How to Play Poker Without Chips: 10 Best Ways

Poker is one of the most fun games after the boom it saw in the earlier 20th century. People are finding it hard to accept gambling their money and there have been gambling addiction problems thus how to play poker without chips? is one of the most asked questions.

Poker chips are necessary for the casinos to allow you to play but at your home, you can have your own rules and dictate the game of poker for your own fun without any hassles like having a fake chip.

Read more on fake chips here 

The best substitutes are laying around in every household or a workspace (play poker only if your workspace allows). It can be Scrabble pieces, lego pieces, monopoly tokens, and many other things, for the purpose of avoiding any addiction related to gambling addiction, we strongly advise you don’t use real-life money as a token.

Can You Play Poker Without Poker Chips?

Yes, you can. Poker is a game and games can be played without the involvement of money, first of all, you need to understand that with poker chips money is involved, and with money, the game is never about fun only. Thus we know that if you take this element of poker chips or money out of the equation certainly you can play poker without the adverse side effects it carries and the lack of fun and increased tension in the game when money is involved. Not everyone is well off to play poker to lose money for the little adrenaline shot it gives you when you risk your money.

How to pull off playing poker without chips

The use of the chips is to make bets, the chips are bought with money that is why they look and feel important to us but hey you can make your own chips out of the things laying around at your homes or workspaces. Just grab few things that have a certain diameter, shape, and dimensions and then conduct voting with other players to decide which one is the best.

Advantages of Playing Poker Without Chips

Playing poker without chips holds certain advantages that can not be underestimated.

1. You don’t develop a gambling addiction.
2. You are saved from tensions.
3. The environment is fun and not fierce.
4. Even a person with financial instability can play poker.
5. Family and kids friendly.

Best Ideas of How to Play Poker Without Chips

You are now aware of the ways of playing poker without chips, the advantages of playing poker without chips, and the value of the chips in the casino world. Now let’s talk about 10 great ideas to replace poker chips.

Make Your Own Poker Chips

You can make a small casino out of your own house where every weekend you can play a game of poker with your friends or family. Get your self a printer and open adobe editing apps or if they are too tough for you, head over to Canva and make some designs.

Cut circular cardboard pieces of the same dimensions and then print your own design in such a way that it complements the dimensions of your cardboard poker chips and glue them on. Now you are ready to place your bets.

Monopoly or Scrabble

These two games are found in almost every home, just take them and then use them. In our example we will use the Monopoly:

1. The houses are $10 bets
2. The hotels are $20 bets
3. The tokens are $50 bets
4. The dice are $100 bets

Like this, you can make board games laying around your home to good use to play poker without chips.

Carrom

This is a game that is not found in many homes as it is most popular in the sub-continent but it surely is a great family game and many people have bought carrom even outside the subcontinent. If you have the carrom coins laying around somewhere you can use it like this example or as you please.

1. The white coins are $10 bets
2. The black coins are $20 bets
3. The shooter is a $50 bet (use only if you have more than one shooter)
4. The red coin or the queen is a $100 bet

Food and Drinks

You can play poker without poker chips by unlocking your creativity. Food is an item that can replace poker chips for you if you use your imagination to good use. Cookies, beans, even the food/drink packing like the bottle caps can be used to replace poker chips to place bets.

Like this, you can use candies to replace poker chips and not have any money involved. An expensive candy will represent a higher bet and vice versa for an inexpensive candy.

Strip Poker (Not Family Friendly)

This is something that needs the consent of all the individuals as it is a bit sensitive for a few. If all of the players are happy to show a bit of the skin then this dirty way to replace poker chips can be great fun for open-minded people. You can mix it with Irish Poker, Texas hold ’em and then enjoy the time of your life.

The rules for this one are as followed, you can always make yours.

1. The players winning will keep their clothes on.
2. The other player losing their hand have to remove clothes.

Whiteboard

You can use a whiteboard if you can’t get your hands on any of the things we mentioned above or the strip poker is out of the question. Just write the name of the players in columns and in the rows the bets they place in the game and note down the scores. For reference look at the picture below.

Playing Poker Using a Whiteboard.

Fake Money

You can again use your imagination like with food. The fake money is easily available or you can always use the money from monopoly for this. This way you are not dealing in real cash and the game is kept within limits of fun only. The money can alternatively be made using paper and just a pen, but we recommend buying from the eBay link above or use money from famous board games.

Dares

You can place bets in form of dares or confessing something. This will increase the overall fun in poker by a lot and makes playing poker without chips a lot more daring on the other hand you can easily mix poker with truth and dare by placing the bets as follows or your own rules:

1. Truth = $10
2. Dare = $20
3. Truth + Dare = $50
4. The Ultimate Dare = $100 —–> This one is decided at the very start of the game

Spicy Poker

Ramen Spicy Noodles

To play poker without poker chips you can use a spicy version of this, yeah we know the strip poker was very spicy as well but this version is family-friendly. What you need to do is prepare or buy spicy noodles from somewhere, we used these for our session. They come in different spice levels, by ordering each level and assigning bets to them is a very hot way of playing poker without chips.

Pushup Poker

Obesity is on the rise in the United State and around the globe. People are having very unhealthy habits and it was further escalated by the COVID lockdowns. One of the best ways to reduce it is to incorporate healthy activities in things. One of the best ways is to replace poker chips or if you don’t have poker chips to play poker with pushups. Pushups are one of the best exercises to build the body, lose fat and have a nice shape. We did it this way but you can do as you wish:

1. 10 Pushups are worth $10
2. 20 Pushups are worth $20
3. 30 Pushups are worth $50

Conclusion

These were some of the most fun ways to play poker without poker chips. They are all done with or without anything laying at home. The most fun way to play poker is with family or friends with no greed involved and the only motive is having fun. This can create everlasting bonds which can last generations.