Gambling Guide

The term "rounder" can mean several things.

A rounder is a skilled card shark who makes his/her living entirely at playing cards. This the most common use of the word.

The term "rounder" carries a certain respect amongst card players, as they know anyone with that title knows their way around a table and is a person to be taken seriously, unlike the opposite of a rounder, a "fish." The term sometimes also implies a player making a living by "hustling" less experienced players in games during their "rounds".

Some noted rounders include Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim, and Sailor Roberts. A movie about poker titled Rounders was made in 1998, starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton.

Alternative meanings

• A railroad man who worked at a roundhouse, a building shaped as a partial circle where steam locomotives were stored and serviced. The locomotives were put in position via a turntable, a special track built on a bride-like struture that turned about a central axis; each stall of the roundhouse had a track that ran to the edge of the turntable, and the turntable track was lined up with a stall track for the locomotive to move into. The turntable was sometimes rotated by an engine, but often was moved manually; the men who turned the table were known as "rounders."
• A Methodist preacher travelling a circuit, more commonly referred to as a circuit rider.
• A person who makes the rounds of prisons or bars; a habitual criminal or drunkard.
• A score in a game of rounders.