Howdy Fellow CCA’ers,

Can you believe it? It’s that time of year again already! Do you have some favorite casino collectibles released in 2025 that you have been eager to nominate for an OTY award? We are officially opening our annual OTY nomination period, so I hope you all selected some great pieces that you think deserve the coveted honors, so please send me your nominations!

For any of our new CCA Members that have joined since our last contest, the OTY Awards (“Of the Year”) are an annual tradition that started in 1990 and is proudly continued today. Each year our membership nominates casino collectibles in 3 specific categories that they believe qualifies as the best collectible released in the previous year, and then our members vote to decide which nominees are the final victors. The winners are announced at our annual convention in June at our traditional OTY Awards Ceremony. In addition, a Club archive collection of previous winners are showcased on display in the CCA exhibits during the convention for all to enjoy.

If you would like to join in the fun and participate in OTY nominations, please review the contest rules below:

As a reminder the 3 open nomination categories for the CCA OTY Awards are:
1. Chip of the Year (COTY).
2. CCA Silver Strike of the Year (SSOTY).
*As a point of clarification, this is the CCA Silver Strike contest. There is a separate annual award contest held by the Silver Striker’s Club which often causes some confusion. I am a member of both clubs, if you enjoy collecting Silver Strikes and are not a current club member, I encourage you to consider joining the Silver Striker’s Club. You can find additional information or complete a membership application on Silverstrikers.com if you are interested in exploring membership.
3. Slot Card/Room Key of the Year (CKOTY).

Here are our current nomination rules:

• To submit CCA OTY nominations, you must be an active CCA member in good standing.
• Your choices for nominations must have been released in a casino in the year 2025 to be eligible for the contest.
• Nominations are limited to 3 eligible casino items per member, per category. You may nominate less if you wish.
• Nominations must be received by the deadline to be counted, prior to midnight (CST) April 5th, 2026.
• Please submit all nominations through email only. If you would like to submit a nomination and do not have access to email, please reach out to a fellow CCA Member that can submit your nominations on your behalf.
• Any items that were not released in 2025 will not be considered valid and will be disqualified from nominations.
• After the nomination period has closed, I will share our finalists in April, along with details on our voting process to choose the final winners that will be announced in June at the 2026 CCA convention.

If you need help reviewing options to choose your nominees, here are some helpful tips on locating images of chips, silver strikes, room keys, & player’s cards that were released during 2025:

If you’d like to review 2025 COTY casino chip options to nominate:

You can Search the ChipGuide website for new releases.
1. Go to the The ChipGuide. (www.chipguide.com).
2. Click “ChipGuide Query Facility” from the options under the “Features” section on the left side of the page.
3. In the filter section, for Casino Status, select “Open”. There are 2 filters that you will need to check, for Collectible Type, choose “Table Chips”, the Date Range needs to be “Equal”, and finally type “2025” in the Date 1 section. Then click “Query”. After you review the options presented from your first search, you will need change the Collectible Type filter to “Limited Edition Chips” and click “Query” again to see the remaining nomination options.

**Take note of the “Issued” date to make sure your choice is eligible.

To review eligible 2025 SSOTY silver strikes nominees, access each of the following links online:

• https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/PlazaLVnv/Plaza-LVnv-Page-12.php/
• https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-27.php/
• https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-33.php/
• https://www.silverstrikers.com/Web/Catalogs/SilverStrikes/Nevada/FourQueensLVnv/Four-Queens-LVnv-Page-50.php/

**Pay special attention to the “Issued” date to assess item eligibility.

To browse player’s cards/rooms keys that were released in 2025:

1. Go to the The ChipGuide. (www.chipguide.com).
2. Click “ChipGuide Query Facility” from the options under the “Features” section on the left side of the page.
3. In the filter section, for Casino Status, select “Open”. There are 2 filters that you will need to check, for Collectible Type, choose “Player’s Club (Slot) Cards”, the Date Range needs to be “Equal”, and finally type “2025” in the Date 1 section. Then click “Query”. After you review the options presented from your first search, you will need change the Collectible Type filter to “Room Keys” and click “Query” again to see the remaining nomination options.

• Again, please reference the “Issued” date to confirm nomination eligibility.

Credit for these images go to our fellow collectors that are members of both the CCA & Silver Striker’s Club that love our hobby and kindly submitted them to both the Chip Guide & to the Silver Striker’s Club for sharing on the websites. Since both websites rely our fellow collectors for image submissions, every piece released in 2025 may not be represented at this time. If you notice that a favorite item of yours that was released in a casino in 2025 is missing from any of the search queries, you are still welcome to nominate the piece for the 2025 CCA OTY Awards contest. Please send a scan of missing item when you submit your completed nomination form for eligibility verification.

I have 2 different email addresses that you may send your nominations to:
OTY@CCGTCC.com & link2179@juno.com.

Please submit your 2025 CCA OTY nominations in the following ballot format below (You can copy and paste this table if you wish):

Don’t forget, your name & CCA Member number must be included!

CCA Chip of the Year (COTY)

Casino Name Denom. Description City/Locale State/Country
1.
2.
3.
CCA Silver Strike of the Year (SSOTY)

Casino Name Denom. Description City/Locale State/Country
1.
2.
3.
CCA Slot Card/Room Key of the Year (CKOTY)

Casino Name Description City/Locale State/Country
1.
2.
3.

If you were unable to attend our convention last year or are unaware what pieces took the crowns for 2024, here are our OTY winners as announced at our 2025 convention :

I hope that all CCA members will enjoy this year’s contest and send in a nomination! Please stay tuned for additional 2025 CCA OTY Award updates in our newsletter, future issues of the CCA Casino Collectible News, and on our chat boards as well.

See you in June!
Trey Warren
CCA OTY Chairman