Betfair Official Blog

Is It A Call Or Is It A Raise?

QUESTION: "Player A bets $6 and then Player B tosses in a $25 chip without indicating that he is raising. The dealer proceeds to deal the flop, and Player B creates a stink, saying he was raising the pot and not calling, then tosses in his cards, calls a mis-deal, grabs his money and quits the hand"

The answer..?

Mark Pilarkis writes: "If you put a single chip in the pot that is larger than the bet, but you do not announce a raise, you are assumed to have only called the bet. Example: In a $3-$6 game, when a player bets $6 and the next player puts a $25 chip in the pot without saying anything, that player has merely called the $6 bet."

Agreed. This is call. The player has not indicated otherwise.

Of course, the dealer should have given the player some change, in the example given, $19. And because the dealer represents the house, the onus is on them to state and implement the rules.

In a private game, then the onus is on the player, who made the error.

It's called the oversided chip rule:

An oversized chip before the flop is a call; after the flop, an oversized chip by the initial bettor put in the pot will constitute the size of the bet. In pot-limit and no-limit, if a player states raise and throws in an oversized chip, the raise will be the maximum amount allowable up to the size of that chip.

In the aforesaid example,the player tossing in the bigger chip is creating ambiguity. It could be a raise, or it could be a call. In such an event, the action is ruled to be the least aggressive - he has called.

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