It was not exactly Ocean's Eleven, but what it lacked in sophistication it made up for in daring.

A gunman dressed in a jumpsuit and motorcycle helmet made off with $1.5m (£950,000) worth of gambling chips from the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas.

CCTV footage of the raid shows the gunman hotfooting it across the casino's foyer. At one point, he turns and points a pistol behind him.

He had just stuck up a craps table, according to a police spokeswoman. "He pulled a gun, told everyone not to move and took approximately $1.5m worth of casino chips. The suspect then ran back out to the motorcycle and exited westbound on Flamingo Boulevard," the spokeswoman said.

The casino's owners and the police say the raider will have problems cashing in his chips, which range in value from $100 to $25,000 and cannot be redeemed at any other casino.

"The industry has some safeguards in place that make that extremely difficult," said Clinton Nichols, of the Las Vegas police department.

Police believe the same man may have carried out a similar raid last week at another Las Vegas casino. In that incident someone in a similar helmet got away with about $20,000 in chips.

A spokeswoman for MGM, which owns the Bellagio, said: "Casino chips are not like cash. At some point they must be redeemed."