Monkey Gambling Slang
In sports betting, a pony is British slang for a sum of £25. Please note that while this term isn’t really used outside the Commonwealth, it’s still fairly popular with some members of British online sports betting communities.
Usage Example
“Jake bet a pony on his favorite team again.”
Slang terms for money often derive from the appearance and features of banknotes or coins, their values, historical associations or the units of currency concerned. Within a single language community some of the slang terms vary across social, ethnic, economic, and geographic strata, but others have become the dominant way of referring to the currency and are regarded as mainstream, acceptable. Let’s see A “grand” “Large” As in, “it’ll cost you 20 large ($20,000)to make your little problem go away.” “G” Ken Beyer alertly points out that if this “problem person” should have, you know, an accident—and he’s not saying he will— it might cos.
Trivia
The origins of this term aren’t really well known. One of the theories states that it came from British soldiers returning from India, where the 25 rupee note had a picture of a pony on it and that the saying was simply converted for sterling to mean £25. The soldiers also used the term monkey to refer to £500, since the 500 rupee note had a picture of a monkey on it.
Another theory states that the pony comes from the time when five pound notes were white, and the cost of horses or ponies along with a wedding carriage was approximately £25. Consequently, people used to say “I’ll pay for the pony in white” while referring to the color of the money and the wedding. Therefore, five white £5 notes became a pony, which roughly corresponded to the cost of a wedding.
You may have heard it in a casino at a blackjack table.
MONKEY! MONKEY! MONKEY!
Generally it’s a method of calling for a “10” of some kind when someone is doubling down on a hand, or is showing a single ace.
If that’s not the case, the player’s an idiot, in which case, you should walk away from the table before that player messes up the shoe, and takes down the table.
*ahem*
Getting back to the subject at hand, most people really don’t know where the term came from, only that it’s popular, and like all lemmings, one will following the next, while they all jump off a cliff to join the rest.
This term follows along that same path, after which, you may not want to use it again.
The word orang is the Malaysian/Indonesian word for “person”, which is the root for the word orangutan (yes, the primate). Orang, in many Chinese dialects, primarily Mandarin and Taiwanese, is a derogatory word for a black person (you can equate it to the n-word).
Those that frequent casinos will understand when I say this:
Where there’s a casino, you will find Asians.
(If you wonder why that is, let’s just say, it’s part of the religion.)
In a translation gone bad, it is perhaps assumed that a Chinese person at a casino at some point called out MONKEY! while playing blackjack, innocently believing they were calling for a “black” jack, or a n***** and, since no one understood the ramifications of what this one person was saying, this person was lucky enough to walk away, unscathed, rather than get jumped, then beaten down for using the racial slur (translated into another language).
Although not meant to be a derogatory comment in general, most singularly racial societies rarely understand the slang that sometimes may come out of their mouths, which under multi-racial circumstances, would constitute a beat-down of “yo mama” proportions.
You may think you sound “cool”, and in your ignorance, you had no idea, but now that you do, don’t be THAT person, and just take it out of your gambling vocabulary.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
Monkey Gambling Slang Meaning
Monkey Gambling Slang Crossword Clue
Podcast: Play in new window Download