What is Hand?

A hand is the set of cards held by one participant in a card game, and by extension the single deal in which those cards are played out. In blackjack a hand is your own cards measured against the dealer's; in baccarat the two hands are dealt to fixed positions rather than to people; in poker your hand is the private holding you combine with shared cards. The word doubles as a unit of counting: players and operators talk about hands per hour, and casinos track hands played to measure activity and calculate loyalty rewards. That double meaning matters for spending, because the faster the hands go, the more total money passes across the table in the same amount of time.