Always buy as many cards as you can each time, and when you can, play either the special or premium level cards. You can gamble for more chips using the other game currency (coins?) using the pinata, most of the others are gamble with chips only. I also used the pinata, I think that's under the minigames, to get more chips. At some point you unlock an aquarium, some of the fish will give you chips, though most of them not that many and if you get duplicates you can trade them in for spins on a wheel, that's one way you can get more chips. Daily spin, daily chest, events that give you chips for daubs you play in the games. You're given new ways to earn more chips as you go. The more you level up the easier it gets. You don't get many per ad but if you don't want to wait a long time to get more I suggest watching ads if you can.
If it's not flipping you can't watch any ads at the moment. To do that you look for the B on the left side that keeps flipping. I watched ads to help me regain some chips. Probably at least partially cause I didn't really know what I was doing. I ran out of chips a few times when I first started playing. You can do that if you want to but I never did. I think you have to login to facebook to be able to open those gift boxes. A little late in replying, but here's for anyone else that may come across this post.
