A list of common gambling terms used throughout this site.
Tournament
A poker tournament is a tournament in which the winners are decided by playing poker, usually a particular style of poker. Contrast this to a ring game, where the game is ongoing with no formal structure to determine a single winner in a certain length of time.
Rake
The rake is the commission fee taken by a casino operating a poker game. It is generally 5% to 10% of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount. There are also other, non-percentage, ways for a casino to take the rake.
Poker is a player versus player game and the house does not wager against its players (unlike blackjack or roulette) so this fee is the principal mechanism to generate revenues.
In online poker it covers costs of operation such as server costs, support, software and personnel.
Ring / Cash / Live Action Games
Ring games, also called cash games or live action games, are poker games played with "real" chips and money on the line, usually with no predetermined end time.