| Term |
Description |
| All In |
In poker, going all in means betting your entire stack on a single hand. |
| Bean |
In poker, a bean or an ante bean is a term that refers to the ante or the chip that is used to place the ante. |
| Chalk |
In sports betting, picking the chalk or betting the chalk means betting on the favorites. |
| Cooler |
In poker, a cooler is a case in which somebody plays a very strong hand that justifies placing the maximum bet, but is still beaten by an even stronger hand. |
| Cover |
In most cases, covering the bet simply means accepting the bet for play or putting enough money on the line to pay for the action. |
| Dime |
In gambler parlance, a dime is a $1,000 wager. |
| Double Down |
Double down is a blackjack term and is the name of one of the decisions that a player can make as the game goes on. |
| EV |
EV, or expected value, is what the player could expect to win or lose per a single game if he was to place the same bet in the same situation an infinite number of times. |
| Fade |
To fade means to bet against, particularly when referring to betting against a person. |
| Fish |
In poker lingo, the term “fish” is used to describe an extremely unskilled player who tends to play a loose game, but remains passive regardless of the situation at the table, or makes aggressive moves when he shouldn’t. |
| Handle |
In sports betting lingo, the term handle is often used by the bookmakers to describe the total amount of money wagered over a specific period of time. |
| Heater |
A heater is a series of events in any game of chance occurring within a short, concise time frame, and resulting in a positive outcome for the player involved. |
| Hedge |
In online sports betting, to hedge means to make a bet or a series of bets that take the opposite site of your original position in order to reduce the risk involved or lock in some profit. |
| Hook |
In sports betting, the term “hook” refers to a half-point. Consequently, saying “two and a hook” is the equivalent of saying “two and a half.” |
| Juice |
Juice, also referred to as vigorish, vig, the take or the cut, is the amount charged by a live bookmaker or a sports betting site for its services. |
| Kitty |
In home poker games, a kitty is a pool of money that has been built by collecting small, predetermined amounts from specific pots or even every single pot. |
| Long Term |
Whether you’re talking about sports betting, casino games or poker, the term “long term” refers to the overall profitability over prolonged periods of time. |
| Marker |
Casino and card room markers are special credits that allow players to receive easy access to large amounts of money on the spot. |
| Middle |
In sports betting, playing the middle means placing two bets on opposite teams or totals with advantageous point spreads or lines, usually at different sports books. |
| Moose |
In sports betting, a moose is simply the equivalent of a poker bad beat – a bet that goes horribly wrong despite the fact that everything was progressing just as planned and the punter seemed to have the odds going in his favor. |
| Mush |
To mush means to create bad luck for others in gambling situations. |
| Nickel |
In gambling lingo and especially in the sports betting world, a nickel is a $500 wager. |
| Over Under |
In sports betting, an over under bet refers to a wager in which the sports book predicts a number for a statistic in the game in question, and the bettors have to wager whether the actual result will exceed that prediction or end up being lower. |
| Overlay |
In poker, an overlay is the gap between a tournament’s guaranteed prize pool and the actual prize pool generated by entrants. |
| Parlay |
In sports betting, a parlay, also known as an accumulator, is a combo wager that links together two or more individual bets. |
| PK |
In sports betting, “PK” is an abbreviation for “pick” or “pick’em” and refers to even money wagers in point spread betting. |
| Pony |
In sports betting, a pony is British slang for a sum of £25. |
| Press |
In gambling, particularly in sports betting, to press means to bet a larger amount than usual or to double up. |
| Punter |
In British and Australian sports betting slang, particularly when it comes to horse race betting, the term “punter” is simply a synonym of the word “bettor” or “gambler,” and is used to refer to a person who bets on the outcome of a sporting event. |
| Push |
In poker and other competitive gambling games, to push means to go all in. |
| Shark |
A card shark is an expert card player whose skills enable him to take advantage of weaker players. |
| Sharp |
In sports gambling, the term “sharp” is used to refer to intelligent and astute bettors. |
| Shoe |
A shoe is a casino device which is used for holding and dispensing playing cards to be dealt. |
| Snake Eyes |
Snake eyes is the outcome of rolling two dice in any gambling game and getting one pip on each die. |
| Square |
In gambler parlance, and especially in sports gambling terminology, a square is simply an extremely inexperienced player, who is completely incapable of thinking outside the box, or of his “square.” |
| Steam |
In sports betting terminology, “steam” refers to a sudden rush of money all coming in on one team or total, which results in rapid line moves. |
| SU |
In sports betting terminology, SU is an abbreviation for “Straight Up”, which refers to the record of a team without factoring in the spread. |
| Tell |
In poker, the term “tell” refers to a change in a player’s behavior that gives clues as to what type of hand he or she might be holding. |
| Tilt |
In poker, the term “tilt” is used to refer to the state of frustration or confusion in which the player tends to adopt a less-than-optimal strategy due to emotional reasons. |
| Unit |
In sports betting, a “unit” is a measurement of the size of a punter’s bet. |
| Vigorish (Vig) |
In sports betting, vigorish is a straight synonym for the juice. However, in casino gaming, vig may refer to the natural, built-in advantage the house has on most wagers. Vigorish may also refer to rake in poker. |
| Whale |
A whale, also referred to as high roller, is a player who wagers massive amounts of money. |
| Yankee |
In sports betting and horse race betting, a Yankee is a full coverage combination bet, which is made up of four selections. |
