After a deck of playing cards is shuffled, it is often given to a player other than the one who performed the shuffle for a procedure called a cut. To cut the deck, the player removes as a unit roughly half of the cards from the top of the deck, placing that portion on the table next to the remaining cards, toward the dealer (by convention). Either he or the dealer then picks up the remaining bottom portion of the deck, places it upon the former top portion, then squares the deck.

The term is also used for a random selection procedure in which a player perform the first part of a cut (removing a group of cards from the top of a deck), then look at the value of the card on the bottom of that portion, then replaces it. Another player then does the same, and the values of the cards thus exposed are used for such things as selecting who deals the game. This is often used as a pure gamble as well, much like fliping coins.