Table stakes meaning: the minimum to compete
Table stakes are the features, skills or prices every competitor already has. You need them before anyone will consider you. Having them wins you nothing, and lacking them loses you the deal.
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Table stakes in poker
Where table stakes comes from
Table stakes are the minimum it takes to compete at all. The phrase comes from poker. Each player puts a stake on the table when the game starts, and under table-stakes rules nobody can bet more than what’s already there.
The word “stake”, meaning money risked on a bet, goes back to the 1530s. In business, the oldest example of table stakes found so far is in a 2016 marketing book.
Table stakes in business
Table stakes meaning in business
In business, table stakes are what every rival already has. The opposite is a moat, an advantage rivals can’t copy.
Typical table stakes:
- In software: single sign-on, a phone app, export to a spreadsheet.
- In hiring: the license, degree or years of experience an ad marks as required.
- In sales: a finished security questionnaire and one customer who’ll take a reference call.
- In product teams: dogfooding, which means staff use their own product before customers do.
When everything is table stakes
A manager who calls every item table stakes has stopped choosing. It also lets them skip the budget talk. Used honestly, table stakes is one of the few phrases in our jargon dictionary that makes a list shorter. The must-haves get built without a debate, so the meeting only argues about the rest.
Table stakes keep you level with your rivals. Work meant to move the needle goes on a list of its own.
Table stakes at the office
When people are called back to the office, the office has table stakes too. Everyone needs a desk, a keyboard, a cable that fits and a network port that works. Each missing piece gets noticed by lunch on the first day.
Table stakes in a job ad
For a job hunter, two things in an ad are table stakes:
- A salary written as a number. “Competitive” is one of the corporate buzzwords ads use instead, and it takes up more room than the figure would.
- A location that means what it says. If the ad says “remote” and then tells you which city to live in, it’s an office job, whatever it promises about WFH.
A Slack thread about table stakes
#product-roadmap, Tuesday 2:14 pm
Priya: Dark mode is
table stakesthe minimum at this point, every competitor has it.Tom: Agreed. So it goes in the release, and it stays off the launch slides.
Table stakes in a sentence
Mobile support is table stakes in this market.
Free returns are table stakes in online fashion, Camila. Offering them wins nobody over.
For this role, Python is table stakes, Jun. The interview is about everything else.
At the office poker night, table stakes meant Gunnar could only bet the chips in front of him.
Questions about table stakes
What is a synonym for "table stakes"?
The bare minimum, the price of entry, must-haves or the basics. Product teams also say hygiene factors, and job ads say minimum requirements.
How do you use table stakes in a sentence?
Use it for something every rival already has, as in "Same-day shipping is table stakes in this market, so our pitch has to be about price." People say both "table stakes are" and "it's table stakes".
Is table stakes hyphenated?
Not as a noun. On its own it's two words, and dictionaries list it in the singular, as table stake. Used in front of another noun, it gets a hyphen under the usual rule for compound modifiers, as in a table-stakes feature.
Is it table stakes or steaks?
Stakes, the money a poker player puts on the table. Table steaks would be dinner.
What are table stakes in marketing?
Anything a brand needs before anyone will listen to it, like a site that works, replies that come back and prices people can find. Sounding like a human has been on that list since at least 2016.
What do stakes mean in business?
A stake is a share in a business, as in a 40% stake in a company. The stakes are what a deal can win you, so high stakes means a lot riding on it. Table stakes uses the betting sense, the money a player risks.