Handle is the figure the house edge applies to. A player who buys in for $200 and bets it twenty times over has generated $4,000 of handle from a $200 drop.
This is why casinos care about speed and about keeping players seated. Every additional bet applies the edge again to money that has already been through it once, and it is how a 1% edge produces a 15% hold.
Handle is also why comparing games by house edge alone misleads. A slot machine at 5% edge spinning 600 times an hour generates handle far faster than a blackjack table at 0.5% dealing 80 hands, so the cheaper-looking game per bet can be the more expensive one per hour. Speed multiplies the edge, and it is the variable players notice least.
Related terms in casino floor
- Commission — A percentage charged on winning bets that would otherwise favour the player.
- Push — A tie in which the bet neither wins nor loses and the stake is returned.
- Natural — A hand that wins immediately on the first cards dealt.
- Shoe — The box holding several shuffled decks from which cards are dealt.
- Cut card — A coloured plastic card placed in the shoe to mark where dealing stops.
- Penetration — The proportion of a shoe dealt before the reshuffle.
Where an entry quotes a number, that figure comes from the computed sections of this site rather than from another glossary, so the definition and the derivation cannot drift apart. Each entry links to the page where the number is worked out.