A push looks neutral and often is not. In baccarat, ties push the banker and player bets and occur on 9.52% of hands, which genuinely removes those hands from the calculation.
In craps, the don't pass bet pushes on a rolled 12, and that single push is the whole house edge. Without it the darkside bettor would hold an advantage, so the casino converts one winning outcome into a stalemate and takes 1.36%.
Which is the general lesson: a push is a small transfer disguised as nothing happening. When a rule turns a win into a push, look at how often that outcome occurs.
Where the numbers come from
Related terms in casino floor
- Commission — A percentage charged on winning bets that would otherwise favour the player.
- 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.
- Comp — Complimentary goods or services given to players based on tracked play.
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.