It’s time for the latest instalment of our “Gambling A To Z” series, which deals with the letter “N”. We’ll take a look at the “Northern Club”, which is where it all began for Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world, as well as two pieces of gamblign slang; one from the poker world and the other concerning sports betting.
N is for… Nuts
The “Nuts” or “Nut Hand” is the term for the strongest possible hand at any given time, in a game of poker – usually referring to community card games, where it is much easier to calculate the best possible hand.
For example, looking at a Texas Hold’em Poker board of As – Ks – 3d – 5c – 9s, the best possible hand that can be made here is a flush, using the As Ks and 9s and the hole cards Qs and Js. It simply isn’t possible to find any other two hole cards to beat that particular hand, so it can be said to be the “nuts”.
The “second nuts” would be the second best possible hand, while the “third nuts” would be the third best, and so on. In high – low split games, where there are two separate pots to be played for, it is not uncommon to hear the terms “Nut Low” and indeed “Nut High”, to refer to the best possible hand for each pot, while “Nut Nut” would refer to a hand that contains both the nut high and nut low.
The term “nuts” is thought to derive from the earliest poker games played in America, when it is believed that players who wanted to bet everything that they had would take the nuts from the wheels of their wagon and bet with them. This was symbolic, but would also deny them an escape should they lose the hand, so they would be unable to welch on the bet. Anyone wanting to bet everything must surely have a strong hand – likely the strongest hand possible – and so it’s easy to see how “the nuts” would become connected with that.
N is for… Northern Club
These days, we all associate Las Vegas with gambling and to many gamblers, it really is the place to be. But Las Vegas was only established as a town a little over one hundred years ago and only became a city in 1911, while its gambling history is even younger.
It all started for Las Vegas around 1920, when what was then known as the “Las Vegas Coffee House” took the decision to start selling alcohol and to offer gambling, despite both activities being against the law. In 1931, the authorities realised that gambling could be profitable and took the decision to legalise it, issuing the first ever license to the by now renamed “Northern Club” and the rest, as they say, is history.
These days, the Northern Club is known as “La Bayou” and is one of the few venues left in Las Vegas with slot machines that pay out real money, as opposed to vouchers or tokens.
N is for… Nap
No, this doesn’t refer to falling asleep whilst playing a particularly lengthy session of poker, but is actually found in sports betting circles, specifically the field of “tipping”. Tipping is the practice of recommending bets to other people, often in return for a fee.
Someone who offers tips is known as a “tipster” and they are often betting specialists or insiders; perhaps they are professional gamblers or work for a bookmaker and have experience in creating betting markets, and therefore the ability to recognise when the odds on a particular event are out of line; it’s also possible that may have other inside information, such as working for a particular horse racing stable, and therefore are in possession of knowledge about how well a horse is working in training, or similar information.
In any case, when a tipster publishes his or her tips, be that in the local newspaper, on a website or via a telephone service, they will often have more than one selection and it is common to hear one of the tips described as the “Nap”.
The “Nap” is simply the tipster’s best bet; of all the different tips offered, the tipster feels the most strongly about the “Nap” selection. They may also offer a “NB”, which is simply short for “Next Best” – not quite as confident a choice as the Nap, but certainly more so than the rest of the selected bet recommendations.
The term “Nap” is thought to have its origins in a card game called “Napoleon”, a trick taking game similar to Euchre. If a player takes all five of the available tricks, he or she is said to have “gone nap” and the hand could be described as a “nap hand”.
Until next time, when we’ll be taking a look at the letter “M”, be lucky!
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