Poker chip sets used to be seldom seen and mostly sold in novelty gift stores.  It wasn't usual to see them on the shelves amongst giftware.  Nowadays the sudden and steady rise in poker playing has seen these relocate from obscurity into being one of the top sought after gifts, especially for people with poker playing friends.  Even those who don't play poker are likely to keep a set just in case they have a social evening which turns to a game of cards for entertainment.

Many of the larger department stores will sell poker chips sets which come nicely packaged in a box or case and accompanied by two sets of cards and a pair of dice.  This means that the poker chip sets are not just intended to be used for poker, but for a myriad of other casino games - and there's usually an instruction booklet in the set which will set out the rules for some of these. 

Usual chip sets come with a series of colors so that you can have different values for each color set.  Occasionally there will be a value nominated for each color but usually you are left to decide that for yourself.  If you want something a little different than the usual poker chip sets sold in the stores, you can find websites which specialize in providing customized poker chip sets.  These can have the name of your choice and/or a design printed on them.

The World Poker Tour offers it's own set of poker chips.  These are often offered as chips which have actually been used in game play on the WPT.  If the player in your life is someone who actually follows the WPT on television then this would be a perfect gift for them.

You can also buy chips on eBay.  You need to ensure that if you are buying ex casino chips that these are legitimate chips and not copies, especially if the seller is asking over the chip value as a basic price for them.  If you can get real Las Vegas chips for your poker playing friend, then you'll start a great collection that they are sure to continue building on.

Buying poker chip sets has become easier in the last year or so, and so whether you play or not, you should try and pick up a set so that when the popularity starts to fall again, and once more these are consigned to the novelty gift shelves, you'll have a set to use should you ever feel the need to shuffle up and deal!