-
This site contains affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking a link, Poker Chip Forum may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!
@Gear labels are better than inlays (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter GoStumpy
- Start date
^^ worthless even with picFine, if you insist. Hope this is what you had in mind.
bentax1978
4 of a Kind
sigh, here's how you do it:
@Tracy - you can buy them here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Reusable-Se...ody-Nipple-Costume-Body-Stickers/171289803238
@MD Mike - you can thank me later.
Better. In my defense I had to come up with a quick reply while watching Kung Fu Panda 3 with the kids.
I don't know anything about gaming regulations, but this whole concept of "the inlays aren't supposed to match" doesn't make any sense to me. From a gaming regulation standpoint, what's going on seems nonsensical, but from a color-management standpoint -- which I can almost guarantee the average casino executive knows absolutely nothing about -- it makes a lot of sense.
Speaking specifically and only about Horseshoe Cleveland chips, here's why:
1. The color-matched inlays on the $1, $25, $100, and $5000 are nearly perfect. This is white, green, black, and grey, which are among the easiest colors to colormatch with CMYK inks (which is what's being used. There are no spot color inks on these inlays.) Of those, grey is the hardest, and it's the weakest of the "good" matches.
So right away the "required on every chip above $5" is blown out of the water. The workhorse chips in the casino, $25 and $100, have excellent color matches.
2. The callout on GPI proofs was only for the Blaze Orange $1000 chips, and specifically noted that the inlay color would not match the chip color ("Cannot exactly match Blaze Orange on inlay"). This [likely] has nothing to do with gaming regulation, but rather everything to do with the fact that Blaze Orange is outside the gamut of colors that are reproducible with CMYK inks. It's specifically marked as "cannot exactly match" because that is a reality of offset printing -- that color simply can't be produced.
If the regulatory requirements were that all inlays above $5 (or above any denom) must not match, why is only the $1000 chip specifically called out? There should either be a blanket disclaimer somewhere on the proof noting that none of the inlay colors will match, or perhaps even more likely, it wouldn't be mentioned at all, if everyone knows the inlays aren't expected to match in the first place.
Calling out just the Blaze Orange $1000s strongly implies that the intent IS to match the other inlay colors, but the designers (who know color) are drawing attention to the fact that the Blaze Orange inlays will never match, no matter what happens in the press room.
3. The inlays are likely printed at a separate time and place from where and when the chips are pressed. In order to match the colors perfectly, they would need to press some chips from that batch of clay, print some inlays, compare the results, and feed the data back to the designers to adjust the color spec. This is almost certainly way too much work and/or way too expensive for something that 99% of casino chip buyers don't understand or care about deeply enough.
It's my opinion that the remaining (poor) colormatching jobs are simply the result of GPI's designers specifying a color build that is "close enough" to semi-match the chips. All the inlays are printed in one press run, all the chips are pressed with the inlays, and there just isn't a color feedback step in place to adjust and re-print the inlays.
I have the luxury of working with pressed chips to determine exactly what color the inlay ought to be. I strongly doubt that the GPI designers have a finished chip to work with, when setting the colors. For example, even knowing the "official Paulson color" for the base of the snapper chip is Pink, there is still a lot of variation between pink Paulson chips. (I have an older chip color sample set, and the Pink sample is visibly different from the Horseshoe Cleveland snappers ... it's also different from the inlay pink, but actually closer!)
For those reasons, it's my opinion that the reason casino executives think there is a security requirement for mis-matched color inlays is because somewhere a while back GPI told a casino rep that some of the colors might not match exactly, and casino reps got used to the idea that the colors might not always match perfectly, and eventually the normal expectation became that the colors definitely will not always match perfectly, and now everyone thinks there's a requirement, which must be regulatory because who else would require that, and because "that's what always happens" from the GPI factory. No one understand the real cause, and everyone just makes up something that fits with their world view (which the careful reader will note is exactly what I'm doing in this entire post! But it makes sense, at least to me.)
TL;DR ... Casino chip inlay colors don't match the chip bases because colormatching is difficult and expensive, not because of regulations.
Last edited:
DJ Mack
Flush
^^ I like that - it definitely makes a lot more sense and that's why I've been struggling to see the value in specifying such an easy to defeat control. Do they really think that if someone is going to counterfeit a chip they don't have the time to do a color match on a sticker? To your point, GPI doesn't have time during production but a hobbyist, professional label maker, or studious criminal certainly has time to get those details right.
Now if we could just figure out why every casino in Ohio had the same small shapes on each inlay - triangle for the $25, snowflake star for the $100, etc - that would clear up all the mysteries. That, too, makes little sense as a security feature. It's not codified in regulations but it's more than coincidence that all four casinos (owned by two different companies) used the same marks. Clearly someone told them they had to have them. Yet when the Horseshoes rebranded to JACK they didn't include the marks on the new chips.
Now if we could just figure out why every casino in Ohio had the same small shapes on each inlay - triangle for the $25, snowflake star for the $100, etc - that would clear up all the mysteries. That, too, makes little sense as a security feature. It's not codified in regulations but it's more than coincidence that all four casinos (owned by two different companies) used the same marks. Clearly someone told them they had to have them. Yet when the Horseshoes rebranded to JACK they didn't include the marks on the new chips.
(y) :thumbsup:
One of the tenets of good security design, whether for web security, anti-counterfeiting, TV descrambling, etc. is to assume that your attacker has both infinite patience and infinite time. If this system can be defeated, it will be defeated, eventually.
I haven't examined them closely enough but I was assuming that the little dots are micro-printing, the ones that say "PAULSON GPI" over and over, in microscopically small print. (Very hard to reproduce without professional equipment!) The microdots don't do much as a security feature while out on the tables in play, but I would think the cage can take the time to inspect them in suspicious circumstances?
DJ Mack
Flush
These are not the microdots. Those are contained in a white circle. Lower edge on the Hollywood chip and left on the Horseshoe. What's the triangle for (Top for Hollywood and right edge for Horseshoe)?
If I look at images of the $100s they all use the same snowflake star in addition to the microdot circle. And the strange shape always seems to be exactly opposite the microdot.
Yeah, I wasn't talking about the shapes, I was talking about the microdots (which I guess is indeed what they are.)
The shapes? I don't know what purpose they serve. Security theater?
The shapes? I don't know what purpose they serve. Security theater?
WillAndrew
Pair
Pretty sure it's just a design to balance the weight of the inlay visually. all of those are black inlays, so the microprint has to have a relatively large white circle behind it. if these inlays were white, the microprint would just be a much less distracting and smaller grey against entirely white background and no balancing is needed, which is what you find in most other chips.
The graphic designer of the inlays cannot sit at their computer and guarantee that the color will match the chip body with no samples in hand, but any graphic artist has a sense and eye for weight and will do what they can to remedy it.
I like the shapes.
The graphic designer of the inlays cannot sit at their computer and guarantee that the color will match the chip body with no samples in hand, but any graphic artist has a sense and eye for weight and will do what they can to remedy it.
I like the shapes.
DJ Mack
Flush
I forgot to respond to this specifically, but as a guy who has designed security controls for a living I did want to circle back. Your point is certainly true in a theoretical sense. However when the realities of business set in designing such perfect systems almost never happens because they are impracticable or cost way too much. The real calculus is to understand the value of the asset you are trying to protect and then design controls that will withstand attack up to at least that value. It's the old "why doesn't anybody counterfeit $1 bills? Answer: Because a good fake would cost more than a dollar to make" argument.
Encryption is a good example. All encryption can be broken. The methods for doing so are well documented and relatively simple. However it would take a ridiculous amount of time and by then the value of what was encrypted has been diminished significantly, if not entirely. So yes, in 100 years somebody who captured my web traffic will probably be able to figure out the credit card number I used to buy from The Chip Room, assuming they start trying to crack that code right now and do nothing else.
How does this translate to the chip world? As the recent story about the Bellagio Biker Bandit showed one could illegally obtain legitimate $25,000 chips but not be able to use them because of the additional controls in place on them. What about $1,000 chips? Yes, you could probably introduce some good counterfeits into circulation but they would be very expensive to make and you'd face diminishing returns - at a certain point the casino is going to wonder how this guy keeps playing $1,000 chips but seems to hardly ever buy in with cash.
To the average gambler it seems like casinos are a great place to launder money. Lots of chips flying in the noise and excitement topped with a general aura of chaos. That's exactly what the casino wants you to think. Everyone from the dealer, to the pit boss to the eye in the sky is watching. Will they see everything? No, of course not. But over time they will spot irregularities. So they might take a loss here and there but in the long run even a clever thief with excellent counterfeits will find it hard to make a profitable go at it. It's not because the chip's security features are perfect. They don't have to be. It's all the other controls that make up for it.
Oh, for sure, the time and effort required to break a system has to be balanced against the payoff of doing so. If you can make something difficult enough to break that it's not worth doing it anymore, then it's "secure enough". My point (which I didn't make very well) was that you have to actually make that comparison. You can't just say "well, this would take a long time to defeat, so it must be secure."
The right response to "this would take a long time to break" should be "So?"
If the definition of "a long time" is centuries... then yeah, it's secure
The right response to "this would take a long time to break" should be "So?"
If the definition of "a long time" is centuries... then yeah, it's secure
DJ Mack
Flush
Lol, for sure. So many times I've had to discourage grand ideas of making something perfectly secure just so there is a chance of it getting to market in the next 10 years. It's funny because I'm like wait a sec, I'm supposed to be the risk guy and you the business guy, not the other way around!
Bobb59
Full House
perfect job gear
MikeLV
High Hand
Hey! That looks familiar!!!
MikeLV
High Hand
I had been thinking about it, and your post confirmed that there was merit to the idea, so off I went to try out. Thanks.
Create an account or login to comment
You must be a member in order to leave a comment
Create account
Create an account and join our community. It's easy!
Log in
Already have an account? Log in here.
Similar threads
- Locked
