Shaun,

Slabbing does involve placing a coin or a chip in a protective case. But, protection is only one of the three things that occur when a coin or a chip is slabbed. The other things that occur are authentication and grading. Protecting a chip is something that all collectors do, this is not a problem. Authentication and grading, especially grading, are the problems. I will have an article published shortly on Chequers explaining why slabbing is popular for coins, but so unpopular for casino chips. The basic reason is because grading, authenication and protection are much more important to coin collectors than they are to chip collectors. There are also many abuses that occur today with slabbed coins. The knowledgeable, pro-active, chip collectors are trying to prevent the same abuses from occuring with casino chips.

Welcome to the hobby.