Well, the new Hooters casino has been open for just a bit over two months now and they have become the NEW Hard Rock as far as chip releases go. Opening day was fine, the January and February chips were out and available for anyone who was there to pick up. The problem comes with March and beyond!! Nothing but a pack of lies are told to you each and every time a new month comes along and you call to find out the release date. In fact, March was bad but April is WORSE!!!! In March, they at least got the date right but were way off on the time. I was told they’d be released at 12 noon on the day of release only to find out that they were released at 10am that day and of course, sold out at the cage. Since I was there before 12 noon (the information I received only 1 day earlier) I was lucky enough to get the 2 chips I needed from the tables as some were saved at the cage and released for the tables. Now comes April. After twice weekly calls, the date of April 7th was given as the release date. I show up at 9am, meet a few other chippers and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, you get the picture. After talking among us the stories we were told by Hooters were so different our heads began to spin. As you can surmise, the chips weren’t released that day. Calls beginning on April 8th all were answered with the release date to be on Monday April 17th. More lies!!!!!!!!!! I called today April 14th just to see if the release changed and low and behold I’m told the chips were released on April 13th and are all gone. Gee, these chips seem to be popular with collectors (like early Hard Rock), sell for quite a bit over face (like early Hard Rock) and are released on days different than what you are told when you call to find out (like early Hard Rock). Amazing isn’t it!!! Once a premium is on a chip, it’s all about the money. The business law of supply and demand have certainly changed our club from a club to a business. There are some that would disagree and say it’s still a club and we just have “fun” but instances like this are no fun, believe me. I’ve been involved in this hobby long enough to know what fun is and what greed is too. I don’t blame the cage people who answer the phones and give dates. I blame Hooter’s management. The cage people can’t just release these chips when they want to, they have to be told by management. I’m not trying to tell them how to manage their casino as that’s their business and they can run it however they want. What I am saying is to stop the lies and just pick a release date and time and stick to it! Sounds pretty simple to me? If they’re that stupid, I’ll refer them to the NEW Hard Rock people or the Palms so they can teach them how it should be done. I plan on doing the following and urge all other local chippers to do the same. Maybe if we’re enough of a pain in the a**, they’ll learn how to issue these chips properly. Beginning on May 1st I plan on calling the casino cage at Hooters TWICE a day, morning and night to ask about the May chip release. They’re number is 739-9000. I also plan to send an email to the casino manager which can be reached on a link on the Hooters website. Maybe this will change things, maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t at least they’ll know of our displeasure in their release procedures and WE’LL know they just don’t give a crap about us.