The 2002 Playboy chips were quite a challenge to The Palms Team from inception to production.  Although we learned from 2002, we found 2003 to have even more challenges.

The 50th Anniversary of Playboy Magazine is the biggest promotion the Palms Casino Resort has ever undertaken.  Trent Parks, National Account Executive for the Palms and the N9NE Group was the lead person.  He first mentioned the promotion in late December 2002.  WOW, 8 to 9 months!  This will be a breeze, or so I thought.

As it turned out, most of the luxury time went into getting a contract signed and getting artwork in a form we could use on chips.  We wanted to do actual covers of Playboy.  If you are a Playboy fan, you know some covers will not be acceptable for chip artwork.  We had roughly 50 Playboy covers in thumbnail format sent in on a CD.  They still had the text that appears on all Playboy covers.  Playboy would have the final say on covers we choose.  They would then remove the text and send us scans in a high resolution suitable to transfer to the chips.  Needless to say they turned down the cover we most coveted.  I will let you guess which one that was.

The 1st of June arrived and still no artwork!  I was getting worried.  14 weeks to release day and Bourgogne et Grasset would be closed for Holiday 4 of the last 8 weeks.

We picked one cover we were sure would get Playboy and gaming approval and had the 1st artwork in our hands on June 10.

Ok, but not exactly what we had in mind.

OK lets add the cover dates on the version we choose and see what the 50th Anniversary logo will look like.  Logo looks great but Palms name is wrong.

It took 3 weeks to get text-less versions and approvals from Playboy.  1st complete artwork:

We need to dress up the Hugh Heffner chips

After consulting with the powers that be, we decided the June 79 and February 78 covers on the $25 chips would not fly.

OOPS, read my email again, I said October 01 not March 01.  This one would NEVER fly.

Still not right.

July 19 the final artwork went to NV Gaming - 8 weeks to release and Bourgogne et Grasset would be closed for the middle 4 weeks.  Gaming was aware of our short time line and gave verbal approval on July 20.  Paul-Son rep gave us a guaranteed delivery date of Sept 16, two days before the release.  One week of this could be tied up in shipping and customs.  As of this writing, September 7, I am on pins and needles!

Phew!  Made it again!

Case for the $50 chip and CD cases for the other values.

 

Artwork was drawn up for 3 different Blackjack layouts.  The second and third of these were produced.

The Key Cards and Slot Cards

 

The sticks of black and white dice

Last but not least, the $10 and $200 Silver Strikes

I welcome your comments at poker4@cox.net