chips are down, the

The situation is urgent or desperate, or both. The term comes from poker, where the chips represent money being wagered. When all the bets are in, the hand is over and the cards must be turned faceup to determine who has the winning hand. From the same source come two other clichés, to cash in one’s chips, meaning to die, since turning in one’s chips for money signifies the end of the game; and in the chips, meaning to be rich, that is, having very many chips. All these expressions date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.