Atlassino Academy
A course for adults who are going to a land-based casino in Argentina, or already go and want to understand what is happening at the table. It teaches you to play without mistakes, to know what an hour costs, and to spot the stories people tell about luck.
Two illustrated hosts, Leo and Maya, take one moment of a game apart at a time. A lesson runs about 10–32 minutes, and you can stop after any one of them.
What the course does not promise
The house keeps its edge in every game against the casino; the course shows its price and how to pay less of it. Nothing here tells you how an evening will end.
New to casinos? Start here
Track 0 walks through one visit in order: the door, the money you decide on before you leave home, chips and the cashier, sitting down at a table, reading the table sign, choosing which table to sit at, and ending the night. It is 7 lessons, about 163 minutes in all.
The tracks
The course has 11 tracks and 62 lessons, and every one of them is open below.
From the door to the end of the night: age and ID, the money you decide before you go, chips, joining a table, the table sign, choosing a table and leaving.
Whether cards, dice and wheels remember, where the price of a game comes from, and why one night says so little about it.
What a spin costs, how often a machine pays, and where the money for the bonus rounds comes from.
The same blackjack under three provincial rulebooks: where the small print parts, and what each difference does to the house’s share.
Open 3.1 Card values, soft and hard hands
The lessons in this track
- 3.1Card values, soft and hard hands
- 3.2How a round goes, province by provincereads the published rules of three casino operators; what the cards count is lesson 3.1 and what each move is is lesson 3.3
- 3.3Hit, stand, double, split, declare the aceassumes you know what the cards count and how a round goes, which lessons 3.1 and 3.2 teach
- 3.5Why you act first, and what it costs
- 3.6When to hit or stand on a hard totalassumes you know how a hand of blackjack goes, which lessons 3.1 to 3.5 teach
- 3.7Doubling down: a second bet on one cardassumes you know what doubling is: a second bet and exactly one more card
- 3.8Soft hands and the ace declared 1 or 11
- 3.9Pairs: when to splitassumes you know what splitting is and how a hand of blackjack goes, which lessons 3.1 to 3.5 teach
- 3.10The whole chart and your printed card
- 3.11One game, three rulebooks
- 3.12Seguro: a side bet, or insurance
- 3.17Third base, hot tables and the table's mood
The wheels and how many zeros they carry, what every bet on the layout pays, and why they all cost the same.
Open 4.1 Wheels and the layout
The lessons in this track
The pass line, come bets, and who throws the dice at a table in the provinces.
The lessons in this track
How punto y banca is played in the provinces: the shoe going round the table, the bank, and how a Banca bet is paid.
Open 6.8 Punto y banca: the bank goes round the table
The lessons in this track
Hand rankings, starting hands, outs and pot odds, the nuts and blockers, the showdown, and what tournament chips are worth.
Open 7.1 Poker hands, from high card to royal
The lessons in this track
- 7.1Poker hands, from high card to royal
- 7.2Blinds, button and betting rounds
- 7.3The poker room: list, buy-in, stakes, rake
- 7.4Binding actions and one player to a hand
- 7.5The showdown: kickers and split pots
- 7.6Starting hands: how often and how far ahead
- 7.7Outs and the exact odds
- 7.8Pot odds: a decision, not a result
- 7.9The nuts, the board and blockers
- 7.11Tournaments: buy-in, structure and M
- 7.12Chips are not money: the final table
- 7.13Tilt, and when to leave the room
Video poker under the technical standards of Buenos Aires: why every hand starts from a shuffled deck, and why no machine is ever due.
The lessons in this track
Four games against the bank from Argentine rule books: siete y medio, Central Póker 3, póker mediterráneo and póker Oasis, with what each bet is paid and what it costs.
How far one evening swings from its price, what a walk-away rule changes, what doubling the bet after a loss does and does not change, and what chasing a loss looks like.
Open 10.1 Swings, goals and running out
The lessons in this track
Your two hosts
Leoformer dealer · rules and maths
Leo takes the rules, the order of play and the arithmetic. His line: “Let’s count it.”
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Maya takes manners at the table, money and time, breaks, and the stories people tell about luck. Her line: “Decide it before you sit down.”
Leo and Maya are illustrated characters; their backstories, a former dealer and a former floor supervisor, are written for the course. Neither is a real person, and neither speaks for any casino.
How a lesson works
- A question first One question before the subject, with no score: it is there to make the answer stick, not to test you.
- A worked example A host takes one moment apart step by step, then hands you the last step, then the whole thing.
- A practice table A real moment of the game: you decide, you see what happened, what it cost on average, and why the answer is the answer.
- Questions with the reasoning Three to five questions, and every option has its own explanation, not just the right one.
- A card for the table A few lines to print or keep on your phone, with the province’s helpline on it.
Every figure in a lesson is worked out when the page is built, by the same engines as our tools, or comes from a source quoted on the spot. More on how we verify.
Nothing you do in a practice table leaves your browser: what you answered is kept on this device and is sent nowhere.
Where you left off
Progress is kept on this device only: nothing about what you answered is sent anywhere, and there is no account. Anyone using this device can see this.
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The words used at a table
One meaning per word across the whole course. A lesson explains a term the first time it uses it; here they are together.
The course glossary
- shoe
- the box the dealer deals from, holding several decks shuffled together
- round
- one full go of the game: bets down, cards or dice, then settling
- rounds an hour
- how many rounds a table gets through in an hour, which is what turns a bet into an hourly cost
- betting spot
- the marked place on the cloth where your bet goes
- table sign
- the small sign at the table giving the minimum and maximum bet, the payout and the rules of that table
- minimum
- the smallest bet the table takes, for each bet on your spot
- maximum
- the largest bet the table takes, for each bet on your spot
- push
- a tie: your bet comes back and nothing is paid
- bust
- a hand over 21, which loses at once
- "no more bets"
- the dealer’s call that closes betting for the round
- dolly
- the marker the dealer puts on the roulette number that came up; nobody touches chips until it comes off
- felt
- the cloth of the table, where the bets and the cards go
- dealer bet
- a tip put down as a bet played for the dealer, which is settled like any other bet
- reserved marker
- the small marker a dealer puts on a spot whose player has stepped away for a moment
- button
- the disc that marks which poker seat is dealing this hand; it moves one seat on every hand
- blackjack
- twenty-one on your first two cards: the one hand a table pays at a rate of its own
- side bet
- an extra bet in a circle of its own, with its own limits and its own pay table
- inside bet
- a roulette bet on the numbers themselves
- outside bet
- a roulette bet around the edge of the cloth: red, black, odd, even, columns and dozens
- commission
- a share the table keeps out of a bet that pays, rather than out of the bet you put down
- cashier (the cage)
- the window where chips and slot tickets become money
- buy in
- to change cash for chips at the table
- value chips
- ordinary chips with an amount printed on them, good anywhere in the casino
- roulette colour chips
- chips of one colour used by one player at one roulette table, with no amount printed on them
- colour up
- to swap a pile of small chips for fewer larger ones before you leave the table
- slot ticket
- the printed slip a machine gives you instead of coins, cashed at the cage or a kiosk
- credits
- what a machine counts your money in on screen, which is not the same as cash until you cash out
- bet
- the money you put on one round
- turnover
- all the money that goes over the table in an evening: the same money again and again
- house edge
- the share of all the money bet that the casino keeps on average, over many rounds
- price of an hour
- bet, times rounds an hour, times the house edge: what an hour of a game costs on average
- money an hour
- how much of your own money you plan to spend in an hour, which is a decision, not a figure of the game
- limit
- the money and the time you decide on before you go: a ceiling, not a target
- limit in bets
- your limit counted in bets rather than money: a limit of 100 units at 10 units a bet is ten bets
- kiosk
- a machine on the casino floor that turns a slot ticket into cash
- gaming floor
- the part of the casino where the games are
- security
- the staff at the doors who check who comes in, and at some casinos keep what has been handed in
- government photo ID
- the identity document with your photo and your date of birth that the door asks for: the national identity card, or a passport
- original document
- the card itself, not a photo of it and not a photocopy
- minimum age
- the age from which a casino admits visitors, set by the province the casino stands in
- facial recognition
- a system that compares faces at the door with photos taken when people joined a self-exclusion program
- bag check
- a search of bags at the entrance; some casinos refuse entry to anyone who declines it
- dealer
- the person who runs the game at the table
- supervisor
- the staff member responsible for several tables, who settles anything the dealer cannot
- slot attendant
- the staff member who looks after the machines and pays out what the machine cannot
- coat check
- the counter that takes your coat, and the bag security asks you to leave
- blinds
- the two forced bets that start a poker hand, and the two amounts a game is named by
- denomination
- the amount printed on a chip, which is what the chip is worth
- cash change
- the dealer’s call before counting the money you have put down on the table
- chip rack
- the shelf in front of your seat where your own chips sit while you play
- decision
- a choice you make after the bet is down that changes what the round costs on average; roulette and baccarat have none
- electronic table
- a terminal where you bet on a game run by a screen instead of a dealer; the smallest bets are often lower, and how fast one runs is not published
- kicker
- a card of a five-card hand that is not part of its combination; at a poker table, when two hands hold the same combination, the higher such card decides between them
- self-exclusion
- a provincial programme you sign yourself into, which closes the casino door to you for the term you choose
- helpline
- a confidential phone line, at no charge, for anyone with questions about their own or someone else’s gambling
- 135
- the line to call if you are thinking about suicide
- chasing losses
- playing on to get back what the evening has cost, which raises the cost rather than returning it
Further reading
A book on the mathematics behind our figures. No shops, no affiliate links.
- Practical Casino Math · Robert C. Hannum and Anthony N. Cabot, 2nd edition, 2005The mathematics of casino games as an operator sees it. Link: library catalogue search.
Game and bet names are trademarks of their owners and are used only to describe the games.
If it stops being fun
If gambling stops being entertainment, help is available. Minimum entry age: each province sets its own. Where we found the rule or regulator that sets it, we cite it on the page; those we found set it at 18. More on responsible gaming. The self-exclusion guide lists the programmes you can sign yourself into and the casinos each one covers.
Under the age for a casino: 102 Línea 102: niñas, niños y adolescentes.
If you are thinking about suicide, call 135 or 0800 345 1435 from anywhere in the country