By Liz Benston (contact)

Fri, Aug 1, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Poker chips manufactured by a Las Vegas company will be the focus of notices at 21 California card clubs starting Nov. 1 — and not for promotional purposes.

Signs will inform customers that casino chips on the premises contain lead, a metal known to cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems.

The notices, and a requirement that the chips in question contain no more than .005 percent lead, settle a lawsuit filed last year by a nonprofit watchdog group in California against Gaming Partners International, which makes most of the gaming chips used in casinos worldwide, including Paulson chips in Nevada casinos.

The news revives a controversy that erupted last year when a Phoenix television station that tested Paulson chips reported that some contained a dangerous amount of lead. That story prompted Arizona health officials to issue a public health alert and notify federal recall authorities and government health experts. It also shook up the casino industry, with executives and employees seeking answers from the manufacturer.

That contention fizzled after the Arizona Department of Health Services, whose own tests of Paulson chips showed concentrations of lead significantly lower than those reported by the television station, withdrew the public health alert and declared that the chips posed no health risk. The television station pulled the original story from its Web site.

Independent tests showed it was physically impossible for either dealers or players to receive a harmful dose of lead by coming in contact with the chips.

The Center for Environmental Health, which filed the lawsuit, says the company’s assumptions about harmful levels of exposure are out of date. New research shows that even low concentrations of lead can be harmful, especially for children born to women who are exposed to lead, they say. More recently, federal health officials have determined that there’s no safe level of lead exposure for children.

Gaming Partners, which began phasing out lead in the 1990s, was among hundreds of businesses that have been sued as a result of California’s Proposition 65, a 1986 law requiring that businesses in that state post warning signs notifying consumers of harmful substances on the premises.

Proposition 65 warning signs for chemicals “known to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm” are ubiquitous in many California businesses such as bars, restaurants, hotels, parking garages, gas stations and retail stores.

Attorney John Allen, who represented Gaming Partners and has defended other companies in Proposition 65 claims, called the lawsuit an “unpleasant experience” but said he respects the “legitimate” efforts of the Center for Environmental Health.