Poker chip colors and values

There is no law of chip colors, but most home sets follow the same habit: white is the smallest, then red, green and black. Here is the usual cheat sheet, and a calculator for how many of each you need.

If a chip has a number printed on it, that number wins over the color. Agree on values out loud before the first hand and keep a legend on the table.

How many chips do I need?

How it works

Each stack is built from the colors that make sense for its size: a color is only used if it is worth at most a third of the stack. Value is spread across the colors, with the small ones taking the biggest share, and anything left over is filled with the largest chips that fit, so every stack adds up exactly to its value.

The last column adds 20% for rebuys and making change. A standard 500-piece case is enough for about 8 players in a tournament.

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Common questions

What are the standard poker chip colors and values?
The common habit is white $1, red $5, green $25, black $100 and purple $500. Home sets vary a lot, so check the numbers printed on your chips.

How many chips does each player need?
About 25 to 50 chips per player is comfortable. Fewer and making change gets annoying; more and the stack is hard to handle.

Do chip colors matter in a tournament?
Not really. In a tournament chips are points, so white 25, red 100, green 500 and black 1,000 is just a handy convention. Agree on it before you start.

More free tools

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