Casino staff frequently allude to chips as "cheques," which has its origins in France. Technically, there is a difference between a chip and a cheque. A cheque is a chip with a value printed on it and is always worth the amount of the printed value. Chips, on the other hand, do not have values written on them and any color can be worth any amount as defined by the casino. For example, in a poker table, the dealer might value white chips as one dollar and blue chips as ten dollars; while, in a roulette game, the dealer may value white chips as twenty-five cents and blue chips at two dollars. A further example, the cheap red, white, and blue plastic chips you buy at the department store for your weekly poker game are called "chips" because they don’t have values written on them.
When you put your cash down and hear the dealer say, "Cheque change only," he’s just informing the boxman that a new competitor wish to exchange money for cheques, and that the cash on the table is not in play. Money plays in many betting houses, so if you place a $5 bill down on the Pass Line just prior to the shooter rolls the ivories and the dealer doesn’t exchange your money for chips, your cash is "live" and "in play."
In reality, in actual craps games, we play with cheques, not chips. Occasionally, a player will approach the table, put down a $100 cheque, and tell the dealer, "Cheque change." It’s fun to act like a beginner and ask the dealer, "Hey, I am a brand-new to this game, what’s a cheque?" Most of the time, their comical answers will entertain you.
This entry was posted on March 3, 2010, 6:21 am and is filed under Craps. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.