Craps

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Casino staff generally refer to chips as "cheques," which has its origins in France. Technically, there’s a difference between a chip and a cheque. A cheque is a chip with a value written on it and is always worth the value of the printed value. Chips, however, don’t have denominations written on them and any color can be worth any amount as defined by the croupier. For example, in a poker table, the casino may define white chips as $1 and blue chips as ten dollars; while, in a roulette game, the casino might value white chips as twenty-five cents and blue chips at two dollars. A different example, the inexpensive red, white, and blue poker chips you purchase at Wal-Mart for your weekly poker game are called "chips" due to the fact that they don’t have values imprinted on them.

When you plop your cash down and hear the dealer announce, "Cheque change only," he’s merely telling the boxman that a new player wish to change money for chips or more correctly cheques, and that the cash sitting on the table is not in play. Cash plays in many casinos, so if you place a $5 bill on the Pass Line just prior to the player tosses the ivories and the dealer doesn’t exchange your money for chips, your money is "live" and "in play."

In reality, in actual craps games, we wager with with cheques, and not chips. Every now and then, an individual will approach the table, put down a one hundred dollar cheque, and tell the croupier, "Cheque change." It’s amusing to pretend to be a newbie and ask the croupier, "Hey, I am a beginner to this game, what is a cheque?" Generally, their crazy answers will entertain you.