Casino workers usually allude to chips as "cheques," being of French ancestry. In reality, there’s a difference amidst a chip and a cheque. A cheque is a chip with a value written on it and is forever worth the amount of the printed amount. Chips, although, don’t have denominations written on them and any colour can be worth any amt. as determined by the croupier. For instance, in a poker tournament, the house might define white chips as 1 dollar and blue chips as $10; whereas, in a roulette game, the dealer might state that white chips as $0.25 and blue chips as 2 dollars. A further example, the cheap red, white, and blue poker chips you purchase at Target for your weekly poker game are known as "chips" due to the fact that they don’t have values imprinted on them.
When you plop your $$$$ down on the craps table and hear the dealer say, "Cheque change only," he is just advising the box man that a new patron wishes to change $$$$$$ for chips (cheques), and that the $$$$$ on the craps table is not part of the action. $$$$$$ plays in almost all casinos, so if you place a $5 bill on the Pass Line just prior to the tosser tossing the dice and the croupier doesn’t change your cash for cheques, your cash is "part of the action." When the dealer says, "Cheque change only," the boxman knows that your cash isn’t part of the action.
Technically, in land based craps rounds, we play with cheques, and not chips. Occasionally, a gambler will approach the craps table, drop a 100 dollar cheque, and tell the dealer, "Cheque change." It is amusing to pretend to be a novice and ask the dealer, "Hey, I am new to Craps, what is a cheque?" Most of the time, their wacky answers will entertain you.