You are new to the world of online casino and are facing technical terms you don’t understand? Become Gambler is here to help you with its online casino glossary.
By reading this you will quickly become an online casino expert and start playing with confidence.
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Ante: The word ante comes from Latin and means « before ». An ante is a mandatory bet players have to pay before cards are dealt to them, most often in Poker. This small but compulsory bet ensures players lose money slowly but steady. Of course, the longer the game, the bigger the Ante gets, forcing players to try their luck on more hands.
Autospin: Autospin is a feature available on most online slot machines. It allows you to spin the slot automatically for a set number of spins of your choice, usually 10, 20, 50, 75, 100 and even up to 1000 spins on some slots.
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Balance: Balance is the commonly used term that refers to the total amount of money you have on your online casino account. Balance is not to be confused with bankroll, which is the amount of money you dedicate to playing casino.
Bankroll: The bankroll is the total amount of money (per week, month or year) a player dedicates to playing casino. You need to have a good bankroll management in order not to go broke (lose all your BR). This term initially comes from poker but can be applied to any game involving money.
Bonus abuse: Bonus abuse is when a player looks for enticing welcome offers and register multiple accounts in order to get the promotion more than once. Bonus abusers are really fond of no deposit bonuses such as free spins or free cash. Also known as promo abuse or bonus whoring, it is needless to say that bonus abuse can get you banned.
Bonus hunt: Bonus hunting is a way of playing you’ll often see on Twitch casino streams. You play on slots and as soon as you get the bonus (free spins), you leave it. The bonus will be stored, and you will open them once your balance is close to zero.
If you want to do a bonus hunt, only do it when playing with raw money, as bonus hunting is often forbidden when playing with a deposit bonus.
Bust: When playing blackjack, you « bust » if the total value of your cards is greater than 21. If you bust and the dealer also busts after you, you still lose, so choose wisely when to hit or to stand. To help you take the good decisions, read our guide « Blackjack: how to play and win most of your games? »
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Cashback: Some online casinos offer cashback as a loyalty bonus. Deposit, play, and a portion of your losses will stock up into your cashback balance. Then, at the end of the week or month (it depends of the casino), your cashback balance will be unlocked and you will be able to play with it. Some casinos offer more cashback than others, don’t hesitate to compare.
Cash-out: Cashing out is the action of withdrawing your casino winnings to your bank account. While some players only withdraw when they have a big balance (and risk losing it all in order to get there), others prefer to withdraw little by little and keep a bit of balance to continue playing.
Croupier: A croupier (French word) more commonly called dealer in English is a casino employee who is hosting a table game such as Blackjack, Poker or Roulette. He is in charge of collecting the player’s bets, dealing cards or throwing the roulette ball, and pay out the winnings at the end of a game round.
Cut card: In casino card games, a cut card is a plastic card that is inserted into the deck after it has been shuffled. When the dealer reaches to this card and after the game round is done, the deck or shoe has to be replaced by a new shuffled one.
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Deposit bonus: A deposit bonus is when a casino offers you bonus money or free spins on top of your deposit. You are always free to choose whether you want to play with raw money or under a deposit bonus. Just remember that every casino has its own bonus terms and conditions, so don’t forget to read them before playing!
Double Down: In Blackjack, a double down is when you decide to double your initial bet after receiving your cards. If you follow basic blackjack strategy, you will know when to double down and when not to.
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Evolution Gaming: Evolution Gaming is the world leading Live Casino games provider. You can play their games on all the good casinos. The most famous ones are Blackjack, Poker, and original games such as Crazy Time, Monopoly Live or Megaball.
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Free spins: Free spins can be two things. When talking about deposit bonuses, you can be granted free spins on a slot by the casino. Free spins are also a slots bonus feature that occur randomly and can reward you with some nice wins and big multipliers.
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Gaming licence: All online casinos operate under gaming licences, which are given to then by official gaming licence operators. The gaming licence ensures the casino plays by the rules and gives it credibility. The two most famous online gambling licences are the Curacao and Malta gaming licences.
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High roller: A high roller is someone who plays big sums of money on casinos. Its exact opposite is a low roller.
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Insurance (Blackjack): On Evolution Gaming’s Blackjack tables, when the dealer gets an Ace as its first card, you are offered the opportunity to insure your bet. If both you and the dealer get a Blackjack and you insured your bet, you get a payout of 2:1 instead of losing the hand.
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Jackpot: Some slots have a jackpot feature which get bigger and bigger over time, as players bet money on it. When one player is lucky enough to hit the Jackpot, he gets the win of a lifetime.
Some famous jackpot slots: Holmes and the Stolen Stones (Yggdrasil), Mona Lisa Jewels (iSoftbet), Sun of Egypt (Booongo), Jackpot Raiders (Yggdrasil), Ozwin’s Jackpot (Yggdrasil), Beast of Wealth (Play’n GO).
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Martingale: The Martingale is a very simple, yet forbidden betting system to understand, and has been used by players on games such as Blackjack, Roulette or even Baccarat. The way the system works is by doubling your bet after every loss. As it can be seen as a way of cheating the casino, the Martingale is prohibited on almost every casinos.
Max bet: When playing under a deposit or welcome bonus, a max bet is the maximum amount of money you are allowed to bet on a single game round. If your bet is higher than this limit, you break the bonus T&Cs and risk seeing your winnings to be voided.
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No deposit bonus: A no deposit bonus is the complete opposite of a deposit bonus. Sometimes, casinos offer no deposit bonuses to their new players, or as a loyalty reward. It can take the form of free spins or bonus boney.
Non-Sticky Bonus: A non-sticky bonus is a bonus that you can cancel as long as your real money balances is superior to your bonus money balance. When you cancel the bonus, you can either keep playing with the money you have left, or withdraw it.
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Paylines: Online slots can have from three to a thousand paylines, depending of its design. These lines can be straight, follow a zigzag pattern accross the reels, or be totally irregular for MegaWays slots for example. If you want to know how many paylines a slot has, just look at its paytable. It will help you better understand how it pays.
On some slots, you can adjust the number of paylines you want to play with.
Play’n GO: Play’n GO is one of the most famous online slots provider. Some of their slots such as Book of Dead, Rise of Merlin or Rich Wilde and the Tome of Madness are among the most played online slots in the world.
Pragmatic Play: Pragmatic Play, more commonly called Pragmatic, is a very famous game provider. Some of their most famous slots are The Dog House, Da Vinci’s Treasure, Sweet Bonanza, Great Rhino, The Wild Machine,…
Progressive free spins: Progressive free spins is a bonus feature on some slots where every spin has an increased win multiplier. For example, the first spin has a 1x win multiplier, the second spin is 2x, then 3x, … until the last spin which can pay big. If you get a retrigger, the win multiplier keeps increasing until the last spin, resulting in even bigger wins.
Some famous progressive free spins slots: Da Vinci’s Treasure (Pragmatic Play), Dance Party (Pragmatic Play).
Provider: A provider, or game provider, is a company that creates online casino games, and provide them to the casinos. Famous game providers are Play’n GO, Nolimit City, Pragmatic Play, Booongo,…
Push (Blackjack): In Blackjack, when your cards value and the dealer are the same, it is a push. When pushing, you get your bet back, and only lose your sidebets if you put some.
Push Gaming: Push Gaming is a relatively recent game provider that was fonded in 2010. They only have 20 games in their portfolio, but each of them has a great design and nice features.
Some of their most famous games are Jammin’ Jars, Fat Santa, Razor Shark, Viking Clash or Tiki Tumble.
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Quickspin: Quickspin is a Swedish game development studio which was created in Stockholm in 2011. Since then, they quickly became a well known game provider in the industry. Some of their most famous games are Tiger’s Glory, Sakura Fortune, Sticky Bandits Wild Return, Big Bad Wolf,…
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Relax Gaming: Relax Gaming is a game development studio which was founded in Finland in 2010. They are not the most prolific game provider, but they release games with amazing graphics and nice features. Their games are known to be highly volatile. Some of their most famous games are Temple Tumble, Money Train, Marching Legion or Money Train 2.
Retrigger: When you land the 3 scatters during a free spins feature, you get what is called a retrigger. The machine gives you additional spins.
RTP: RTP (Return To Player) is the theoritical rate at which the slots redistribute the money the players put into it. The machines redistribute money on the long term. A machine’s RTP can be well above 100% and sometimes way lower than it’s average RTP.
Online slots have a greater RTP than slots in land-based casinos. The average online slots RTP is between 95 to 96.5%.
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Scatter: A scatter is a special symbol which grants you with the free spins bonus on online slots. Depending on the machines, you have to get between 3 to 5 or 6 scatters in order to get into the bonus feature.
Stand (blackjack): In Blackjack, when you think your hand has enough potential to beat the dealer’s hand, you can stand. Standing means you don’t wan’t another card. You can stand on your initial hand, or after hitting a few times.
Sticky wilds: Sticky wilds is a slots feature during free spins round.
Shoe (Blackjack, Poker,…): In Blackjack or Poker, the shoe, also called dealing shoe, is a clear plastic device used to hold the decks of playing cards. It ensures the dealer can’t manipulate the cards, as they are in plain view.
For example, a Blackjack shoe on Evolution Gaming tables is made of 8 standard decks of cards. The shoe is changed everytime the dealer gets to the cutting card.
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Terms & conditions: A casino’s Terms & conditions are the rules every player has to comply with when playing. By respecting these terms strictly, you are 100% sure you will be able to withdraw your winnings.
Thunderkick: Thunderkick is an independent Swedish game studio which was founded in 2012 in Stockholm. A lot has happened since those days, and Thunderkick now has a collection of 44 games. Some of their most famous games are Esqueleto Explosivo 2, The Falcon Huntress, Pink Elephants 2, Midas Golden Touch, Dragon Horn, Sword of Khans,…
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VIP program: All online casinos have a VIP program with different rewards. Of course, the more you deposit on a casino, the higher you get into VIP levels, granting you with better rewards. These rewards can take many forms: free spins, cashback, free money,…
VPN: A VPN is a software that allows you to change your localisation for the website you visit. You can use a VPN on some online casinos in order to access slots that are restricted to your country. Before using a VPN on any casino, read its term and conditions to be sure it is not prohibited.
Volatility: When applied to a slot machine, the word volatile refers to how much risk there is in playing a specific slot or casino game. For slots, a volatile machine will not give hack a lot in base game, but you can hit big bonuses. On the other hand, a low volatility slot will give you money more regularly on base game, with bonuses being smaller most of the times.
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Wager: When playing with a deposit bonus, or after receiving free spins, you have to complete wagering requirements before being able to withdraw your balance. The wager is the number of times you have to play the bonus money before being able to cashout. In general, the wager requirement on online casinos is between 30x to 40x.
For example: If you deposit 100€ with a 50% bonus (30x wager), you will have to bet 1500€ before withdrawing.
Welcome bonus: A welcome bonus is a bonus a casino offers to its new subscribers. It can be a no deposit bonus (free spins, money) or a deposit bonus.
Looking for the best deposit bonus? We have selected the best online casinos for you to play on!
Wilds: On slots, a wild is a special symbol that can connect and replace any other symbol, premium or not, allowing you to get great connections and wins.
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