Routine cleaning reduces potential spread of pathogens and chips look newer longer,” says George Shepherd, president of Bar Maid Corporation. “Reduced labor costs versus hand cleaning, and eliminating the need to hire expensive chip cleaning services, translates to a fast ROI.
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (PRWEB) September 21, 2020
Florida-based Bar Maid Corporation released the CHIP CHAMPION™ Casino Chip Cleaning System, addressing one of the casino industry’s biggest challenges… how to clean germy casino chips.
Casino chips are one of the most touched surfaces in a casino, changing hands frequently and accumulating oils, feces and pathogens on the surface each time. Casinos rarely clean them, if ever. They can harbor more pathogens than a toilet or door handle.
A study published in the Journal of Environmental Health tested for bacteria and fungi on both new, uncirculated casino chips and circulated casino chips collected from four casinos.1 Bacteria and fungi were found in statistically significant amounts on the circulated casino chips, including E. coli, a bacteria commonly found in feces and often responsible for foodborne illnesses. Researchers also found both gram-positive and gram-negative rod-shaped bacteria and gram-negative cocci, spherical-like bacteria that can cause meningitis, sinusitis, and bronchopneumonia. Surprisingly, even the uncirculated casino chips were contaminated with bacteria. This study did not test for viral pathogens, but viruses may also survive on the surface of casino chips.
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. Centers for Disease Control advised casinos and gaming operations to limit customers’ sharing of objects and when possible, to clean and disinfect these objects between uses. However, cleaning casino chips has long been problematic due to the composition of chips and security concerns. The process traditionally required casino staff to wipe each chip by hand or an outside service vendor bringing an enormous casino chip cleaning machine onsite, both time consuming and expensive.
The CHIP CHAMPION Casino Chip Cleaning System allows casinos to quickly clean chips and dice in-house to reduce potential spread of pathogens among staff and players. The system pairs a multi-purpose quaternary tablet sanitizer bath with a durable, stainless steel machine that utilizes high heat and UVC light to process thousands of chips and dice per hour. The system is already in use at multiple casino properties.
A single staff member operates the system by immersing chips and dice in sanitizer according to label directions and draining well. Depending upon CHIP CHAMPION model, sanitized chips and dice are placed into an automatic feeder or fed into the machine chute. They pass through a hot 120-140˚ organic granulate that scrubs them dry, then exposed to UVC light before exiting the machine, immediately ready for use.
“The CHIP CHAMPION Casino Chip Cleaning System solves the germy casino chip problem that has plagued casinos for years. Routine cleaning reduces potential spread of pathogens and increases chip life, as chips look newer longer,” says George Shepherd, president of Bar Maid Corporation. “The reduced labor costs versus hand cleaning, and eliminating the need to hire expensive chip cleaning services, translates to a fast ROI.”
There are three models available. Casinos can choose based on volume and available space. The compact model processes 3,000-4,000 chips and dice per hour. The somewhat larger high output model processes 7,000-9,000, and if purchased with the optional Automatic Feeder, will process more than 10,000 chips and dice per hour. All models have a relatively small footprint that fits most work tables or can use the optional wheeled cart for easy portability and storage.
About Bar Maid Corporation
Bar Maid Corporation, the world’s leading manufacturer of portable 5-brush electric glass washers, offers a catalog of more than 200 products designed to improve safety, while maximizing efficiency and profit for food and beverage services in the hospitality industry. For over 50 years, Bar Maid has been making innovative, high quality (mostly made in USA) commercial grade products used by bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos, convention facilities and event catering in the USA, Canada, Central/South America and many other countries throughout the world. Bar Maid remains a privately held company based in Pompano Beach, Fla.
1 Mc Keown, Edward. (2019, May). Gambling With Your Health: Bacterial Contamination on Casino Gaming Chips. Journal of Environmental Health, Volume 81 (No. 9). https://www.neha.org/node/60687
Digital Assets:
Web and High Resolution product and logo images are available on our Google Drive https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B95SJ78IFZS4WF92ZUpqYlU1WTg
Videos available on the Bar Maid YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/barmaidwashers
YouTube Video for CHIP CHAMPION: https://youtu.be/zrPmPP2IohI
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