Pokeriad / Learn / First time at a casino
Updated November 2026
Walk up to the poker desk, say which game you want and ask to go on the list. When your name is called you buy chips, sit where you're told and play; the dealer handles the cards and the pot, and your only jobs are to act in turn and say what you're doing.
Poker rooms keep a waiting list at a desk near the entrance. Tell the person there what you want to play, for example "$1/$3 no-limit", and give your name or initials. If it's your first time you can say so, and you'll usually get a patient answer. Then stand somewhere you can hear the list being called.
If the room runs more than one game you want, you can go on more than one list. The smallest no-limit game is usually $1/$2 or $1/$3, where those numbers are the two blinds, and that's where you should start.
Bring photo ID, because the minimum gambling age in Nevada is 21, and other states set their own limit. A few let 18-year-olds play poker, so check before you go.
Bring cash too. Every game has a smallest and a largest amount you can sit down with. Bellagio set its $1/$3 game at $100 to $500 and its $2/$5 game at $200 to $1,000 in April 2026, and other rooms set different numbers. Our guide to how much money to bring walks through the amount.
Some rooms send you to the cage and others bring chips to your seat, so ask at the desk.
Once you're playing you can add chips between hands up to the table maximum, but you can't take any off the table until you leave. That's called playing table stakes, and it's the reason you never need more cash than the chips in front of you for any one hand.
When you sit down, the dealer may ask whether you want to post the big blind now or wait for it to reach you. Wait. It costs nothing, and you get to watch a few hands first.
The dealer shuffles, deals, runs the betting and moves the chips. You keep your cards on the table, act when it's your turn and say what you're doing. Nobody but the dealer touches the pot.
What you say counts. Under the tournament directors' rules that many rooms follow, saying "call" or "raise" in turn commits you to it, and pushing out one oversized chip without saying "raise" is only a call.
Putting chips out and then going back to your stack for more is a string bet, and it isn't allowed. The fix is easy: say the number first, then move your chips.
You've bought in for $200 at a $1/$3 table. One worked hand, with the money counted the way the dealer counts it.
A player raises to $12 and you say "call" and slide out $12. Everyone else folds, so the pot holds your $12, the raiser's $12 and the $4 in blinds.
You have three nines. The raiser bets $20. You say "raise to 60" before you touch your chips, and the raiser folds.
Your extra $40 comes straight back, because nobody called it. The pot is $68, the house takes $5 in rake and $2 for the jackpot, you tip $1, and $60 comes back to you. You put in $32, so you're up $28.
The house takes a small amount out of most pots, called the rake. Rooms usually take about 10% of the pot in steps, up to a cap. In a 2023 PokerNews comparison, 14 of 17 Las Vegas rooms capped it at $5.
Many rooms also take a jackpot drop, often an extra $2 a hand once the pot reaches a set size, to fund promotions. Nearly all rooms follow "no flop, no drop": if the betting ends before the flop, the house takes nothing. Try the numbers on your own pots below.
Dealers depend on tips, and the usual habit in US rooms is one $1 chip for each pot you win. PokerNews' guide to tipping goes with $1 whether the pot was small or large, and $2 or $3 when a hand takes a long time to sort out, like one with side pots.
Tipping is up to you, but it comes out of your winnings, so count it when you work out how a session went. Elsewhere in the world the custom can be different, so watch what the regulars do.
Twelve spots in three rounds.
No, but it's customary in the US, and most players tip $1 when they win a pot. Skipping it again and again will get you some looks from the regulars.
The smallest no-limit game in the room, which is usually $1/$2 or $1/$3. Buy in for an amount you've already decided you can afford to lose.
Yes. There's no minimum time. Tell the dealer you're leaving, take your chips and cash them at the cage.
Send them this page.