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Card Games

Casino

What is Card Games?

Card games are gambling games decided by dealt cards, split into banked games against the house and non-banked games such as poker with a rake.

ByCasino Desk·Casino & Slots Editor

Reviewed byKris Fawkes·Chief Editor

What it means in practice

Card games are the gambling games decided by dealt cards, including blackjack, baccarat, three card poker, casino hold'em and the many side bets built on them. They fall into two groups. Banked games are played against the house, which pays winners from its own float and keeps a fixed mathematical advantage created by the rules and the payout ratios. Non-banked games such as poker are played between players, and the operator takes a rake or a tournament fee instead of holding an edge on the result. Cards may come from a hand-held deck or a multi-deck shoe, shuffled by hand or by machine, while online versions use a random number generator or a live-dealer stream. Some card games allow decisions that change the edge, but in banked games no decision removes it.

Why it matters

A definition like this one decides what an offer is actually worth. The same wording turns up in bonus terms, on payment pages and in game rules, and it is usually where a promotion’s real cost is hiding — so it is worth reading an operator’s own terms with this meaning in mind rather than the marketing above them.

You must be of legal gambling age where you live — 18 in most markets, 19 or 21 in others. Understanding a term does not make an outcome more likely: casino games are built to return less than they take over time. Set deposit and time limits before you play.

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