Chuck E. Cheese wants to destroy 7 billion prize tickets worth $9 million in prizes as the company claws its way out of bankruptcy

• Chuck E. Cheese wants to destroy about 7 billion paper prize tickets worth $9 million in prizes.
• In a Monday emergency motion, Chuck E. Cheese parent company CEC Entertainment requested permission for its vendors to destroy the tickets, which could fill "approximately 65 40-foot cargo shipping containers."
• Destroying the tickets will cost CEC Entertainment about $2.3 million dollars, but will still be $1 million cheaper than circulating them.
• Chuck E. Cheese is also rolling out e-tickets as part of a pivot towards a more touchless customer experience.

In its efforts to stay afloat, Chuck E. Cheese is ejecting ballast in the form of its iconic paper prize tickets.

CEC Entertainment, the parent company of the iconic children's dinnertainment chain, wants to spend $2.28 million to shred about 7 billion prize tickets, Bloomberg Law first reported on Tuesday.

Destroying the prize tickets rather than circulating them would also allow Chuck E. Cheese to save about $1 million. And if the tickets were simply abandoned instead of destroyed, they could be exchanged for about $9 million in prizes — a major financial blow to the already struggling company.

The company filed an emergency motion for permission to destroy the tickets in Texas's Southern District bankruptcy court on Monday. The motion lays out a plan for paying ticket suppliers for their existing stock — which was ordered before the pandemic and remains largely unused — and the cost of destroying it.

According to the bankruptcy filing, enough tickets have piled up to fill "approximately 65 40-foot cargo shipping containers."

Chuck E. Cheese has also recently launched "e-tickets" as part of a pivot towards a more pandemic-friendly touchless customer experience. As some locations reopen, the company has already started to phase out its paper tickets.