Down to the felt is a gambling term that refers to a player going completely broke. While it can be used both in online and land-based casinos, chances are you won’t hear it that often among players in online casinos. There are several other ways to say that someone is going broke in casinos, and one of the more popular ones is tap out.
As you may know, casino tables are covered by felt tablecloths. What’s more, to play in a brick-and-mortar casino, you need to have chips. Now, most of the time when players have chips in front of them, they will stack them up in small columns.
As they lose, that stack of chips will diminish until there are none left. In other words, they will lose until they are down to the felt, which is how the term was coined.