ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that a man is not entitled to nearly $60,000 in casino chips he purchased online, after investigators discovered the chips had been stolen decades ago and never officially issued by the casino.
The man attempted to redeem 389 chips, totaling $59,500 in value, in January 2023 through the New Jersey Unclaimed Property Administration (UPA). The chips had originally been produced by the former Playboy Hotel and Casino, which operated in Atlantic City from 1981 to 1984. Upon its closure, the casino deposited funds with the UPA to cover outstanding chip redemptions.
Unaware of their true origin, the man claimed to have bought the chips in good faith at an online auction. However, a subsequent investigation by New Jersey State Police revealed that the chips had not been used by patrons. Instead, they had been stolen around 1990 by an employee of a company hired to destroy unused chips after the casino shut down.
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The former employee allegedly stashed multiple boxes of the chips in a bank deposit box and later forgot about them during a bankruptcy. When the bank opened the abandoned box in 2010, the chips were eventually transferred to an auction house, where the buyer later obtained them.
In June 2023, the UPA denied the man’s redemption request, stating that the chips were never in circulation and thus not eligible for payout. He challenged the decision, arguing that the denial lacked proper evidence and was arbitrary.
But in its April 1 decision, the appellate panel sided with the UPA, ruling that the chips were not valid because they had not been distributed to players during the casino’s operating years. The court concluded that since the chips were improperly retained and never legitimately issued, they could not be redeemed for their face value.
