Craps

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Casino staff normally refer to chips as "cheques," being of French origin. Technically, there’s a difference amidst a chip and a cheque. A cheque is a chip with a value imprinted on it and is always valued at the value of the written number. Chips, however, don’t have denominations imprinted on them and any color can be valued at any dollar value as defined by the croupier. For instance, in a poker tournament, the casino may state that white chips as 1 dollar and blue chips as 10 dollars; while, in a roulette game, the dealer might state that white chips as 25 cents and blue chips as 2 dollars. An additional instance, the cheap red, white, and blue plastic chips you can get at K-Mart for your weekly poker game are referred to as "chips" owing to the fact that they don’t have denominations printed on them.

When you plop your money down on the table and hear the dealer say, "Cheque change only," he is basically telling the boxman that a new individual wishes to change $$$$$$ for chips (cheques), and that the $$$$$$ on the table is not in play. $$$$$$ plays in a majority of betting houses, so if you lay a 5 dollar bill on the Pass Line just prior to the hurler rolling the dice and the croupier does not exchange your cash for cheques, your cash is "live" and "in play." When the dealer indicates, "Cheque change only," the boxman understands that your $$$$$$ is not part of the action.

In reality, in live craps rounds, we play with cheques, not chips. Every now and then, a player will walk up to the the craps table, put down a $100 cheque, and inform the croupier, "Cheque change." It’s entertaining to pretend to be a newbie and say to the dealer, "Hey, I am new to this game, what’s a cheque?" Frequently, their crazy responses will amuse you.