About

ChipRoom is a small, independently built service that moves the chip handling of an in-person card game onto the phones everyone already has. This page explains why it was built and how it is run.

Why it was built

Getting a poker night started with friends always stalled at the same point: nobody had chips. There was a deck of cards on the table, but no chips, and that alone was enough to end up playing something else.

Buying a set did not really solve it either. A chip case is heavy, and nobody wants to carry one to a trip or a dinner. Substituting coins or numbers scribbled on paper leads to miscounts, and the worst part of the night becomes redoing the math afterwards because the totals do not add up.

What was missing was not an app that runs poker for you, but a tool that keeps everyone looking at the same chip counts. That is why this service does exactly two things: bet and take. The people and the cards run the game; the phone only remembers the chips.

How it is run

Three things we hold to.

No sign-up

Any registration step kills the moment. When everyone is already sitting at the table, waiting on confirmation emails is the last thing you want. Opening a room link and picking your name is all it takes, and we keep it that way.

No ads

An ad in the middle of a game gets in the way of the one thing the screen is for: the chip counts. One mistaken tap that navigates away stops the game. We do not sell that space.

Free, all of it

No paid plan, no locked features, no per-player pricing. This is a hobby project and the server costs are covered on our side. You can support it through Ko-fi if you like it, but supporting changes nothing about what you get, and not supporting costs you nothing.

Changelog

September 2026: Added the guide, FAQ, about, and terms pages.
August 2026: Added English pages.
August 2026: Added Ko-fi support.

This service is a tool for recording and sharing chip counts, and does not encourage or promote gambling. Wagering real money may be restricted or prohibited by law depending on where you are. Players are responsible for following the laws that apply to them.

This is a translation for convenience. In case of any discrepancy, the Japanese version is authoritative.