Craps

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Casino personnel usually refer to chips as "cheques," which is of French origin. In reality, there’s a difference between a chip and a cheque. A cheque is just a chip with a denomination written on it and is forever worth the amount of the printed value. Chips, on the other hand, do not have values imprinted on them and any color can be worth any amount as determined by the dealer. For instance, in a poker table, the casino may define white chips as one dollar and blue chips as $10; at the same time, in a roulette game, the croupier may value white chips as 25 cents and blue chips as two dollars. Another example, the cheap red, white, and blue poker chips you buy at the department store for your weekend poker game are referred to as "chips" due to the fact that they do not have values written on them.

When you put your cash down on the table and hear the croupier say, "Cheque change only," he’s just informing the boxman that a new player wants to change cash for chips or more correctly cheques, and that the cash sitting on the table is not in play. Money plays in most betting houses, so if you place a 5 dollar bill on the Pass Line just before the shooter rolls the pair of dice and the dealer does not exchange your money for chips, your money is "live" and "in play."

In reality, in actual craps games, we bet with with cheques, and not chips. Every now and then, a player will walk up to the the table, put down a 100 dollar cheque, and inform the dealer, "Cheque change." It is amusing to pretend to be an amateur and ask the dealer, "Hey, I’m a beginner to this game, what is a cheque?" Most of the time, their crazy responses will entertain you.