Casino workers usually allude to chips as "cheques," which is of French ancestry. In reality, there’s a distinction between a chip and a cheque. A cheque is a chip with a denomination imprinted on it and is always worth the amount of the imprinted number. Chips, however, don’t have values written on them and any colour can be worth any amount as determined by the house. e.g., in a poker tournament, the casino might value white chips as one dollar and blue chips as ten dollars; at the same time, in a game of roulette, the house may state that white chips as $0.25 and blue chips as two dollars. Another instance, the cheap red, white, and blue poker chips you can get at K-Mart for your weekly poker game are referred to as "chips" because they don’t have values printed on them.
When you plop your cash down on the table and hear the dealer announce, "Cheque change only," she’s simply informing the boxman that a new gambler wants to exchange cash for chips (cheques), and that the $$$$$$ on the table isn’t part of the action. Cash plays in a majority of casinos, so if you place a $5 bill on the Pass Line just before the tosser rolls the bones and the croupier does not exchange your $$$$$ for chips, your $$$$$$ is "part of the action." When the croupier announces, "Cheque change only," the boxman knows that your $$$$$$ isn’t in play.
Technically, in in real life craps games, we play with cheques, not chips. Occasionally, a gambler will approach the craps table, put down a $100 cheque, and inform the dealer, "Cheque change." It’s fun to act like a newbie and ask the croupier, "Hey, I am new to this game, what’s a cheque?" Frequently, their wacky answers will entertain you.