Official poker is a card game in which players wager real money (or chips that represent currency) on individual hands. The winning hand pays out a small percentage of the total pot. This percentage varies from game to game, but close to 10% of the players receive payouts in most tournaments. In cash games, however, only a small percentage of players are paid, and the percentage can be much higher in high stakes games.

In a game of poker, each player bets in turn according to the rank they believe their card hand is worth relative to other players’. A player may also raise a bet, increasing the amount that other players must call to remain in the hand. Eventually, one or more players will have to fold and thus lose all the money bet so far.

Poker dealers must protect the cards by placing the top card face-down into a muck pile after each betting interval. This prevents players from being able to identify their own cards by picking up markings on the backs of the cards.

The cards are dealt from a standard 52-card deck with the addition of one or two jokers. Usually, each player “buys in” for the same amount of chips at the start of the game. The dealer button (a token placed on a table to mark the nominal dealer) rotates clockwise among players to determine who deals the next hand. In some games, an actual house dealer handles the cards, but this is less common.