When I push a stack of chips into a pot or push “All In” I like my stacks to remain intact. Sometimes I use this as a tactic or show of strength and a stack, or stacks, of chips being pushed into a pot to possibly intimidate an opponent sort of loses it’s effectiveness if they are falling all over the place and you are scrambling to re-stack or attempting to hold them in place. All I did here was to push the three stacks from the racetrack of my table to the cloth. There is a groove between the racetrack and cloth on my table but the two surfaces are more or less level. I pushed the stacks at a varying speed and basically the faster I pushed the more the stacks fell. All brands performed equally and with the same rate of failure.

Conclusion:
If you push stacks too fast they will fall. Take you time and if used as a ploy, be extra careful so as to get the result you are after.

Some of these tests may appear inconclusive and my conclusions should be taken a bit “tongue-in-cheek”, as there were little or no differences in performance between the brands. This is actually a testament to the characteristics of the Bellagio chips to be equal to the standards set by the higher priced ceramic chip manufacturers.

Spinners
I cannot close this section without mentioning spinners. Most of us know what spinners are although if we were to asked the everyday non-chipaholic what a spinner was in relation to a poker chip they would look at us with the blank stare of a deer in headlights. For those just learning, a spinner is a chip that for some reason such as cupping, warping, miss-applied inlay etc, will spin like a top whether alone on the table or in stacks. This may seem a trivial flaw but it is a real issue with many chip aficionados. It can and does create wobbly and unstable stacks that are prone to falling with little external effort such as a bumped table.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this section stacking twenty or thirty chips is usually my max so spinners are not a huge concern for me but I am happy to report that in my set of nearly 2400 Bellagio Tribute chips I have yet to find one chip I can call a spinner. Impressive. I cannot say the same for the small sampling of Chipco’s I have. Enough said.

OK, just for the big stack people. I did a big stack. I got to 160 chips in one stack, on the cloth area of my table. This was the max. Shortly after taking the picture I bumped a chair and the stack fell. Happily, there was no damage done. If I had stacked them on a hard surface I feel I could have gone a good bit higher. The stack became unstable at the very bottom probably due to the weight of the chips compressing the padding and not the chips.

Sound

Another subjective topic. What do chips need to sound like? What is the standard to measure against? The Bellagios have a nice ceramic sound when shuffled or riffled. Not too high pitched like a cheap plastic, not too low like a soft non-slug composite, or metallic like slug chips. They just sound right.

A comparison of the brands tested shows that the Bellagio’s have a slightly lower pitch compared to the BR Pro and Chipco’s, which by the way sound identical to my ear. Not much more I can say about this subject.

Looks

First, for the record, I am more than pleased with my chips. For the price I paid they far exceeded my expectations.

Overall I think these came together very well and represent the original chips nicely. Of course I don’t own any of the genuine Bellagio chips to compare these to but per the pictures I have seen of the originals I think the spot patterns and colors were reproduced very closely to the real chips. The Bellagio tributes were offered in nine denominated and one non-denominated chip. The denominations range from $5 to $100,000 with the colors of the lower denominations held somewhat closely to traditional casino standards, $5 red, $25 green, $100 black etc. There were only two spot patterns used on the Bellagios, like on the originals, but even with the similar patterns the different color combinations used, make the chips look very different from one another. The $5, $25 and $100 chips have the same 8-stripe pattern. The other 7 chips all have the same pattern as well but the colors contrast to the point that all chips are easily distinguishable from one another. All the chips are colorful and fun looking. I really like the $5 and $500 color/pattern combinations myself.

The graphics are clear and easily read whether on the smooth or textured chips. I would have to say maybe not quite as clear as Chipco but very close. I have examples of textured and smooth and at any distance further than a jeweler looking at a diamond I can’t easily tell the difference between the two. The graphics go right to the edge of the chip with no white ring as found on Chipcos. It is very difficult to see the joint between the edge and the chip body on the smooth chips. The line is more visible on the textured chips but cannot be felt.

The smooth version is on the left, textured on the right.

Now, this is the part of this topic I looked least forward to discussing. This is where the controversy will come. There were issues concerning bleeding, color shifting and print alignment and clarity with these chips. I will do my best to present these issues in an unbiased and objective manner.

First, I came into this group buy later in its evolution. I did see the early posts at the beginning but since I wasn’t looking to purchase another ceramic set at the time I did not follow the threads very closely. From what I remember and could gather from reading the older threads, there was a good amount of time spent in the development of the chips in regards to color matching as well as alleviating any concerns of color bleeding on the rolling edge of the chips. To my limited knowledge in the development stages of this group buy I believe the bleeding issue was put to rest prior to the manufacturing of the chips. Samples were made and exchanged among those concerned and there appeared to be no problems so the group buy went forward. As would later be evident, quality control for small sample batches of chips is far better than that possible for large production runs where time/delivery constraints also play their part. Remember this buy was for nearly 170,000 chips with smooth/textured, aligned/non-aligned options.

Bleeding
This occurred most noticeably, if not exclusively, on the non-aligned chips. It is most noticeable on the $100 chip with the black bleeding into the yellow sections on the edge. This was easily the largest complaint about these chips. As seen in the pictures the black ink from the chip face has bled into the yellow section on the edge giving it a dirty smudged appearance. When the edge and face are aligned this does not happen. Those buyers that paid extra for aligned edges were not affected by this problem. On close examination I can find examples of bleeding on the non-aligned chips I own no matter the color or pattern. The degree of the bleeding and how noticeable it is greatly depends on the colors and pattern used. From the $100 being the extreme to some almost un-noticeable without looking at the chip with a magnifying glass. Below is a picture of stacks of all the chips. You can draw your own conclusions. I do not have any aligned chips to show the difference but I was able to find a few of my non-aligned chips that were close enough to tell that bleeding would not be an issue on the aligned versions. You can see in the picture where there is minimal to no bleeding. These are where the edges align with the face.

Color Shifting
This was most evident on the gray/green $25 chip. The color on the face of the chips appear either gray as intended to a sort of pinkish gray. This can either be from chip to chip or on the two sides of the same chip. It’s difficult to get a good picture of this and it may not even show well depending on your monitor but I did my best to show examples in the pictures show below. Examples are in the row at the bottom of the large picture.

Print Alignment
By this I mean that there were some off-center “inlays”. Again, as with the color shifting, was most noticeable on the $25 chip. You cans see examples in the pictures here. The upper and lower right of the top group of chips are extreme examples as far as the chips I received.

Security/Originality

Considering there were approximately 170,000 chips produced for this group buy and subsequent re-orders to correct defects or short orders they were still a limited production and to my knowledge will not be offered commercially beyond the original group buy. I suppose there could be a slight risk of chip llamas bringing chips into a game but there is such a small chance of this happening I don’t feel there is much to worry about.
As with any “tribute” chips, there may be other chip sets produced that are similar but not exactly like these. Since it would be very risky for someone to try and pass off a similar chip from a different set I don’t see any risk. Also, I don’t know of any past, current or future Bellagio sets in the works so again, I don’t think there is much risk of this happening. I feel my set is secure to outside chip smuggling. Internal harvesting and re-using of chips is, and always will be, an issue no matter how “custom” a chip is and can only be avoided by the owner paying close attention to players and chip count in an event.

Durability

I would never think of testing the durability of the Bellagio, or any of my chips, to the point of failure. I did not drop them onto concrete from a height of 20 feet nor did I throw them Ninja style against a brick wall to see if they would chip or break. I’m pretty sure they would. I think any chip would for that matter. I’ve never seen any type of abuse occur in a home game or casino that could/would equate to this anyway.
I did however devise some tests for the chips if used under normal circumstances. None are extreme except for maybe the “Teddy KGB Splash” and the “Falling from Table” test.

Note: Poetic license was used for the test titles. There may be a proper name for the act described but I like the names I used, so there!

Shuffling
Description: Self-explanatory but this is the standard “chip trick” as seen at any table or on any televised poker event.
Result - No adverse effect on any chips in any quantity shuffled. With time some scratching or wear could and will occur but this would hold true for any chip.

Sliding Splash
Description: a stack of chips of varying size is placed in the betting zone and pushed forward cascading the chips to the center of the table away from the bettor. Considered by some experts to be a “tell” of a weak hand as it suggests the player is “throwing away” his/her chips.
Result: No effect on chips

Toss Splash
Description: a small number of chips are tossed into the pot in an arc usually to call a small raise or limp into a pot. Usually accompanied by “Oh, what the hell, I call” or some similar phrase.
Result: No effect on chips

Small Stack Drop Splash
Description: From 1 to 5 chips held in a stack, 6-12 inches above the table and dropped into the betting area. This is where I usually tell my players to stop splashing the pot.
Result: No effect on chips

Teddy KGB Splash
Description: A stack of 20 chips, held approximately 1 foot above the table and dropped at a rate of 1 to 2 chips per second into previously bet pile of chips while moving the stack laterally from left to right and speaking English in a bad Russian accent. Repeat 3 times, with 3 stacks of chips being dropped onto the previous chips splashed into the pot. My players know better than to do this with my chips.
Result: No effect on chips

Falling from Table
Description: A chip(s) accidentally toppled from a stack resulting in a fall from table height (approximately 28-34 inches) to the floor of the card room. Your mileage may vary depending what flooring surface you play on. Casinos are normally carpeted. Garage or basement games could be on concrete. My test was done in my card room on a vinyl-covered floor.
Result: No effect on chips

Reviewers Comments

As I mentioned earlier in my review, I am very please and happy with my Bellagio Tribute chips. Despite the problems, which I might add were only visual, I personally feel these chips are a great value. I would and probably will buy Sun-Fly manufactured chips again.
In a blind test I feel it would be nearly impossible to distinguish these from any of the more expensive brands available.

Chip Pictures

Here are more pictures for your viewing pleasure

[whataboutj]

Bellagio replicas by Sun-Fly
Manufacturer: Sun-Fly
Retailer(s): Palm Imports
Average Price: .275ea (non-aligned edges), .44ea (aligned edges)
Material: Ceramic


Pros

• Cost $.28 per chip plus shipping is hard to beat
• Sound - they have a great ceramic "Clack" when they are shuffled
• Looks - The chip design and colors really "Pop" (especially with the high denoms & ND chips) - My favorite is the $1k chip
• Denominations - The set is done in denominations ranging from $25 to $100k making these one of (if not THE) most affordable sets to hold a T1,000,000 tourney (Or higher since there will be 250k, 500k, & 1mil plaques available soon)

Cons

• Bleeders - There were color bleeding issues on some of the chips - the worst of the group were the $100 chips. There were slight bleeding issues with the $100k chips but those were minor.
• Overall Quality control - the QC for the chips overall was lacking. There were chips that arrived chipped in the shrink wrapped stacks from the manufacturer. Palm Imports was great in correcting the issues. These types of QC issues do not surprise me with a production run of over 700k chips out of China
• It took a long time from start to finish for the group buy. There were a lot of reasons behind the time it took to get the chips, but the overall time was fairly long. The good news is the chips have been here for awhile and they are awesome.

Overall the Bellagio tributes are an awesome chip set and exceeded my expectations - especially for the price

[JediHog]

Bellagio replicas by Sun-Fly
Manufacturer: Sun-Fly
Retailer(s): Palm Imports
Average Price: .28 ea (non-aligned edges), .44ea (aligned edges)
Material: Ceramic (smooth)


Pros
Cost is impossible to beat
Denominations: Good breakdown of denom's for any tourney set.
Replica: Well done on replicating the 'look' (minus the colors) of the bellagio chips.

Cons
Colors: Really drab colors
Sound: Too much of a metal 'clink'
Feel: Felt too much like a 'dice' chip. Felt cheap.
Look: The edgespots to me are pretty lame. I know it's a 'replica' but only 2 edgespot varities is a bit odd.
Stacking: Couldn't stack very high due to chips being slick. Any 'bump' would knock the chips over.

Overall Quality control - I'd say the QC was lacking. Highly indicative of a .28/chip

Overall the Bellagio tributes are a cheap chip that bridges the gap between the dice chips and the chipco/NJ ceramics. If you're looking for a big set of chips, this is the way to go due to cost. If you are looking for a small set of chips, I'd spend a bit more and get some other types.