From Ace to Yellow Chip: Understanding Blackjack Terms

This is a glossary of terms used in the game of blackjack. They are all part of the casino blackjack universe.

Some of the terms are slang, some are casino jargon used by casino employees, some are casino jargon used by card counters and advantage players, and some are quite technical in their scope.

They are all part of the rich tapestry of casino expressions used by casino aficionados worldwide.

• 86'd: Being told to leave the casino and that you will be arrested for trespassing if you return.

A:

• Ace: The highest value card in the deck. 
• Action: Being 'in action' is having money in the game, or money or chips in play.
• Advantage player: A player who looks for an advantage over the casino or the other players. 
• Agent: An outside associate brought in to assist a dealer cheat on a game. Dealers doing this cheat the casino, never the players.
• Anchor, or Anchorman: The guest seated on third base on a 21 game. (To the dealer's far right).
• Apron:
  • The non-printed area on the outside of the layout.
  • A garment worn by the dealer to prevent them from stealing chips or cash from the casino.
  • Part of the dealer's uniform to prevent wear and tear on their uniform.

B:

• Back count: To count the cards while not playing.  Observing the table from a distance and entering the game when the count became advantageous to do so - see also Wonging.
• Back off: Usually done by a Casino Shift Manager, it is when a suspected card counter or advantage player is told they can no longer play blackjack.
• Backline bet: A bet made by a second player standing behind the seated player.
• Balanced count: A counting system where at the end of the deck the sum is zero. A typical system is Lawrence Revere's Hi Lo count. 
• Bankroll: The amount of money a player brings to the casino to play.
• Bar: A player has been barred from playing in a casino when they are no longer allowed to play.
• Barber Pole: A stack of chips in which the denominations are randomly mixed together.
• Basic Strategy: The best way to play a given hand based on the player's initial two cards and the dealer's up card. Formulated by mathematics professors and astrophysicists by simulating billions of hands on a computer. 
• Bet spread: A way of referring to the player's spread of bets from minimum to maximum, in units. A player playing from $5 to $25 would be referred to as having a bet spread of 1 to 5 units. A common aggressive bet spread in such a scenario would be 1 to 12.
• Betting with both hands: Making large and frequent wagers.
• Big Player: Someone who plays as a member of a team of card counters. A spotter playing the minimum at a table secretly signals the Big Player (BP) when the count is favorable enough for him to enter the game and make a large bet or series of bets.
• Biometrica: A service employed by many casinos which identifies advantage players and others the casino may have determined to be undesirable. It usually includes photos, videos and other identifiers such as licence plates and personal identification.
• Bird cage: Clear container used to transport chips to and from the Cage to tables in the pit.
• Black action or black play: Casino jargon for players betting $100 chips or higher.$100 chips are generally black in color.
• Black chip: A $100 chip.
• Blackjack:
  • The name of the game also known as 21.
  • A hand in the game of blackjack which includes only an Ace and a ten-value card. 
• Bonus: An extra pay-off for a specific rare hand, such as paying 5 to1 for 6-7-8 suited in Spanish 21.
• Book the action: To accept a bet for play.
• Box: During a shuffle, to remove 1/3 of the deck from the top and relocate it to the bottom of the deck(s) being shuffled 
• BP: The acronym for 'the Big Player' in a card counting team.
• Break it down: Separate chips into smaller stacks so that the supervisor can read how much it is.
• Break: To go over 21; or 20 minutes off of the table for the dealer.
• Break-in Dealer: A new, "rookie" dealer in his first weeks or months on the job.
• Burn: To remove and discard a card from play by placing it face down in the discard rack. 
• Bust: To go over 21, or to lose everything.
• Bust-out joint: An illegal casino run by a criminal enterprise, where players are often cheated by the employees.
• Buy-in: Amount of paper money, chips or credit exchanged by a player for their current playing session.

C:

• Cage: Where the casino cashiers work and it is generally the heart of the casino where all the significant financial transactions occur. It used to be that all the cages had bars around them (hence the name), but that is not necessarily the case anymore. 
• Call bet: A bet made without money or cheques (usually to a well-known high-value player). Most casinos no longer allow these types of bets.
• Camouflage: An action which is intended to hide the fact that a player is counting cards or engaging in other advantage play.
• Cap: To cap a bet is a form of cheating; it means adding to your bet after you receive at least one card.
• Card counting:  A method of keeping track of the cards leaving the shoe. A level one card counting system would assign a +1 value to the 2 through 6 and a -1 value to the 10 through Ace.
• Card down: Usually a dealer drops a card on the floor by mistake.
• Case bet: Bet made with a guest’s remaining visible chips. 
• Cashier: A person who works in the cage who handles monetary transactions with players, similar to a bank teller.
• Casino host: A casino employee who takes care of high-value players assigned to them.The host would make room reservations, show reservations, meet with the player for dinner and so on.
• Catwalk: Before the advent of surveillance cameras, an area above the casino floor concealed behind one-way mirrors for observation of players and dealers on the live games.
• Centerfield: Middle position on a blackjack table.
• Check: A casino chip. Also commonly spelled as cheque.
• Cheques: What table games employees call chips.
• Cheques play: Called out by a dealer to inform his supervisor that there is a large amount of chips in play on his table.
• Cheques: What casino table games employees call chips.
• Chip: A token similar to a coin, often made of clay, and used by the casino to represent money.The standard US color scheme is White $1, Red $5, Green $25, Black $100 and Purple $500. 
• Clean Money: House chips as taken from the chip tray.
• Cold Deck: See “Cooler.”
• Cold: Losing (as in cold dice).
• Color up: When a player changes his chips to a higher denomination, usually when he gets up to leave.
• Color-for-color: Paying a bet with the same color chips.
• Comp: A complimentary gift given by a casino to encourage and reward play. Comps can range from the most common, free drinks while playing, to the most unusual, such as free meals, rooms, trips to resort locations, tickets to the Super Bowl, African safaris etc.
• Composition dependent strategy: It's a method of deciding how to play your hand based upon the cards you are dealt.For example, you may choose to hit if your cards are a 7 and an 8, but to stand if you have a Queen and a 5, even though both hands add up to 15. 
• Continuous Shuffling Machine: This is a device that randomly inserts discards back in the deck. With one in use it is like playing against a freshly shuffled shoe every hand. The dealer will load the discards into the machine and it shuffles even while the next hand is in play. There is no cut card in use on a CSM-dealt game, so using a CSM actually lowers the HA against the player by 0.02% on a 6-deck shoe.
• Cooler: Casino jargon for a pre-arranged6- or 8-deck shoe of cards brought in and introduced onto a game to cheat the casino.The dealer has to be in on the scam, and he will exchange the pre-arranged cards for the shuffled cards just before they are put into the shoe.The original shuffled decks are then walked out of the casino hidden under a coat by the team member who brought them in.
• Correlate: To match an opponent's bet in a tournament to cover their possibly getting an advantage over you.
• Count:
  • A reference to the point value of the deck by card counters. It's plus 5, or minus 2 etc.
  • To count the total amount of chips on all the tables at the end of a shift to determine the casino's win/loss for the day.
• Counter: A blackjack player who uses a counting system to gain an advantage over the casino by assigning a point value to certain cards in the deck.
• Credit line: Many high-end players have a pre-arranged credit agreement with the casino so that they don't have to being large amounts of cash with them.They access the money by signing a marker at the table, and it is then charged to them through the casino's accounting system.
• Crimp: To bend or crease a card for cheating purposes.
• Crossroader: Casino jargon for a cheat or scam artist.
• CSM : A Continuous Shuffling Machine.
• CTR: A "Currency Transaction Report', part of the Title 31 cash transaction reporting requirements.
• Cut Card Effect: The cut card effect is to increase the HA against the player by 0.02% on a 6-deck shoe, when compared to playing a game with a CSM.There are proven reasons why it works this way.
• Cut card: A thin plastic card, usually solid red or yellow, that is the exact same shape and size as the playing cards. It is used to cut the cards and signal the last hand of the shoe.
• Cut tokes: To divide gratuities between dealers.
• Cut: To divide the cards into two parts after the dealer shuffles the cards. Generally, this is done by a player. The dealer then takes the two parts and reverses them, front to back. In most casinos, the cut is made by inserting a plastic card known as the cut card into the deck.

D:

• DA2: Acronym for casino rules that allow a double down on your first two cards.
• DAS: Double down after a split allowed.
• D'Alembert: A well-known betting system that follows a numeric progression.
• Daub:
  • (Verb) Apply coloring to the back of a card to allow a cheat to secretly identify the card.
  • (Noun) The stuff you do it with.
• Day shift: It's the shift which traditionally starts at 10am.The casino staff often have start times an hour or two before or after 10am.
• Dead game (table): Game with no players.
• Dealer: The casino employee who facilitates the games in a casino. Distributes the cards on blackjack, baccarat and other card games, controls the dice and payouts on a crap game, works the roulette table and deals the cards in any card game offered in the casino.
• Deck: Generally 52 playing cards, the same as is used in poker. Can be used to refer to a single deck, double deck or all the cards in a multi-deck shoe game.
• Deuce: $2, or a “2” in any card game or a crap game. Also a famous former player for the New Orleans Saints. 
• Deviations: To change from Basic Strategy based on the count to allow for differences indicated by the count.
• Dirty Money: Losing money not yet returned to the rack.
• Discard Rack: The (usually red) plastic rack in which discarded cards are stored pending the next shuffle.
• Discards: The cards which have already been played since the last shuffle. The dealer places and stores them in the discard rack to the dealer's right.
• Double down: In blackjack, a player may double the size of his initial bet before taking one more card. A player may only double down after receiving their first two cards. When doubling down, the player only receives one extra cardThe player may double down for less than the initial bet.
• Double exposure: A game of blackjack in which the dealer exposes both of the cards originally dealt to him.
• Doubling after splits: A rule which allows the player to double down after splitting a pair. This is a good rule for the player.
• Downtown: The original area in Las Vegas where the first casinos were situated.It grew up around the railway station, now the Union Plaza Hotel and Casino, some 30 years before Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo on what would become the Las Vegas Strip. 
• Drop box: A box affixed to a gaming table to store the money and markers exchanged at the table for chips.
• Drop: The total amount of money and credit play used to purchase chips at a gaming table by the players during a defined period of time.
• DS: Abbreviation for 'double after a split' in blackjack.Being allowed to double after a split is a good thing for the players.
• Dual-rate: A casino employee who functions in two separate capacities.A dual-rate dealer/floorman, or a dual-rate pit manager/assistant shift manager, for example.They get paid a different rate depending on what their job function is on that particular day. 
• Dumping: Casino jargon for losing large amounts of money, usually refers to a dealer who is 'dumping the rack'.

E:

• E.O. (Early Out): Refers to a casino employee being released before the end of their shift, usually if the business is slow.
• Early surrender: A rule that allows the player to surrender half of his bet upon seeing the dealer's upcard and before the dealer checks for a blackjack. Very advantageous for the player, and consequently quite unusual to see.
• Edge: Also called the Casino Edge, or House Advantage. A term used to describe the percentage of advantage the casino has on a certain play or game. For example, if the casino hits a Soft 17 in blackjack, versus standing on a Soft 17, it increases their edge, or House Advantage by 0.22%.
• Eighty-six: To throw someone out of your casino or place of business.
• E.O.R.: The acronym for "effect of removal".It's a card counting term that refers to the effect of removing a specific card from the deck, such as a Queen, or a 3 etc.
• EV: Stands for "expected value".
• Even money:
  • A player may decide to take 'even money' on his blackjack when a dealer has an Ace showing. This only works on a game that plays blackjack 3 to 2.If the player takes this option, it works out that he is paid even money on his blackjack regardless of whether the dealer has a blackjack or not.
  • A winning bet which returns the same amount in winnings as the original bet, such as a bet on red on roulette. 
• Expectation: A reference to what a player or the house can statistically expect to win or lose on a given bet or game. For example, the house expectation on a single zero roulette game is 2.70%. 
• Expected value: Expression used to denote how much a player or casino can expect to gain based on a certain set of rules within a game.Sometimes the players will include comps and assorted benefits in this number.
• Expected win: Usually used by more serious or advantage players to reference what they expect to win over a defined period of time.
• Eye: Casino jargon for 'the eye in the sky'. It's the surveillance department, and the cameras that are deployed around the casino to monitior the play and the players.One particularly short shift manager I worked with was referred to as 'the eye in the rug'.

F:

• Fab Four: Blackjack Hall-of-Famer Don Schlesinger used this phrase to describe the four surrender plays that vary from Basic Strategy based upon the Hi-Lo counting system.
• Face card: A jack, queen or king.
• Fade: As in 'fade the action' - to accept as a bet part or all of the player’s bet.
• False shuffle: A dealer may appear to be shuffling the cards but in fact doesn't shuffle them, preserving the cards in the order he has set up to cheat the casino. Often used to direct a blackjack to an accomplice at his table.
• Fibonacci system: A progressive betting system that uses the relationships between certain numbers to attempt to win.
• Fill: To bring more chips from the Cage to the table.
• First base: The player's seat furthest to the dealer's left at a blackjack table.The first player to receive their cards.
• Five-card Charlie: Any five-card blackjack hand that totals 21 or less.  In some old-school casinos, it's an automatic winner, but as it reduces the House Advantage by 1.46% it's not seen very often any more.
• Flash: To show the hole card (to cheat).
• Flasher: A dealer who inadvertently flashes their hole card as they're dealing.
• Flat betting: To bet the same amount of money over and over on a game.
• Flea: A small-time player who rides the coat tails of serious gamblers, often asking them for money after they win a hand, because 'I brought you good luck on that hand'. 
• Float: The casino bankroll on a table game.
• Floating Advantage: A card counting concept that says that the True Count advantage floats down the deeper we get into the shoe.   Several of the card counting 'founding father' players have mentioned this concept with no real decision about it's efficacy, and ultimately it was somewhat debunked by Hall-of-Famer Don Schlesinger.
• Floorperson: A casino employee who may supervise up to 6 tables in a table games pit. Often misnamed by the players as a 'pit boss', the floorperson actually reports to the Pit Boss. 
• Foreign cheques: Gaming chips from other casinos. Usually neighboring casinos will accept these chips and exchange them for their own chips at the Cage. Typically the Security department will do a monthly 'chip run' to exchange the chips with their neighboring casinos. 
• Front loader: A dealer who either deliberately or inadvertently exposes his hole card to a player seated at the table. It may also refer to the accomplice player to whom the hole card is deliberately exposed.
• Front money: Money placed on deposit at the Cage which can be accessed in cheques at the table. The relevant paperwork is dropped in the drop box and dealt with by accounting behind the scenes.
• Full spread: All the gaming tables open.

G:

• George: Casino slang for a good tipper.
• Get out: To be losing and to get even.
• Go south with it: To put gaming cheques in a pocket or purse to remove them from the floorperson's view.
• Gorilla: Refers to a member of a card counting team, also called the 'Big Player' who comes and joins the game when the 'Spotter' indicates the shoe is rich in 10-value cards and ready to be exploited by very large bets from the BP. 
• Go-round: Casino jargon for time spent working between breaks, for example, 'let's get a bite to eat after the next go-round'.
• Graveyard shift: Usually starts at 2 AM, but may start a couple of hours earlier or later than that. Generally the least-experienced dealers work graveyard, and often the most experienced supervisors who train them.Sometimes called the Sunrise Shift in a more politically correct casino environment.
• Green cheques: $25 chips.
• Griffin book: Before the advent of digital communication via the Internet, a series of hard-copy books offered by Griffin Investigations which identified skilled and sometimes undesirable casino patrons. The book had photographs and profiles of the players, including idenitification and license plates.
• Griffin Investigations: Formed in 1967, Griffin Investigations offered information to the casinos in Nevada. They covered advantage players and other casino undesirables, and most notably were a prime player in the discovery and ultimate breaking of the MIT card counting team.
• Griffin: Peter Griffin, notable card counting author of 'The Theory of Blackjack', published in 1979. See also: Griffin Investigations, a company not related to Peter Griffin at all.
• Grind: To make money in small increments while gambling or to eke out a profit over the long run.

H:

• H17 (also seen as h27): An abbreviation for Hits17, used to signify that a casino's rules include requiring the dealer to hit a Soft 17 in blackjack.
• Half-shoe: A measure taken by some casinos to try to stop card counters from gaining an advantage.  They place the cut card midway through the shoe so the advantage players don't get enough information about the cards remaining in the shoe to be effective.
• Hand:
  • A round of play.
  • The cards the player or dealer holds.
• Handle: A casino expression meaning how much money was put into action on a specific table during a defined period of time, such as 'on dayshift'.
• Hard total: The total point count of a hand which counts Aces as 1, or doesn't have an Ace in the hand.
• Heads up: Playing in a game one-on-one with the dealer, or in poker, two players playing against each other.
• Heat: Old school casino management harassing a dealer who is losing, trying to intimidate him into winning. It's an absurd notion that the dealer has some control over whether they're winning or losing. Can also be used by advantage players who believe the casino management are making their life difficult by exerting emotional pressure, watching them closely, counting the cards in the discard rack and so on.
• Heel: A method of stacking cheques, leaving the bottom one 90% exposed. 
• High roller: A person who bets big in a casino. Someone betting $100 a hand at The Gold Strike, a small downtown Las Vegas casino, might be considered a high roller there, but wouldn't even merit a mention at Bellagio - because most players at Bellagio are betting $100 a hand.
• Hi-Lo Count: A card counting system which values the 2 through 6 cards as a plus one and the tens, face cards and aces as a minus one. It is the most common and simplest of the effective card counting systems and is the card counters go-to basic system of reference. I first heard of it in Lawrence Revere's excellent book 'Playing Blackjack as a Business'. Stanford Wong is also a highly respected writer and author of 'Professional Blackjack' another book that explores in great depth the Hi-Lo count.
• Hi-Opt I and Hi Opt II: Two card counting systems that are more in-depth and complex than the simpler Hi-Lo count, and also highly regarded.
• Hit: To take additional cards in blackjack in order to improve the players hand.
• Hold percentage: A measure of how much the casino has won expressed as a percentage of the amount of money and/or credit in the drop box.For example, if there is $1,000 in the drop box and the table has won $150, the hold percentage is 15%. 
• Hole card play: To play blackjack with the knowledge of the dealer's (supposedly) unexposed hole card.
• Hole card: The dealer's unexposed down card in a game of blackjack.
• House advantage: Also called the house edge and sometimes the theoretical win percentage, from the casino's point of view. It expresses how much the casino should win based on the way the rules of the game supply the casino with a built-in advantage over the players.

I:

• Illustrious 18: Blackjack Hall-of-Famer Don Schlesinger identified the 18 most advantageous deviations from Basic Strategy that a card counter must know and use, based on the Hi-Lo count. These plays represent approximately 80% - 90% of the advantage that can be gained by counting cards.
• Index number: The value of the true count that would indicate that a card counter should change from Basic Strategy to a deviation for a specific hand
• Insurance: A side bet offered by casinos in blackjack that allows a player to bet that the dealer has a blackjack when she has an Ace up. The player can bet up to half of the amount of his initial betIt pays 2:1.

J:

• Jackpot: The top prize or reward on a slot machine or a blackjack progressive meter. 
• Joint bankroll: An arrangement between two or more guests to combine their gambling money.
• Joint: A slang term for a casino.
• Juice: A friend in high places that gets you special treatment or comps.
• Junket: A group of guests brought in on a short trip, often with various incentives to play more.

K:

• Kelly Betting progression: A system of betting, based on an investment strategy first used to invest money in the stock market that utilizes logarithms to decide how to invest.

L:

• Labouchere system: : One of several well-known betting systems that seemingly offer a good way to overcome the House Advantage on even money bets. As with most systems, it's not particularly effective.
• Lammer: A small, plastic chip denoting the amount of a credit.
• Las Vegas Strip: The area of Las Vegas Boulevard which extends roughly from Mandalay Bay to the Sahara Hotel. It includes many of the best-known casinos in Las Vegas, including Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand,Bellagio, and the Venetian. It was initially started by Bugsy Siegel immediately after WWII when he opened the first 'Strip' casino, the Flamingo, in 1947.
• Late surrender: Some casinos allow the player to surrender their hand with only a 50% loss if the dealer does not have a blackjack. 
• Layout: The felt covering on a gaming table.
• Level 2 Count system: The 'level 2 counting systems' are more in-depth than the standard 'Hi-Lo' system in that the point values assigned to the cards include 1, 2, -1, -2 and 0.  They recognize that even within a counting system, some cards create more value than others.
• Lock it up: Place cheques in the dealer's chip tray.
• Lump or lumpy: Slang term to denote a weak or break-in dealer.

M:

• Marker down: A marker or call bet which has been paid, said to confirm to the player that their marker is paid.
• Marker: A check signed by the player for an advance of casino cheques at the table.The player would have pre-established a credit line with the casino.
• Martingale system: Perhaps the most famous of all the progressive betting systems, it is a negative progressive system and ultimately leads to a large bet being made to win the amount of the initial small wager. As with all systems, it's not very effective in overcoming the House Advantage.
• Money management: A means of how gamblers administer their gambling bankroll. The simple version is 'how much am I willing to lose', and 'how much am I willing to win'. For more knowledgeable players, it can include Risk of Ruin, Bet Spread and Kelly investment strategies 
• Money plays: Unusual to see these days as most casinos don’t allow it since the advent of Title 31, but used to be quite common.The player wants to play the cash, and doesn't want to exchange his cash for cheques.
• Monkey: Mostly Asian player slang for a face card, a Jack, Queen or King. 

N:

• Natural: A blackjack with the first two cards a player is dealt.
• Nickel: A $5 chip.
• No hole card rule: A blackjack game in which the dealer does not take a second card (the hole card) until after all player hands have been completed.  It is the way blackjack is played in most European casinos. 
• No Mid-Shoe Entry: The casino response to the card counting teams that would back count a blackjack game and then bring in the 'Big Player' to attack a shoe rich in 10-value cards with maximum bets.  It prevents a player from entering the game in the middle of the shoe. Generally it doesn't allow a player to enter a game with a bet larger than $100. No card counter is going to risk being identified for a $100 bet, and the $100 threshold will allow the average retail player to enter the game without causing a disruption. 

O:

• Orange Chip: $1,000 chip.

P:

• P.C.: Casino jargon for 'percentage'.
• Paddle: A plastic device used to push currency and pit documents into the drop box on a gaming table.
• Paint.: Casino slang for the face cards, ie; Jack, Queen and King.
• Parlay: : To increase a winning bet by the amount of the winnings and bet it all back.If a $10 wins $15, then the player's next bet would be $25.
• Past post: To illegally place a bet after the winner has been determined.
• Pat hand: A blackjack hand that doesn't require any additional cards.Usually a hard 17 or more.
• Peeker: A device containing a small mirror, embedded in a blackjack table to allow the dealer to peek under their upcard.  This is used to detect a blackjack without compromising game security.  Sometimes referred to by it's trade name, a Tech Art peeker. 
• Penetration: A card counting expression to denote how far into the shoe or deck the dealer will deal. On a 6-deck shoe, 50% penetration would mean the casino puts the cut card into the middle of the shoe, so the game is dealt using only 3 decks. Often, some casinos will deal to half a shoe as they're afraid of card counters, but most casinos mis-identify good card counters. This leads to a situation where the casino is shuffling much more than they need to, thus limiting their opportunities to win. 
• Pinch: To illegally take money from a bet after the cards have been dealt.
• Pip: The spots on the cards that correspond with the value of the card.
• Pit boss, supervisor or manager.: The person in charge of the pit and the employees working in the pit and at it's tables.The floorperson is often misnamed 'pit boss' by the players.
• Pit: A table games area in the casino.The tables are grouped together, often with the same game, and the casino personnel work inside this area, with no access permitted to the casino patrons. 
• Pitch game: Single deck and double deck blackjack games, with the cards being pitched to the players.The players pick up their cards, unlike a shoe game where the players are not allowed to touch the cards.
• Plug: To place the remaining cards in the shoe into the used cards in the discard rack prior to shuffling them. 
• Pontoon: A card game with rules similar to Blackjack played mostly in the UK, but also in Australian casinos with rules similar to the American game of Spanish 21.
• Press: To increase one's bet after a winning hand.
• Progression betting: : A system of betting that tries to overcome the House Advantage on a table game in a casino. There are negative progressive systems that increase the amount bet if the current bet loses, and positive progressive systems that increase the amount bet if the current bet wins. No legal system has ever been devised that will overcome the House Advantage, no matter what their purveyors claim on the internet. 
• Progressive jackpot: A prize or award which increases by a small amount with every round of play.
• Promotion: A marketing offer used by casinos to stimulate more play on a specific game or multiple games for a specific time frame. For example, if you get a blackjack from 8am to noon, you get entered into a daily $500 cash drawing at 2pm.
• Pumpkin: Usually means a $1000 orange cheque. Standard gaming cheques are 39mm across, but some of the larger denominations, like the orange cheques, are 43mm across.
• Purple: $500 cheques.
• Push: A tie between the player and the dealer. Neither side wins or loses.

Q:

• Quarters: $25 chips.

R:

• Rack: Tray which holds cheques on the table, or a small clear plastic rack for transporting one hundred cheques. 
• Rainbow bet.: A large stack of cheques of randomly selected values which makes it difficult to determine how much the stack is worth. 
• Reconstructing a hand: To take cards from the discard rack and reset the the cards in the event of a disagreement over the outcome of a hand. 
• Red chip: A $5 chip.
• Reds: Five dollar cheques.
• Relief Dealer: A dealer who gives breaks to eh other dealers.
• Resplit: Allowing the player to continue to split matching cards into more than two hands.
• RF&B: When issuing a comp, it's an abbreviation for room, food, and beverage.
• Riffle: During the shuffle, the actual mixing together of two separate piles of cards. 
• Rim credit: Credit taken at the table in the pit by a well-known player, and tracked on a Rim Card, to be formalized later into one totalled marker check.
• Risk of Ruin (ROR): Describes the likelihood of losing all of one's bankroll, usually expressed as a percentage of the bankroll.
• RNG: Random Number Generator
• Road map: Slang expression for the stiff sheet, a casino form for tracking the financial performance of the table games floor. Sometimes used to describe the short-term dealer schedule for a specific pit or gaming area.
• Round: A completed hand to all players at a blackjack table.
• Rounder:
  • A person establishing credit at many casinos within a short period of time, usually with a view to using the credit line at one casino to pay off another credit line at another casino.
  • Can also be used to describe a dealer who is constantly looking around to see the location of the supervisors to be able to cheat without being seen.
• RSA: An abbreviation for resplit aces.
• Rubber band: A system of assigning dealers or Floor Supervisors to specific games or gaming areas.
• Rule of Six: Limiting the number of hands dealt on a single deck blackjack game to ensure the game doesn't run out of cards.Add the number of players and the number of hands to get an answer of six.1 player + 5 hands = 6.2 players + 4 hands = six and so on.
• Running count: The total number of points a card-counting system assigns to the cards seen as a player is counting them.

S:

• S17: The casino rule which states that the dealer will stand on all Soft 17s.
• Scam: A cheating move or scheme to cheat.
• Score: A big win. 
• Second base: The middle spot directly opposite the dealer on a blackjack game (sometimes called centerfield).
• Seconds: Dealing seconds is a cheating move on a pitch game by the dealer, assisting an accomplice to get the best hand possible. By bowing out the top card the dealer identifies it, and then deals the second card while reserving the top card for his accomplice.
• Sending it in: To make large or frequent wagers.
• Shill: A person that works for the casino that is paid to play at certain tables to start the game. 
• Shoe game: Blackjack games that use a shoe to hold the cards, as opposed to a pitch game, where the dealer holds the cards and deals them from their hand.
• Shoe: A box-like device used on the tables in casinos to hold the cards. Most often seen on blackjack and baccarat games that are using more than 2 decks of cards.
• Shot: Any cheating move by a player.
• Shuffle tracking: A method for a knowledgeable player to identify a slug of 10-value cards as they go into the discard rack, then through the shuffle, and then cut the cards so that the slug is dealt out to him and his associates. It can be used the other way, to identify low-value cards and steer them away from the cards that will be played in the upcoming shoe. 
• Shuffle: To thoroughly mix the cards before dealing them to the players.
• ShuffleMaster: The American company that invented the first viable shuffling machines for casino use.They manufacture, lease and sell shuffling machines, and offer games and associated casino equipment to casinos.
• Shuffling Machines: A machine used by most casinos to shuffle the cards rather than having the dealer do it. The casino increases their hands per hour and their win by doing it this way. Each table has two complete 6-deck shoes, one in play and the other in the shuffle machine. The backs of the cards are different colors to distinguish between the different sets of cards.
• Side bet: An additional bet in blackjack and other table games that is separate from the primary bet being made.  An example would be a bet that the player's hand and the dealer's up card will make a 3-card poker hand such as a flush or straight. That bet is called 21 + 3, and is owned by Galaxy Gaming.  It is leased to the casino on a monthly basis.
• Sit n Go: A type of fast tournament that is usually offered on an online casino website.
• Sleeper: An unclaimed bet and/or payoff.
• Slug:
  • The remaining cards in the shoe after the last hand has been dealt.
  • A small number of cards, from as little as half a deck up to two or three decks, that stick together through a shuffle, caused by poor shuffling.
  • A group of cards being deliberately run through the shuffle by a dealer for cheating purposes.
• Snapper: A player's slang expression for a blackjack.
• Soft total: Hand of two or more cards containing an ace that is counted as 11
• Spanish 21: A proprietary version of blackjack in which all the tens are removed from play. It carries a variety of favorable rules, and has a loyal following amongst it's players.
• Split: To split a pair of cards in blackjack to make two separate hands. Cards that have a value of 10 but are not identical can be split, for example and Queen and a Jack, although it is very rare to see that happen.
• Spotter: A blackjack team member who plays the minimum bet, while counting down a blackjack table. When the count goes strongly in favor of the players, the spotter will signal the Big Player to come and play.
• Spread the deck: Expression meaning to spread the cards in a smooth arc across the table layout when there are no players on the blackjack table.
• Stacked deck: A deck of cards prearranged in a desired order for cheating purposes.Also called 'a Cooler'.
• Stakes: Refers to how much the minimum and maximum bets are on a particular game.
• Stand: To not take another card.
• Standard deviation: Usually shown as a bell curve, it shows the acceptable (or not) variance from a known average of normal results in a set of data.
• Steamer or Chaser: A losing guest making bigger and bigger bets to try to win back the money he has lost.
• Stiff: A blackjack hand with a total of 12 through 16. 
• Stiff sheet: A casino form used to keep track of the financial status of the tables on the casino floor.
• Store: Slang term for a casino.
• Streak: If a player is seemingly winning or losing more than they should.It is often attributed to being lucky or unlucky, but is in fact the usual pendulum of random events.
• Strip rules: A set of blackjack procedures once prevalent on the Las Vegas Strip, which included the dealer standing on a Soft 17 
• Stripping: Part of the shuffling process which consists of pulling a few cards from the top of the cards being shuffled and placing them on the table, with successive 'strips' being placed on top
• Stuck: To lose, as in “I’m stuck about a grand.”
• Sub: A concealed pocket used for concealing chips. 
• Surrender: A player may elect to give up half their bet on blackjack by Surrendering.
• Sweeten a bet: Increase a bet by adding chips before the cards have been dealt.
• Swing shift: It's the night shift, which is the busiest in a casino.It's usually 6pm to 2am, but the staff often have start times an hour or two before or after 6pm
• System: A plan of playing or betting.

T:

• T. T. O.: This Trip Only - it refers to a temporary increase in a guest's credit line. It is usually 10% of his approved credit line. Casinos generally don't like to increase a player's credit line because it may put the player in an untenable financial position.
• T.I.S.: Table Inventory Slip, a form for recording chips on a table game. 
• Table card: Card kept by the Floor Supervisor to keep track of chips on the game and/or the money in the drop box.
• Table hopping: Quickly moving from one table to another, sometimes only playing one hand. 
• Take down: To remove a bet.
• Tap in: A dealer going onto a game, as in “Go tap in on BJ 206'
• Tap out.:
  • Losing your whole bankroll.
  • Take a dealer off a game, as in 'go tap out Joe on BJ 206'.
• Tapped: To lose one’s bankroll.
• Team play.: A group of players who play together. Can be used to refer to a card counting team, or a team that takes up every seat at a slot bank that is overdue to hit.
• Third base: The seat at a blackjack table which is the farthest to the dealer's right. It is the last position to receive the cards during a round of play.
• Thorp: Edward O. Thorp. A legendary card counting figure, an MIT mathematics professor who wrote the first card counting book, 'Beat the Dealer'.
• Tie: When neither the casino nor the player wins the hand.
• Title 31: That part of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1985 which requires casinos, and other places of business, to report cash transactions in excess of $10,000 to the Treasury Department.
• Toke box: A box in which to place tokes.
• Toke: A player tip to the dealer or to any other casino person providing service to the player.
• Tray: Also called the chip tray, where the dealer keeps the casino's chips.
• Trey: The 3-spot on a die or card.
• True count: The count per deck, which is found by dividing the running count by the number of decks left in play. This is a much more accurate tally of the state of the shoe than the running count
• Two-way bet: Usually a bet made by the player for the player and the dealer(s).

U:

• Unit: A card counter's minimum bet. For example, card counters may spread from 1 to 12 units.If the unit is $10, the spread is $10 to $120.
• Upcard: The dealer's exposed card.

W:

• W/L: An abbreviation for win/loss.
• Walk: A player leaving the table.
• Wash: To mix a deck of cards by placing them face down on the table and mixing them by using a 'wax on, wax off' washing motion. This is commonly done whenever new decks of cards are brought to a table.
• Whale: A player who bets enormous amounts of money
• Win: The net amount a table has won within a defined period of time.
• Wong, Wonging: To count down a blackjack table and then join the table when the count is in the player's favor. Named for Stanford Wong, a legendary figure and author in the world of card counting.

Y:

• Yellow chip: A $1,000 cheque.