Poker Chip Values: Colours, Casino Standards and Home Games

There’s no single official rule for poker chip values. Chips are worth whatever the game says they’re worth. But casinos follow a common colour scheme, and using it at home makes your game feel right and avoids confusion.

Common casino chip colours

Colour	Usual value
White	$1
Red	$5
Green	$25
Black	$100
Purple	$500
Yellow or orange	$1,000

Colours differ by country and casino (some use blue for $10 or yellow for $20), so always check. In a casino the value is printed on the chip.

Chip values for a home cash game

Keep it simple: use three or four colours, with the smallest chip equal to the small blind.

Example for a $0.25/$0.50 game with a $50 buy-in:

Colour	Value	Per player
White	$0.25	20 ($5)
Red	$1	20 ($20)
Green	$5	5 ($25)

Each player gets $50 in chips — 100 big blinds, the standard buy-in.

Chip values for a home tournament

Tournament chips have no cash value, so use round numbers and a large starting stack. A typical 10,000-chip stack:

Colour	Value	Per player
White	25	8 (200)
Red	100	8 (800)
Green	500	6 (3,000)
Black	1,000	6 (6,000)

That covers a blind structure starting at 25/50. As the blinds rise, colour up: swap the white 25s for red 100s once the smallest blind is 100. See our home game blind structure for a full schedule.

How many chips do you need?

A standard 300-chip set handles six players in a cash game or up to six in a tournament comfortably. A 500-chip set covers eight to ten. Plan roughly 40–50 chips per player in a tournament.

Related

• How to host a home poker game
• Home game blind structure
• Texas Hold’em rules

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