Glossary

Cage – Another word for the cashier; where you redeem your chips and TITOs.

Coin In – How much money you wager/cycle through a machine. This does not take into account wins or losses, it is just how much you gamble. If you spin 500 times on a $1 machine, you will have $500 of coin in, regardless of how much you win or lose. This is a big part of the mysterious equation that casinos use to determine your comps.

Comps – Short for complementaries. Aka the “free” stuff that you get from casinos. Sometimes you end up winning and still enjoy comps, and other times you end up losing 12 times the value of your comps.

Color Up – Slang for cashing in your chips for the largest possible denominations, making it easier to leave a table and/or cash out. Usually done as you leave a table, as part of table etiquette.

Paytable – The screen on Video Poker that shows how much each hand pays. This can be compared to the true odds to determine the game with the best return to the player.

Slow rolling — A portmanteau of “slow play” and “low rolling.” A useful technique for getting very cheap drinks on the casino floor.

Tilt — The negative mental state caused by a series of unprobabilistically bad luck. Often coincides with self-destructive choices such as increasing bets, playing poorly, or anger.

TITO — Ticket in, ticket out. The cashout voucher that you will receive from a machine when you cash out. You can use this instead of cash machines, or redeem it for cash at a redemption machine or the cashier.

Volatility — The tradeoff between frequent payouts and high payouts. A game with high volatility will infrequently pay out large amounts (often with large, painful droughts in between), whereas a lower volatility game will pay out smaller amounts more frequently (but without the possibility of a huge win).