The 3 hours it took them to fill out paperwork and drive them to jail as well as the cost of housing them in jail, the time it takes the judge to read the police report and rubber stamp it at the PC hearing, and having a ADA take the time to file the paperwork to drop the case is easily 100x the amount of the stolen chips. That is not taking into account the chips themselves were no longer sellable even if recovered so the effective sale value of the chips at that point was $0.