Marker

In a casino, a marker is a formal credit line drawn against the cage. In a home game, it's the player who lost their buy-in at ten o'clock and bought back in on a promise. "Put me down for another hundred." The chips are real; the money is owed.

Markers are the single most common way home games fall apart. Cash on the table settles itself at cash-out; credit depends on memory, honesty, and the debtor actually having the money on Friday. One forgotten $100 marker breeds resentment; three of them breed a new game that doesn't include the debtor. The uncomfortable part is that the player issuing markers is often the action the game depends on, so everyone keeps lending until the pile of IOUs is bigger than anyone's willingness to mention it.

The fix is boring and total: write every marker down immediately — who, how much, when — in a ledger everyone can see, and settle within an agreed window, usually 24–48 hours. A settle-up tool does this automatically and, more importantly, takes the awkwardness out of it: the app asks for the money so you don't have to. Games that survive for years are the ones where debts are tracked like results, not remembered like favours.

If you're the one taking markers, that's bankroll information too: you're playing stakes your cash on hand can't cover, which is the definition of playing over your head. Buy in smaller, or sit the game out until the money's there. Agree the marker policy before the first session: who may take one, the maximum, and the settlement deadline. Your tracker should list markers separately from cash results, so a month of "wins" funded by your own IOUs doesn't flatter the numbers.