Poker without chips is entirely possible as long as everyone agrees on what each item is worth.

Any countable object works as a betting token: coins, Monopoly money, candy, printed paper chips, office supplies, or a free mobile app.

I have hosted home games with nothing more than a roll of quarters, a pen, and a deck of cards, and the game ran just as smoothly as any game with a proper chip set.

This guide covers 9 practical substitutes you can set up tonight without going to a store.

Option #1. Play with Cash

If you have ever watched High Stakes Poker, you have probably seen players sitting with big wads of cash worth $50,000 in front of them, along with their chips. 

While playing with $50k bricks is probably not advisable for most players, using cash to play poker is completely reasonable. 

If you are playing in a bigger cash game like $5/10, using dollar bills can be a good way to replace poker chips, much like they do in some scenes in Rounders. 

If your home game is much smaller than that, using coins such as nickels, dimes, and dollar coins can be a good substitute as well. 

In either case, you can use any type of real currency to replace poker chips, and this will also help avoid any confusion as to the value of the currency being put into the pot. 

Option #2. Use Monopoly Money

Another way to play poker without chips is to use the money from the Monopoly box that’s probably sitting somewhere in your closet. 

Chances are you or one of your friends have a game of Monopoly you haven’t touched in years, and it comes stacked with fake bills ideal for a poker game. 

Different monopoly boxes come with different bills, but they all have bills in different colors that represent different dollar denominations. 

You can use those bills to represent any denominations you need for your home game, allowing you to quickly distribute the currency and start the game. 

While this currency is a bit fragile, as it is made of plain paper, it will certainly do for a friendly game of poker on your dining room table. 

Option #3. Print Your Own Chips

If Monopoly money doesn’t quite cut it for you, you can create a similar currency of your own by printing out paper chips. 

Granted, printed chips on pieces of paper won’t be the same as plastic or clay chips, but they can have the exact denominations you want, as well as a logo of sorts that sets them apart from anything someone could bring into the game. 

Printing paper chips in this way may be a bit tedious, as you will need to print quite a few sheets of paper and then cut out the chips from each one of them. 

However, this is not something that can’t be done in a single afternoon and may be a good way to prepare for your friends coming over to play poker. 

If you don’t have easy access to poker chips, fire up your computer, put a little thought into the design, and start printing your chips within minutes. 

Option #4. Put Candy into Play

While candies typically exist to bring joy to little children, scooping a big pot full of colorful candies may get you excited if you use this currency instead of chips in your home game. 

After all, candy is something that’s very easy to come by, and you can buy big bags of this unhealthy food for next to nothing. 

Once you have them, separate the candies of different colors, and you will have yourself the perfect substitute for poker chips. 

For example, the orange candies can be worth $0.25, the red is worth a dollar, and the green one $5, or any other way you see fit. 

At the end of the day, it will be up to you and your friends to figure things out but remember to only play with this currency with people you trust, as anyone can go out and buy a big bag of candy before the home game starts. 

Option #5. Office Supplies as Poker Chips

If you still don’t have the right thing sitting around to act as poker chips, look into your office supplies, and you may find what you are looking for. 

Paper clips can be a great substitute for poker chips, as they come in different colors and boxes of 100 or more at a time. 

Other office supplies or even household items like buttons can act as good poker chips as well, just as long as they come in different colors and are relatively uniform. 

You will probably be using your alternative poker currency in a very small game, so you should not be too worried about how things look or whether a mistake is made in terms of chip values. 

Option #6. Track Your Results on Paper

This alternative method of tracking each player’s stack may be a bit burdensome, but it can work out quite nicely if one of the people involved is willing to keep tabs.

Start everyone on the same chip stack and make sure that every action in every hand is written down. That way, you can update the chip stacks at the end of the hand and keep doing so throughout the game. 

The one problem with this method is that the person keeping tabs is probably not going to be able to play as well, as they will be too busy making sure that all the numbers add up. 

I would not use this approach for a game with meaningful stakes, since tracking every action on paper slows things down and creates disagreements when a player misremembers a bet. For a casual game where the goal is to spend time with friends rather than play seriously, a notebook and a pen work perfectly well.

Option #7. Download an Appropriate App

A number of chip-tracking apps exist specifically for home games without physical chips.

Search your phone’s app store for “poker chip tracker” or “poker home game app” and you will find several free options that let you assign starting stacks, record bets, and display running totals on one or more phones placed at the table.

I find these apps most useful when one player is not playing a hand and can focus on tracking. If everyone at the table is active every hand, paper is actually simpler. The app option works best for smaller groups of four or fewer, where one person can realistically track the action without missing their own hands.

Option #8. Play Poker Online

This is the option I recommend most often when someone wants a regular home game but lives far from their usual group. Playing online removes every logistical issue: no chips, no table, no card shuffling, and the software tracks every bet and stack automatically.

If you want to play poker without chips with your friends, you can also play poker online and without any mess of finding an alternative for the chips. 

There are plenty of poker apps out there that will allow you and your friends to sign up and create a private game that only you can play in. 

You can still have a game with everyone in the same room or even at the same table, but with all the action happening in the virtual realm. 

This can actually be a very fun way to play a game with your friends, as it allows for all the thrill of live poker without the mess of setting up a poker table, chips, and all the other props that come with it. 

You can set a game up so that it’s played for real money, or play with fake money and settle up with your friends in the real world. 

Option #9. Spice Things Up with Strip Poker

Perhaps the spiciest alternative to poker chips you can come up with is clothes. Every time you lose a hand, you have to discard a piece of clothing from your body. 

Of course, Strip Poker is a unique game that’s not fit for play in all social situations, but if you find yourself in the right group, it can be a very fun start to an even more exciting evening. 

You can play strip poker heads up with your significant other or bring a few couples or a group of singles together and give everyone a chance to show off what they have both in terms of poker skills and sex appeal. 

Just keep in mind that not everyone will want to play Strip Poker, and if they don’t, it is not a game you should pursue any further. 

Playing Poker without Chips Is Easy

Nine options, and the list could go on. The game adapts to whatever is in reach. In my experience, most casual home games work just as well with improvised tokens as with a proper chip set, and players often find that a bit of improvisation makes the night more memorable.

Whatever you use, agree on values before the first hand is dealt, keep a simple running count of starting stacks, and you are ready to play.