Casino terms glossary: 22 words you will meet at the table

Casino games come with their own vocabulary. These short definitions explain the words you are most likely to meet in guides, rules and game screens. Remember that every casino game has a house edge, so players lose on average.

• Stake: The amount of money or units you put on a single bet.
• Bankroll: The total amount of money a player has set aside for gambling, which should be money you can afford to lose.
• Session: One continuous period of play, from sitting down or logging in until you stop.
• Limit: A cap on bets at a table (a minimum or a maximum) or a cap you set yourself on money or time.
• House edge: The average share of each stake that the casino keeps over the long run.
• RTP: Return to player, the share of stakes a game returns on average over the long run, so an RTP of 97% means a house edge of 3%.
• Hold: The share of the money staked that a casino actually keeps over a period, which can differ from the house edge in the short term.
• Volatility: How widely results swing around the average, so a high-volatility game has rarer but larger wins and longer losing runs.
• Payout: The amount a winning bet receives, usually shown as odds such as 35 to 1.
• Even money: A bet that pays 1 to 1, meaning you win the same amount you staked.
• Push: A tie between a bet and the result in which the stake is returned and nobody wins or loses.
• Commission: A fee, often a percentage, that the casino takes from certain winning bets, such as the Banker bet in baccarat.
• Side bet: An optional extra bet placed alongside the main bet, which often carries a higher house edge.
• Ante: A required bet placed before the cards are dealt in some card games.
• Shoe: The box that holds several shuffled decks of cards and lets the dealer draw them one at a time.
• Burn card: A card taken from the top of the deck or shoe and set aside unseen before play begins.
• Cut card: A plain card placed in the shoe to show when the cards should be reshuffled.
• Pit: The area of a casino floor, usually behind the tables, where supervisors watch the table games.
• Comp: A complimentary item or service, such as a meal, that a casino may give players based on their play, and it never changes the odds.
• Croupier: The casino employee who runs a table game such as roulette, announces the result and pays the winning bets.
• Straight up: A roulette bet on one single number, paying 35 to 1.
• Self-exclusion: A tool that lets you ask a gambling operator, or a scheme, to block you from playing for a chosen period.

18+ only. This article is for information, not advice to gamble. Responsible gambling.