Cultures, subcultures, and friend groups often have a vocabulary of their own, but the casino’s lingo is a whole world in itself. If you’re new to real money gaming, the casino’s terminology might make you feel lost. So, instead of letting you wander around trying to figure out what the words mean, we’ve compiled a simplified guide for the most commonly used terms.
High Rollers
The classification of the players and their types is a good spot to start. If you’re someone that spends a lot of money while playing in casinos, you’ll be classified as a high roller. The higher the stakes, the higher the rewards, but the risk is also in the upper range.
Bankroll
The amount of money you spend is called a bankroll. In other words, a bankroll is how much you’re willing to wager in a casino while playing for fun. If you’re a high roller, your bankroll will count hundreds if not thousands of dollars per session.
Return to Player Percentage (RTP)
If you’ve ever opened a casino guide, you’ve surely stumbled across the RTP acronym. The return to player percentage tells you how much a game will pay you after millions of spins. Keep in mind that this is a theoretical number. If a slot has 97% RTP, in theory, you’ll get $97 back for every $100 wagered.
House Edge
The house edge is closely related to the return to player percentage. House edge is used for table games and RTP is used for slot type games. The house edge shows the advantage of the casino over the player. In math terms, it is 100% – RTP%.
Betting Limits
Even though your bankroll can count up to thousands, you can’t place all your money in a single spin/bet. This is because of the betting limits. The minimum and maximum amount of money you can place per spin/bet. Each game and casino will have its own way of setting betting limits on games. Of course, the highest of rollers can always find a way to place a large bet if they truly want to.
Bonus Promotions
The Promotions section is where the fun begins. Most commonly present in online casinos, bonuses are gifts from the operators. Gaming sites offer different kinds of bonuses for newly registered and existing players.
Players can pick between welcome bonuses, cashback offers, reload deals, and more. In general, there are a few distinctions which we’ll discuss below.
Free Chips
The casino, like Casino Nemacolin, gives you extra money to play with, whether it is a matched deposit bonus, a no deposit deal, or a reload promotion. These are called free chips and are usually granted as casino’s play funds. You can use these funds to play all games unless otherwise specified.
Free Spins
The free spins can also come with sign-up promotions, reload offers, and no deposit deals. The difference is that you can use free spins only for slot games. What’s more, the casino may predetermine a specific slot title.
Comps
Comp is a term used for the points you collect in casinos by wagering, depositing, referring friends, or whatever the casino operator has specified. You can then use these points to exchange them for bonuses or other rewards.
VIP Club
Comps are not only for bonus buys; they show your current VIP status. The more comp points you have, the higher you rank in the VIP club of the casino. The club can also be called a Loyalty Program. Whichever the name, it is a rewarding scheme for the regular players, offering you unique prizes and better deals than those who play once in a blue moon.
Wagering Requirements
The term wagering requirements is closely attached to the promotional offers. This number specifies how many times you have to play through the bonus amount before you can cash out your winnings.
Sometimes, casinos calculate both the deposited and the bonus amount toward the wagering requirements. And don’t get confused by the word playthrough requirements or rollover, as both terms have the same meaning as previously described.
Croupier
Croupier is just a fancy word for a dealer. The term has a French origin, but the casino’s culture has adopted it. This person deals the cards, spins the roulette wheel, or presents you with the rules of the game, both in brick and mortar and online live dealer casinos.
Wrap Up
The casino culture, just like any other, has developed its own vocabulary – this is just a glimpse.
The more you get into it, the more terms you’ll find, each with a specific meaning.
You should know that different games may use the exact words with double meanings, so checking each game’s vocabulary is crucial
Literary devices are particular words, phrases, rhythms, and sounds generally used by writers. This is the art of creating powerful emotion in writing to fascinate readers. The use of literary devices in writing lets readers realize a text’s deeper meaning.
If you like to write in English, you can also use literary devices to make your writing catchier. But, you should have a clear notion about them and the required skill to apply them perfectly.
To further improve your English writing skills you can find an online English Tutor. You can also find online French Tutorson Amazingtalker!
Let’s explore ten literary device terms to glamorize your writing.
Allegory:
Allegory is a story, poem, or picture that carries a hidden or posterior meaning. It is like describing a story with another story. The application of allegory is often seen in moral stories.
For example, the plot of a short story can be about two neighbors who are throwing rocks at each other. But, the hidden meaning of the story is a war between two countries.
Alliteration:
Alliteration is the art of repeating similar sounding or closely connected words in writing. Note that alliteration doesn’t mean the repetition of the same consonant letters at the beginning of each word in a sentence. Instead, it refers to the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of each word. Alliteration is vastly used in tongue twisters.
For example, Betty bought better butter to make the bitter butter better.
Epistrophe:
Epistrophe is the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of each sentence or clause in writing. The purpose of epistrophe is to highlight the key idea to readers. This famous speech of Abraham Lincoln is a perfect example of epistrophe:
“And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”
Foreshadowing:
Foreshadowing is a very interesting literary device in writing that indicates something will happen later in the plot. It raises curiosity in readers’ minds to know what is going to occur.
For example, if a weapon is found in a drawer at the beginning of a story, it points out a future crime in the story.
Hyperbole:
Hyperbole in writing refers to the exaggeration in speech. Writers often create it intentionally to make lines humorous. But, the theme of hyperbole is impossible to happen. Poets often use hyperbole in romantic poetry.
For example, her smile was a mile wide.
Irony:
In the case of irony, an author says one thing but means a different thing. A big difference between expectation and reality is noticeable in irony. The use of irony in writing creates humor in general. But, writers also use it to create empathy.
An example of humorous irony is – a post on Facebook complaining about how useless Facebook is!
Metaphor/Simile:
Though metaphor and simile look similar, they have subtle differences. A metaphor is a comparison between two different things where something is something else. For example, time is money. A simile is a comparison between two different things where something is like or as something else. For example, time is like money. Writers use both the metaphor and simile to create a picture that readers easily understand and respond to.
Satire:
Satire simply means strong irony or sarcasm to highlight corruption, social manner, foolishness, etc. Cartoonists frequently apply satire in their artworks. But, writers also use this literary device to poke at political leaders, traditions, and social issues. Writers do not create satire for joking only. Sometimes, it has a hidden message for people to create social awareness.
Symbolism:
Symbolism refers to using an object to deepen the meaning and enhance the theme of a story. In symbolism, the object used in a scene illustrates something further than its literal meaning.
For example, a river in a scene could represent the flow of life from birth to death.
Personification:
Personification is a literary device that attributes human nature and behavior to animals or objects in writing. The theme of personification is nothing but fantasy. However, it enhances the beauty of literature and poetry.
For example, you can hear the trees whisper in the dark.
Final thought:
Writing is an invaluable skill for anyone and a major way of communication. It is admirable if you write short stories, poems, articles, or blog posts in English. But, mastering these literary devices is crucial to reaching the advanced level of writing. Applying these devices will make your writing more beautiful and unique. Along with attracting readers, you can share your message through superior writing. There is no other way except continuous practice to achieve writing skills. Don’t you know how to start? You can apply these literary devices in your writing from today.
The Gambler is one of the most famous novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It appeared rather unusually. Money problems forced Dostoevsky to agree to an enslaving agreement with the publishing house, which set a very short deadline for writing a new novel – November 1866. In order to be on time, Dostoevsky invited the stenographer Anna Snitkina to cooperate, and also took the well-known theme of the casino as the basis for the work.
The novel is partly autobiographical. True, Dostoevsky was able to overcome the destructive passion for the game, but the main character of the work, Alexei Ivanovich, seems to have not gotten out of this bottom.
The genre of the work is difficult to define unambiguously. This is a synthesis of the comic line, love, as well as adventure. Many pages are devoted to the philosophical reflections of the author. And everything is crowned by a roulette – a symbol of life, destiny.
Clever and energetic Alexei Ivanovich gives all his passion to the game. His friend Astley believes that the teacher could benefit society, and not waste his energy in vain. But for the main character, the game overshadows everything, even love for Polina.
While the lovers of online roulette games will certainly find the novel interesting the game in the following work is not only roulette. In a broad sense, this is the relationship between the characters. Polina plays Alexei Ivanovich, forcing him to fulfil his whims. Blanche deftly and skillfully leads her party: first with the general, then with Alexei, in order to eventually rob both of them.
Structure
Compositionally, the novel can be divided into three parts. The first, the largest, shows the origin of criminal passion and the reasons that brought the protagonist to the gambling table. The second is a big win and the moral fall that followed. And the third part is the complete degradation of Alexei’s personality. The teacher no longer reads newspapers and does not know what is happening in the world. Only the game occupies Alexei’s thoughts, displacing all his feelings.
It is characteristic that the player is practically indifferent to money. Having won 200 thousand, he easily and quickly squandered them. He did it in cold blood, consciously and without pleasure, in fact, following the lead of Mademoiselle Blanche. In roulette, he is interested not so much in winning as in the process itself.
The story is deliberately told in the first person. Dostoevsky, thus, was able to show the subtleties of emotional experiences, shades of feelings of the hero, opened the inner world of the player to the reader, showed the steps leading him to the abyss.
The love line between Alexei and Polina is the most intriguing part of it. The reader seeks to unravel the mystery of Polina and the motives of her actions. The general’s stepdaughter is one of the most striking female images in Dostoevsky’s work.
Dostoevsky’s mastery has been drawing readers’ attention to the novel for two and a half centuries. The gambler of the 19th century differs from the gambler of the 21st century only in clothes, manners and a mobile phone. The essence of his addictions remained the same, and weak will and moral emptiness lead to dependence and spiritual degradation.
Hailing from Brooklyn, Grace Ives started making music while in college, studying briefly at the Maryland Institute College of Art before transferring to SUNY Purchase. While most of her peers were trying to emulate the success of fellow SUNY Purchase grad Mitski, Ives was more inspired by M.I.A. and Britney Spears. Throughout her first releases, the 2016 EP Really Hot and her debut album, 2019’s 2nd, she developed a style of lo-fi pop that somehow felt both nervy and laid-back, but always irrepressibly fun. Her songs, often built around a Roland MC 505 beat, were all about keeping it minimal. Ives’ process going into her recently released sophomore LP, Janky Star, wasn’t much different: she began making demos at home with her favourite synth, fleshing them out over a period of two years before her label encouraged her to work with a producer. She eventually enlisted Justin Raisen, whose work with the likes of Sky Ferreira, Charli XCX, and Yves Tumour melds pop with the avant-garde.
The result is her most dynamic, fully-realized effort yet, one that highlights the nuances of her writing. The spaces in Ives’ music can be both restless and quiet, claustrophobic and introspective; in less than 30 minutes, Janky Star shifts along a wide spectrum of sound without diluting its core message. Although the album doesn’t adhere to a conventional narrative – or a conventional anything – Ives and her collaborator bring the songs to life in such a way where each individual story feels potent and hypnotic, brimming with more than just quirky ideas. Her songs don’t just mirror the busyness of modern life – they capture the luminous chaos of trying, day after day, to simply stand still.
We caught up with Grace Ives for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about the process of making Janky Star, working with Justin Raisen, and more.
Now that the album is out and you have some distance from it, I’m curious what your relationship is to some of the songs – particularly ‘Angel of Business’, which you wrote a while back to try to be more hopeful about your future in the industry. Do they still feel close to your heart?
They definitely do still feel close to my heart in the message that I intended to wrap into each song. Especially for ‘Angel of Business’, those are words that still I have to go back to and remind myself of to keep going. I was talking to my manager before the album came out and was really nervous, and she was like, “It’s like you said in the song, you’re gonna get it either way.” She even referenced back to ‘Angel of Business’ to remind me that those are words that I wrote and I should revisit them often. But for the most part, I feel like my relationship to the songs now, they still like make me happy and give me the same feeling that I wanted them to give other people. I don’t really listen to ‘Angel of Business’ that much, but when I’m performing it, I’m reminded of the encouragement and it still means a lot to me. I don’t think that that period of my life, of uncertainty, is over. I still need those words of encouragement. Even though it does feel like everything is going well, it’s very easy for me to get a little bit scared.
I wanted to ask you about the beginning and end of the record, ‘Isn’t It Lovely’ and ‘Lullaby’, which are kind of connected by the word “lovely.” I wonder if the word “lovely” has a particular significance to you, if there’s a reason you preferred it over other synonyms.
Totally. That’s a great question. I feel like it’s a word that kind of touches something that’s beautiful or charming, but it’s not the hugest compliment. It’s not so rooted in beauty and magic – it’s almost quaint to me. And I also just think that it’s a beautiful word by itself, “lovely.” And I feel like it also relates to love – it sounds like it should mean like it’s of or about love, but I don’t think that it’s used that way. So I think that it’s a fun word to play with – it sounds cool to say, it sounds beautiful, but it’s a small word. It’s a small little nod to something kind of beautiful, without being so descriptive.
I agree with a lot of what you’ve said. I don’t know if you’ve read Japanese Breakfast’s memoir Crying in H Mart?
I haven’t! I need to.
I remember there being a specific passage in it about the word “lovely,” which totally changed my view on it. It’s a small word, but there’s a powerful resonance to it. It really strikes that perfect balance.
As a whole, Janky Star retains some of the restless energy of your debut, but it’s also marked by a longing for stillness. It feels like you’re trying to be not just playfully self-aware, but actually mindful. How conscious were you of balancing those two impulses, and to maybe lean more on slowing things down?
I was definitely mindful to have balance throughout the record. Fire and Water – I had all my songs and I would kind of label them Fire, Water, or Earth. ‘Isn’t It Lovely’ is very Water to me, it’s very calming. And then ‘Burn Bridges’ is pure Fire, too much Fire. And then ‘Loose’ is Fire, and ‘Lullaby’ felt very Earth to me. Because there wasn’t like a cohesive mesh of a story being told throughout the album – I have more of just a chronological sequencing of songs that I had written that kind of tell a story of my life, but you have to kind of dig there. So I was definitely mindful to create those balances that we all need, of stillness and motion. I feel like on my first album, I wasn’t really thinking of it like that. I kind of wanted it all to be fire. [laughs] This time around, not necessarily while I was creating it but while I was sequencing and thinking of things as being done, I was making sure that I had enough of mainly the Fire and Water thing.
I feel like the dynamic really starts to shift around the fourth track – the transition from ‘Burn Bridges’ to ‘Angel of Business’ is almost jarring in an intriguing way. At what point did you start thinking about the sequencing and the effect you wanted it to have?
I wish I had been thinking about it sooner, because when it came to actually sequencing it, I had a really hard time because it almost felt like there should be a minute of silence between each song. Like, ‘Burn Bridges’ was hard to lead into and hard to get out of. I don’t think I made it super easy on myself by not being so mindful of transitions and space throughout the record while I was making it. It kind of was an afterthought, and that made it hard to piece it all together, especially when I wanted to find balance. It was definitely a challenge. Because a lot of the songs are also very different, when I had these problem songs and I was like, “I don’t know how to go into this song, I don’t know how to leave it,” I then had to go back to the story that was being told. So, like, ‘Burn Bridges’ is a song about having a meeting with someone in the music industry and ‘Angel of Business’ is kind of a message from the universe telling you that, yes, this business side of things is scary and overwhelming, but you’re gonna be okay. When it was hard to figure out what would come next, I had to go into the story.
I wish I had thought a little bit more about sequencing while I was making it because transitions are so fun to play with, but I was very in a song mentality and not really an album mentality. I tend to work that way where it’s one melody idea, one story idea, and then close the book and go to the next one. I don’t really tend to work larger chunks of time. I look at like three minutes and not six minutes. It’s like staying in the moment and not worrying about the future. [laughs] Which is a hard thing to do, and I’m not an expert at that. But that’s more how I work. It’s like, “This song, this song, and this song only,” and you’re like running along with the song. And then the plan for what comes next is just in the moment.
Do you feel like the process of making the album made you feel more grounded in the present? Was that an important goal for you personally while you were making the album?
I think so. I was taking my time more, and also, in my past records, I was so focused on my two instruments, and this time around, I was in a studio where there’s like keyboards on the walls. I have a tendency to rush through and just be like, “That sound is great, that’s the one.” But this time around, I let myself actually play – even if it doesn’t go on the record, it was important for me to play a piano that I’ve never played for 20 minutes, and if we end up using it, we do, and if we don’t, we don’t. I tried to give myself a little bit more time, but also space creatively to explore different options in the moment and not fast-track things.
I feel like that makes it a more versatile record as well. When you consider the album as a whole, do you think it represents different sides of your personality, or is it almost like some songs are kind of alien to you – like they have a life of their own?
No, I think it’s all different sides of me. Because I can have a week where I’m like, “Oh, I hate ‘Burn Bridges’, why did I put that on there?” And then cut to when I’m in a different mental space and I have ‘Burned Bridges’ on and I’m like, “Yes!” I think there definitely is – maybe not a full spectrum of who I am, I think that’s hard, for us as humans to capture our full spectrums – but I think it’s a good chunk of different sides of me. And also different sides of what I’m capable of as a producer and a writer. Like, ‘Back in LA’, I could hear somebody rapping over that for sure – especially the outro is very Travis Scott. But then on ‘Isn’t It Lovely’, I was more inspired by Harry Nilsson and more country and folk type melodies. So I think it definitely shows a full spectrum of my influences as a musician – maybe not emotionally, I think that that’s a little harder for me to capture.
In what way do you mean?
To write an album that captures all of my different feelings – I don’t think I showed on this record, like, my insecurity, there wasn’t a lot of sadness. There’s a little bit more of a content feeling. I feel like it’s harder to put into a record a full spectrum of your emotions and thoughts and feelings. I think that I captured maybe three-fourths of it, but I gave a more full spectrum of musical references.
You worked with Justin Raisen on the production of the record. Is there a general quality or any specific details that came out of the collaboration that still surprise you? Do you think there’s a part of your musical personality you were able to tap into more as a result of working together?
I think that some things that I would have shied away from, he encouraged. He was super encouraging of my own artistic impulses that sometimes I’m just like, “That’s too cringy to follow through with.” But he was like, “No, you wanted to do it, you should do it.” He was super encouraging, which wasn’t really a surprise. I FaceTimed him and I knew that he was a great guy with a lot of character and energy. But I was surprised at how well he understood my musical language. Talking about music is different for each artist – I would say things like, “There’s a door before the chorus of ‘Lazy Day’ and I need it to just open, like someone burst through it.” You say that to somebody and they could be like, “Uh… door… OK.” But he was like, “Totally! I see that door!” We had the same sonic language, which was the best surprise ever. That was something that felt really good and reassuring.
Another thing that struck me about the songs is your singing – you allow your voice to be manipulated in various different ways, but you’re also confident in your vocal performance. How has your relationship with your voice evolved over the past few years? Is that something you intentionally put more energy into?
I feel like on my first album, 2nd, I was using a sort of character voice, very cute and tight and not too revealing. And I think I did that so that I can [create] a distance between me as a person and me as an artist. I gave myself a little voice to sing in. But on this one I was really like, “I love singing, I sing all the time. [laughs] Why don’t I just let myself sing in my natural voice?” I feel like I was going for a more unfiltered approach. There’s delay, but there’s not a lot of AutoTune, it’s not drowning in reverb. There was a conscious decision to just do straight-up me singing as best as I could, and that felt like a first for me.
Was it sometimes a challenge to make that flow with the sonic palette of the record?
Yeah, I think so. Because singing is always the last part – you make your songs, and then you put your voice on top of it. And sometimes they don’t mesh. I had to change my delivery for certain songs, like ‘Shelley’, I had to be a little bit more Lou Reed, rock star-y. It’s like the manipulation had to happen on my end, I had to be just more conscious of my delivery.
In just about every way, Janky Star feels like an expansion: from the overall running time to the length of the individual songs, from the production to the way it was released. Yet in the way it’s being talked about, there’s a sense that there’s almost a smallness to how it’s presented. I’m thinking, for example, about the Pitchfork review calling it “one of best little pop albums of the year.” Is that a perception you struggle with or want to break away from going forwards?
I have to tell myself that it’s “little” because I’m little, you know, in the scope of artists and pop music. I’m small, like not a lot of people know me. Because I think that sonically, I want things to be huge. I’m okay with being small for the time being. Obviously, most artists want to be as big as they can be, but I don’t think I’m there yet. But maybe the littleness is the intimacy of my closeness in my voice and the shortness of the songs and the breaths that you can hear. I think that that makes it seem kind of small and personal, as opposed to really singing with a lot of reverb and longer songs, longer stories – I think that that would make it sound bigger. I don’t know, it’s hard to understand what they mean when they use the word “little” pop. I take it as, “Oh, it’s because I’m little and it’s only 10 songs.”
It’s definitely meant in a positive way – I think those qualities make it endearing and personable. I was just curious if your ambition for the future is to make something that’s unmistakeably bigger as far as pop goes.
I would love to make things bigger. I think that it’s a challenge, but I’m up for it. I do value the closeness and the intimacy and the smallness of what I do naturally, so I’m not sure if it’ll be totally natural in my next project to expand so quickly. I think I’m looking for more of a slow expansion that’s more natural.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Angel Olsen has shared her take on Lucinda Williams’ ‘Greenville’, from the classic 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Recorded as an Amazon Original, the cover features vocals from Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy and was engineered by Kyle Thomas, aka King Tuff. Listen to it below.
In a press release, Olsen explained:
Before I wrote Big Time, I found a new obsession and love for Lucinda’s body of work. There is no one like her out there. It’s clear to me that her songs come from a very real place, and that’s the only kind of writing I like.
I recorded my version of “Greenville” in Los Angeles earlier this month with Kyle Thomas of King Tuff. We’ve known each other for a while but never recorded music together. Kyle made this so fun to record, and we had a great time goofing around. Meg Duffy also sang with me on this track. Meg showed me this song for the first time years ago and was the first one to introduce me to Lucinda’s music. It was very meaningful to have them on the track with me.
Rat Tally, the moniker of Chicago singer-songwriter Addy Harris, has announced her debut album. In My Car is set to arrive on August 12 and features guest appearances from Jay Som and Madeline Kenney. Accompanying the announcement is a new single called ‘Spinning Wheel’, which you can hear below.
Rat Tally self-released her first EP, When You Wake Up, in 2019. Last year, she shared the single ‘Shrug’ to mark her signing to 6131 Records (Julien Baker, Joyce Manor, Katie Malco).
Kevin Morby stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night (June 22) to perform his single ‘This Is a Photograph’, accompanied by a full band and backup singers. Watch it below, along with a web-exclusive performance of ‘Beautiful Strangers’.
‘This Is a Photograph’ is the title track to Morby’s latest album, which came out last month via Dead Oceans. ‘Beautiful Strangers’ was released as a standalone single in 2016 to benefit the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety.
Djo – the musical project of Stranger Things star Joe Keery – will follow up 2019’s TWENTY TWENTY with a new LP, Decide, on September 16. The album was produced by Adam Thein throughout the pandemic, with recording completed at Sound Factory in Los Angeles. Its latest single is called ‘Change’, and you can check it out below.
Sylvan Esso have unveiled a new single called ‘Your Reality’. The track, which features a string arrangement from Gabriel Kahane and drums by TJ Maiani, is a reflection of “how weird we can take it,” the duo’s Nick Sanborn said in a statement. “How bare and strange something can be.” Give it a listen below.
According to a press release, Sanborn and Amelia Meath describe their first three albums as a trilogy, with ‘Your Reality’ representing the beginning of a new era “that is stranger and more cathartic than the band has ever been.”
‘Your Reality’ follows Sylvan Esso’s recent single ‘Sunburn’. Their last album was 2020’s Grammy-nominated Free Love.
Kacey Musgraves has released her cover of Elvis Presley’s classic ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’. It appears on the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann’s new biopic Elvis, and it’s accompanied by a video featuring footage from the film. Check it out below.
Elvis arrives in theaters on June 24, and the soundtrack is out the same day via House of Iona/RCA. It features contributions from Doja Cat (‘Vegas’), Eminem and CeeLo Green (‘The King and I’), and more.
