Well, the poker room at the Casino of the Sun (Tucson, AZ) is once again, closed. The remainder of the casino is still open, offering BINGO, slots and KENO. But I've got to tell you, they have really managed to confuse some of us for which chips are in-use. Allow me to try and explain.

The Pasqua Yaqui Tribe operated a BINGO facility called the Arizona Club. When they up-graded to slot machines and KENO they changed the name of the lone facility to Casino of the Sun. Later on the Sun offered poker. The poker room used rack chips that were .25, .50, $1, $2, $5, $25 and $100, and Tournament chips from column A in the scan below. After a year or so of operation the poker room was closed and the chips were sold for face value from the Main Cage (Tournament chips were $5 for the set of six colors). Immediately the fractionals were gone (although there was an estimate that there were only about 1 rack of each). The other denominations never sold out, including the Tournament sets.

The reason that the poker room closed was that it was out-drawn (no pun intended) by the poker room of the Desert Diamond Casino, that was miles closer to the population base than was Casino of the Sun (not to mention that the room was bigger, cleaner and handled smoke much better).

Then the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe decided to build and open a modern casino/resort/theater operation to be called Casino Del Sol. That facility would be better, but even further out (by two miles). However, the Desert Diamond Casino had also announced plans to build and open their own modern casino/resort/theater that was 10 miles further away from the population base. The old Desert Diamond would be BINGO and slots only, with the poker room moving to the new facility when it was finished (again, 10 miles further away).

Trying to dampen the Desert Diamond's hold on poker players (and may be steal the ones that did not want to go 10 miles further), the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe re-opened their Casino of the Sun poker room. They then made all of their old rack chips valid (except for the fractionals, which were gone) and ordered replacement Tournament chips that are shown in colum B, below, as the 3 CHIPCO Unicorn mold, HS-"Casino of the Sun" chips. They discovered almost immediately that three colors of NCV chips for tournament play did allow enough denominations, so they pulled out the remaining black and purple NCV chips from their first Tournament chip sets. The black was used as a re-buy chip and the purple was a 500.

After a while the Casino Del Sol casino was built and opened (the Amphitheater and hotel were still under construction) to include a smoke-free poker room (but it right next to the smoking slot machineareas!). The poker room orderd rack chips (from CHIPCO) in denominations of $1, $2, $5, $25 and $100 (the $1 was a COTY Finalist). The interesting thing about these chips is that one side shows "Casino of the Sun" and the other side shows "Casino Del Sol" implying they should be good at both casino's poker rooms. However, they are only valid at Casino Del Sol.

The reason the have both names is that Arizona casinos (Indian only) are trying to get blackjack and other games. These dual labled chips will then be good at both casinos, however the State (Governor) has not approved additional games yet.

In addition to rack chips, Casino Del Sol also ordered Tournament chips in five colors. Just like the Casino of the Sun's newer Tournament chips, they again used CHIPCO Unicorns with HS-"Casino Del Sol".

After a period of time the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe closed the poker room at the Casino of the Sun. I have not been there to know what they are doing with the old rack, but once I do, and if I find out, I will post it here. In the meantime, the powers that be at Casino Del Sol, discovered that five different colors for NCVs in tournament play is one color too short, so they took the grey Casino of the Sun Tournament NCVs and made them their 1000 NCVs for Tournament play.

Accordingly, between the Casino of the Sun and Casino Del Sol, they have had three different sets of Tournament chips, but only the original set was used without borrowing chips from somewhere else.

Well, thats the history (so far) of NCV Tournament chips at the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe casinos.

Scanned below are all the NCVs and how they were grouped into sets.

Jim Follis