Every Wildcatter knows the feeling of “going all in” — it’s as exhilarating as it is terrifying! This expression is a poker term that means you’re on your last bet; you stand to either double your money or lose it all.
The use of standardized chips is still a pretty new practice, oftentimes gamblers in the early days used whatever they had that was valuable enough to bet with. This unregulated practice naturally led to many disputes in the saloons of the Wild West, which led to owners developing their own standardizes sets of betting instruments. These were made from any type of material from ivory to clay and eventually stamped with unique symbols to make forgery more difficult. Modern day use of poker chips has created an entire new industry, each casino with it own unique design.