The two-up kip and pennies: what the paddle is called and which coins to use

What the two-up paddle is called

The paddle is a kip. The Liquor & Gaming NSW two-up rules define it as “the wooden bat from which the pennies are thrown”, so you’ll also hear it called a bat. The spinner receives it from the ringkeeper, loads it with two pennies and tosses them from it.

The word is old. Green’s Dictionary of Slang finds it in the Sydney Bulletin of 1 August 1885, in a line about a cheat who “rung in the nob on the man who had the kip”. The ANU’s Bruce Moore, who has traced the game’s language, thinks the word most likely came from Dublin.

Crossword clue “two-up paddle” (3 letters): KIP.

Why the coins go on a kip

A kip keeps the toss honest. GambleAware NSW puts it plainly: “Using the kip takes out the possibility of someone substituting the coins or tossing them in a way to influence the result.” The 1885 line above shows the trick it guards against: ringing in a nob, a double-headed penny.

The NSW rules add a few conditions. The pennies go on the kip tails up (rule 9), and the spinner has to be standing inside the ring as they leave it. They must also rise a clear two metres over the spinner’s head, or the ringkeeper calls “no spin” (rule 13). The full list of calls is in the rules of the ring.

Size and shape of a kip

None of the rules we read, from NSW, Queensland or Western Australia, sets a size or shape for the kip. The NSW rules define it only as a wooden bat. What they do require is that two pennies sit on it tails up and leave it in a proper toss. We haven’t measured a range of kips, so we don’t give a standard size here.

The pennies and their white cross

Two-up is traditionally played with pre-decimal pennies, the coins Australia used before 1966. The NSW rules set out how they are handled. Two sets of seven stay with the ringkeeper (rule 5), who drops one set on the floor of the ring for the spinner to choose from. Only two pennies are in play at a time (rule 6), and the ringkeeper can swap them whenever they choose (rule 7).

Each penny has its tail side marked with a white cross (rule 8). GambleAware NSW explains why: with both sides clearly marked, the result “can be clearly seen by all and there is no dispute about the result”. After three heads running, the ringkeeper retains the winning pair and the spinner picks a new two from the five left in the set (rule 10).

Two coins are the norm, and WA’s policy limits the game to two coins or two dice. Queensland’s Act permits three, and in three-coin games the majority decides each toss. The rules of the ring explain how a three-coin game plays.

Penny slang: baldies, Micks and the nob

The coins picked up their own vocabulary over the years, recorded by slang dictionaries and the Australian War Memorial. Three words are worth knowing before your first game.

• Baldies — pennies from the reign of Edward VII, whose bald head made the heads side easy to call.
• Micks — slang for the tails side, recorded in the AIF glossary.
• Nob — a cheat’s penny with a head on both sides, as in the 1885 Bulletin line above.

The rest of the ring’s slang, from “swy” to “grouter”, sits in our two-up history and glossary. That page also covers where the game came from and how it became part of Anzac Day.

Two-up sets: buying one or making your own

A basic set is a kip and two coins with the tail side clearly marked. A game run to the NSW rules uses two sets of seven pennies, each with a white cross on the tail. That way the coins can be changed after three heads. Museum, souvenir and military-memorabilia shops sell ready-made sets. We haven’t bought or compared them, so we don’t recommend one.

Making a set takes a flat piece of wood long enough to hold two coins side by side, and a white paint pen for the crosses. Pre-decimal pennies are the tradition, but any two matching coins show how a round of two-up works. Tossing for fun costs nothing; playing for money is lawful only under your state’s exceptions, set out on our page about two-up on Anzac Day.