Casino personnel usually refer to chips as "cheques," which is of French ancestry. In reality, there is a difference between a chip and a cheque. A cheque is a chip with a denomination imprinted on it and is always worth the value of the printed amount. Chips, although, don’t have denominations printed on them and any color can be worth any dollar value as defined by the croupier. For example, in a poker tournament, the casino might define white chips as $1 and blue chips as $10; at the same time, in a roulette game, the house may state that white chips as 25 cents and blue chips as 2 dollars. A different example, the inexpensive red, white, and blue plastic chips you buy at Target for your weekly poker get together are considered "chips" owing to the fact that they don’t have values written on them.
When you plop your $$$$ down on the table and hear the croupier say, "Cheque change only," he is just advising the box man that a new gambler would like to change money for chips (cheques), and that the $$$$$$ on the craps table is not in play. $$$$$$ plays in a majority of betting houses, so if you put a $5 bill on the Pass Line just before the player rolls the dice and the dealer doesn’t change your $$$$$ for cheques, your $$$$$$ is "in play." When the croupier announces, "Cheque change only," the boxman knows that your money is not in play.
In reality, in live craps rounds, we bet with cheques, and not chips. Occasionally, a player will walk up to the the craps table, put down a $100 cheque, and inform the croupier, "Cheque change." It is entertaining to act like a novice and say to the dealer, "Hey, I am new to this game, what’s a cheque?" Most of the time, their crazy answers will entertain you.