''Va banque'' or ''Vabanque'' is a gambling term from the card game of

Pharo Pharo is an open source, cross-platform implementation of the classic Smalltalk-80 programming language and runtime. It's based on the OpenSmalltalk virtual machine called Cog (VM), which evaluates a dynamic, Reflective programming, reflectiv ...

or Faro, which was popular in the 18th and 19th century. It is similar to the decision to "go bank" (or "''banco''") in '' chemin de fer'', a form of

baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup (round of play) has three possible outcomes: "player" (player has the higher score ...

. It means that a player bets equal to the current amount of money in the game's "bank". ''Vabanque'' is generally a risky choice in that the player puts everything at stake, he is "all in", and can lose everything, or gain an equal amount. ''Va banque'' became a particularly noted expression due to its uses in a reported dialogue between

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...

as the Polish crisis reached its peak before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Göring urged Hitler not to go too far with his gamble of playing off the English against the Poles, to which Hitler replied that throughout his life he had always played ''vabanque''. The term was also used in normal card games like

Bavarian Tarock Bavarian Tarock (german: Bayerisches Tarock) or, often, just Tarock, is a card game that was once popular in Bavaria and also played in parts of Austria as well as Berlin. The name is a clue to its origin in the historical German game of ross-ar ...

when a player risked everything on the play of one card._ (1881), p. 87. In Poland, the term may also refer to the game show of the same name, where a player risks everything on one answer, something which happens in a Daily Double or in the Final Jeopardy! round.

References

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Literature

* _ (1881). ''Ausführliche Anleitung zum Deutschtarokspielen nebst einem Anhange, enthaltend: ein Verzeichniß über alle technischen oder Kunstausdrücke, Provinzialismen und vulgären Bezeichnungen, welche bei diesem Spiele vorkommen''. Munich: Cäsar Fritsch. Gambling terminology Adolf Hitler