Do you understand all the signals in a casino?

blackjack signals

There's a hidden language to casinos. While you don't need to worry about it when you're having fun in an online casino, if you go to a land one then knowing the proper etiquette behind these hand motions helps make your game a smoother, more enjoyable experience.

Using hand signals instead of verbal communication is also a practical decision on the part of both players and dealers, provided you know them going in then you have a much better chance of not being misunderstood once you get things underway.

You might be familiar with some of these gestures purely from your experience with popular media, one of the most famous examples being (perhaps appropriately) Casino Royale. While the stakes and the scenario are pure fiction, the gestures involved are good illustrations of the standard hand signals you can make to let the dealer and your fellow players know your intentions.

You put your cards in the middle face down to fold when you don't want to continue the hand and move chips into the middle to continue your betting.

It's important you keep good track of the chips going in; if you're seeing a player's bet and planning to bet the same amount you need to slide in a stack of the same number of chips and then if you want to raise, you should follow this up with another stack of chips so it's clear that you're raising by a certain amount.

When everyone's raised as much as they want for the hand, tap the table when it's your turn to indicate your planning to check. Then all that's left is the showdown and seeing who wins the pot!

Other hand gestures are a little more practicality focused, which is the the case with craps and roulette. In craps for instance, it's important you hold the dice with one hand and that if you pass your turn you hand to the right, but it's also essential that when the dealer says hands high or the dice are out, you lift your hands off the table. These conventions are generally here to ensure the game is played fairly, it's both etiquette and a means to prevent cheating.

Roulette has similar rules, as far as not having your hands on the table until all the losing bets have been removed but there are a few other subtle gestures worth knowing such as when the croupier raises their hands horizontally over the table, it means no more bets are to be made.

While these may sound easy to remember, it's not always so simple. Blackjack is one of the most popular games you can play and most people have an idea how the hand signals work for this game. But not everyone is aware that there are different movements depending on if you're playing with the cards face up or face down.

For example, if you want to hit with the cards face up then you have to tap the table with your hand. But if the cards are face down, you instead draw a line with your finger on the table.

It's subtle nuances like this that can confuse newcomers so we've made sure that this infographic from Betfair helps to explain it all!

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