I must have been tired.....Here is the additional information about the Resorts chips.

Chips were released 1 per week. They were by invitation as you said. They sent you a card in the mail.
Each chip came in a little sealed paper wrapper. Each week one chip was worth $5000, that chip was Gold in color.

Actually I think what happened was that people were all excited about the first release and they were all given out.
As the promotion progressed people lost interest.
Once the gold chip was given out nobody really cared.
The promotions booth retained the extra chips and when you came to pick up the current chip, they would give you
whatever others they still had available.
On the 4th or 5th week when I was there I asked about the first chip and they said they were all given out theydid give me the others they had

I personally doubt that any of them went to the dumpster.
My host at Resorts has a full set, this makes me believe that a bunch of sets were made up .