If you have spoken to a few gamblers, you have surely heard some gambling terms along the way. Gamblers have jargon for everything, from good players (sharks, pros, lucky) to bad players (rubes, fish, ATMs), from great luck (sometimes called “skill” by the lucky one) to horrible luck (this might be known as “just the breaks,” or “rigged games” by the victim of the bad luck). If you are venturing into the world of gambling, you need every advantage you can get. Being able to talk the talk with the best of them could be an advantage, since you are less likely to be recognized right off the bat as a rube or a fish.

Too Many Gambling Terms to List

There are thousands of gambling terms, far too many for me to list or define them here. If you like glossaries or dictionary style lists, you will have to look elsewhere. A quick search in Google will net you almost 4 million possibilities. And each gambling game has some of its own gambling terms, or jargon, so you will need to do a bit of research to brush up on as many gambling terms as possible for your favorite game.

Most Common Gambling Terms

What I will do is go through a few of the more common gambling terms, just to get you started. First gambling term that all players should know is ACTION. Action is play, it is wagering, it is risking something to potentially win more. You will hear this gambling term frequently. “Did you put any action on the Superbowl? Man, there was a lot for action at the Blackjack table last night.” And so on.

Gambling Terms: Bankroll

Another important gambling term for you: bankroll. Sometime referred to colloquially as your “roll” or “wad,” this is the money you have on hand to gamble with. It is apart from your personal finances and largely determines what level you can play at, i.e., if your bankroll is $5,000, you should not be playing $1000 per hand at blackjack.

Gambling Terms: Calling Wagers

Some other good gambling terms for newcomers to know about are how you call some standard wagers. I have no idea why, but a $100 bet is known as a dollar, $500 is known as a nickel, and $1,000 is known as a dime. It seems to me that based on the progression from nickel to dime should dictate that a $100 bet is a penny, but that is not the way it is.

Gambling Terms: Cards

If cards are your thing, then the list of gambling terms you should familiarize yourself with is near endless, as some wit is always adding to it. In Texas Hold’Em, A-K was known for decades as Big Slick, but then one day I heard some wise guy refer to that hand Anna Kournikova, because it looks amazing but doesn´t win very often. Here is a homework assignment for you: find out what American Airlines, trip deuces, all-in, and wronging mean.

As I mentioned, I never set out to write a dictionary of gambling terms, but only to show newcomers to the world the need to know some gambling terms. Maybe I did that, or maybe I just merved it all.