A ficheur is a chip-sorting machine used at roulette tables. It is most closely linked with American-style roulette, where each player at the table gets chips of their own colour so that everyone’s bets can be told apart on a crowded layout.
With many players spreading chips over dozens of numbers, keeping track by hand would be slow and error-prone. After each spin, the croupier sweeps the losing chips into the ficheur, which separates them by colour and stacks them ready for the next round. That frees the croupier to pay winners and keep the game moving, instead of sorting piles of chips while players wait.
Online roulette needs no sorting
In digital and live roulette, each player’s bets are tracked by the system, so there are no coloured chips to sort. The dealer spins and announces the result while settlement happens automatically.