Just like any other industry, gambling has many slang words and expressions. Knowing these will help you to look like a seasoned gambler even when you’re not. You will have more confidence in gambling when you’re familiar with the lingo.
What Should you do about them.
Bankroll and high roller
Bankroll is a term you frequently hear in the casino industry, especially when playing at a real money casino. A bankroll is the total amount of cash you are willing to risk when gambling. A high roller is someone with a large bankroll who will play higher stakes and risk more for more rewards. A casino owner loves whales or super-wealthy individuals who have even more only than high rollers. They usually have vast amounts of cash. It doesn’t matter if they lose or win. They just want to be entertained.
Card sharp and card washing
When you play in physical casinos, you don’t want to play against a card sharp. A card sharp is someone who is skilled at playing cards. If you play against a card sharp in a game of poker, you are likely to lose your money.
Card washing has nothing to do with applying soap and water. It happens when the dealer spreads the cards on the table and mixes them up before shuffling. In modern casinos, you won’t see this because they use automatic card shufflers to save time.
Dead Man’s Hand and King Kong
The funny names are descriptive or tell a story about card hands. A dead man’s hand is a ‘cursed’ poker hand. It usually consists of an ace of spades, eight of spades, ace of clubs and eight of clubs. The name comes from a game played by “Wild Bill” Hickok, who was shot dead at the poker table when holding that hand. There are also slang terms for many other hands, too, such as King Kong referring to a combination of a king and a king of any suit.
The Devil’s Wheel
Roulette is the oldest of all contemporary casino games and is surrounded by plenty of folklore. It’s no wonder that the roulette wheel could have been associated with the Devil. Both 0 and 00 versions add up to 666 which is the number of the beast in the Bible. There’s a story that a monk dared the Devil to a game known as The Devil’s Wheel and won, but the competition drove him insane. This is an expression used in the past that is not going to appear in any list of slang terms for 2023.
These are just a few of the slang words and expressions that have become popular in gambling over the years. Some of them are still in use today, and others have faded from use over time.
