Understanding How to Wager on Craps – Hints and Tactics: Casino Chips or Casino Cheques?
Casino employees normally refer to chips as "cheques," being of French ancestry. Technically, there is a difference amidst a chip and a cheque. A cheque is a chip with a denomination printed on its face and is constantly worth the amount of the printed number. Chips, although, do not have denominations printed on them and any colour can be valued at any amount as determined by the dealer. For instance, in a poker tournament, the croupier may state that white chips as 1 dollar and blue chips as $10; while, in a roulette game, the croupier may value white chips as 25 cents and blue chips as 2 dollars. A further instance, the cheap red, white, and blue plastic chips you purchase at K-Mart for your weekly poker get together are known as "chips" due to the fact that they don’t have values written on them.
When you plop your money down on the craps table and hear the dealer announce, "Cheque change only," he’s basically telling the boxman that a new individual wants to exchange $$$$$$ for chips (cheques), and that the $$$$$$ on the craps table isn’t in play. $$$$$ plays in a majority of casinos, so if you place a five dollar bill on the Pass Line just prior to the player rolling the bones and the dealer does not exchange your cash for cheques, your $$$$$$ is "part of the action." When the dealer says, "Cheque change only," the boxman understands that your $$$$$$ isn’t in play.
In reality, in live craps games, we bet with cheques, and not chips. Every now and then, a player will walk up to the the craps table, put down a 100 dollar cheque, and say to the croupier, "Cheque change." It’s entertaining to pretend to be a novice and ask the croupier, "Hey, I’m new to Craps, what is a cheque?" Most of the time, their comical answers will entertain you.