Having found myself with a free evening in London yesterday, I figured what better than take advantage of the situation and head to a few casinos. After battling through the evening rush hour (1 1/4 hours for the last 6 miles!), I met up with Ross Poppel (great guy!) in the new London Hard Rock - a very pleasant experience and very different from most English casinos - much more relaxed, decent music, basically what I expected from the HR. Coupled with an excellent run at 3 card poker which meant I finished the evening a winner, we managed to pick up plenty of cash chips, a couple of roulettes, GO chips and still the Xmas commemoratives which only had a 500 issue and I expected to be sold out.

We left the HR to go into the Gala Picadilly - nothing special, but I needed a Gala £2.50 and fortunately I hit a blackjack with £5 staked to get one (still ended up costing me £30 though!)

Then on to the Palm Beach in Mayfair, a very impressive place (jacket & tie, so Ross waited outside for me - I was in a suit specifically to get into this place). Not only that, but they have a big selection of £5 chips each with a different couloured holographic foil centre. Picked up 5 different (after long discussions about whether some chips were actually different or just slight variations), along with £1 and £10 chips (which are used in several London casinos where the table minimums are £10 for blackjack).

Then onto the Connoisseur for more chipping - terrible time at BJ (Ross managed to make a recovery at least) and then onto roulette to get the £1 chips - the only way we could get £1 chips at several of these places was to buy in at roulette (£2 per chip), play a few spins and cash in £24 (for example) so that we had to be paid some £1's - Ross is obviously better at this than me, as he managed to pick a table that ony had 2 £1 chips on it so that they had to pay his last few pounds in 50p chips!!

Final hit was the Park Tower in Knightsbridge - a very small casino, and more roulette in order to get those £1 chips, but we managed it.

Left Ross at Paddington station, and finally home around 1:30 am (late for me - have to be up at 6 am!), after a great evening with great company.

Below is the selection of new chips I picked up, and I'll post the ones I have for traders after this post.

Happy chipping everyone

Jason