SaltyBet has its own language, so we put this guide together to help make it feel more accessible. Between the Twitch chat flying by at light speed, the MUGEN terminology, and the fighting game jargon, it can feel like everyone’s speaking a different language when you first show up.
This glossary covers everything: SaltyBet-specific terms, MUGEN engine concepts, and fighting game fundamentals that help you understand what you’re actually watching. Bookmark this one.
Always bet [X] — A chat meme where viewers insist you should always bet on a certain type of character (waifu, DBZ, anime, Touhou, etc.). These are almost never reliable strategies. “Always bet waifu” is probably the most famous. Our data says side and character type don’t meaningfully predict outcomes, so take these with a grain of… salt.
Bailout — The small amount of Salty Bucks you receive when you go broke. Starts at $10 for new accounts and increases as you level up from placing more bets. It’s your lifeline out of the salt mines.
Betting window — The period before each fight when bets are open. You pick Red or Blue, enter your amount ($1 minimum), and lock it in. Only your most recent bet counts, so you can change your mind while the window is still open.
Chat always lies — The belief that whatever side chat is hyping up will lose. Contrarian betting. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The crowd favorite actually wins 67.9% of the time, so chat doesn’t always lie — but it does lie about a third of the time.
Compendium — SaltyBet’s built-in database of character stats and match history, available to paid Illuminati members. SaltyTrack offers similar data (and AI predictions) for free through our Chrome extension.
Dream Cast Casino — SaltyBet’s official branding. You’ll see “Salty’s Dream Cast Casino” during stream intros and transitions. It’s just the name of the show.
Exhibition — Special showcase matches that happen between matchmaking and tournament cycles. Exhibitions can feature unusual matchups or characters outside normal rotation. Part of SaltyBet’s repeating cycle: 100 matchmaking rounds, a 16-character tournament, then 25 exhibition matches.
Favorite — The fighter with more Salty Bucks wagered on them. Favorites win 67.9% of the time across our dataset of 570,000+ matches. The catch: you don’t see which side is the favorite until after your bet is locked in.
Illuminati — SaltyBet’s optional paid membership. Unlocks access to the compendium, exhibition match requests, and a larger bailout. Not required to play.
Matchmaking — The standard SaltyBet mode where two fighters are randomly selected and paired up. Makes up 86.9% of all matches. Average pot: $9 million Salty Bucks.
Never bet DBZ — A longstanding chat meme claiming Dragon Ball Z characters look strong but underperform. Like all “always/never bet” advice from chat, take it as entertainment, not strategy.
Pot — The total amount of Salty Bucks wagered on a match by both sides combined. Average pot across all matches is about $7.9 million. X-tier championship matches average $10.5 million.
Press X to rich — Chat celebration when someone hits a big payout by betting on a heavy underdog. The bigger the upset, the louder the chat.
Real fight — Chat slang for a close, competitive match, as opposed to the more common one-sided beatdowns. When both fighters are evenly matched and the outcome is genuinely uncertain, chat will call it a “real fight.”
Red / Blue — The two sides in every SaltyBet match. One fighter is assigned Red, the other Blue. Across 570,000 matches, Red wins 49.2% and Blue wins 50.8% — essentially a coin flip. Side does not predict the winner.
Salt / Salty — The emotional state of losing your bet. Used as a noun, adjective, verb, and general lifestyle. “I’m so salty right now.” The entire platform is named after this feeling.
Salt mines — Where you end up when you lose all your Salty Bucks. You’ll receive a small bailout and work your way back up. Being in the mines is a rite of passage. Chat will not be sympathetic.
Salty Bucks ($) — SaltyBet’s virtual currency. Everyone starts with $400. Cannot be bought, sold, or exchanged for real money. Exists purely for bragging rights and the thrill of the bet.
Tournament — A bracket-style format where 16 fighters compete in elimination rounds. Makes up 13.1% of matches. You get a tournament-specific balance so your main stack isn’t at risk. Tournaments rotate through B, A, and S tier each cycle.
Underdog — The fighter with fewer Salty Bucks wagered on them. Underdogs win 32.1% of the time overall, but the rate varies by tier — A-tier underdogs win 34.3% of the time, while P-tier underdogs only win 24.5%.
Upset — When the underdog wins. The biggest upset in our 570,000-match dataset: Miduma defeating Remy at 428:1 odds in B-tier.
X Tier (Championship) — The top tier. Reserved for the most powerful (and often “cheap”) characters. Only 2.7% of matches, but the highest average pots. X-tier placement is handled manually by the SaltyBet admins.
S Tier — Elite fighters. Consistently strong, well-known to the community. Low upset rate at 30.1%. This is where the dominant names live.
A Tier — The biggest tier by volume (42% of all matches) and the most unpredictable. Highest upset rate at 34.3%. Fighters here are still being sorted — some are on the way up, some on the way down.
B Tier — The wild west. Newer or weaker characters. Less predictable outcomes, lower pots. Home of the biggest upset in SaltyBet history (428:1).
P Tier (Potato) — The bottom tier. Characters that “can barely attack or are extremely easy to K.O.” Surprisingly, P-tier has the lowest upset rate at 24.5% — when it’s lopsided, it’s really lopsided.
Tier promotion/demotion — Fighters move between tiers by winning or losing 15 consecutive matches. X-tier is the exception — placement is manual.
AI (in MUGEN) — The code that controls how a character fights. MUGEN characters can have default AI (random button mashing), custom AI (creator-written fight logic), or no AI at all. The quality of a character’s AI is one of the biggest factors in SaltyBet outcomes.
Cheap character / Cheapie — A character that’s considered unfairly powerful, often due to overpowered moves, infinite combos, or one-hit KO abilities. Many X-tier fighters fall into this category. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature (of chaos).
Character (char) — A playable fighter in MUGEN, stored as a folder containing sprite files, sound files, state logic, and AI code. Anyone can create one, which is why the roster is so diverse (and sometimes absurd).
Elecbyte — The anonymous group of University of Michigan students who created MUGEN in 1999. They disappeared from the internet around 2002 and their individual identities have never been publicly confirmed.
Frankenspriting — Creating a character by stitching together sprites from multiple existing characters. Common in the MUGEN community. Quality varies wildly.
Kung Fu Man — MUGEN’s default example character. The “Hello World” of fighting game characters. He ships with every MUGEN installation.
MUGEN — (Pronounced “moo-gen”) The free 2D fighting game engine that powers SaltyBet. Created by Elecbyte in 1999. The name comes from the Japanese word 無限 meaning “limitless.” It’s also technically an acronym, but even the creators forgot what it stands for.
One-hit KO (OHKO) — A move that defeats the opponent in a single hit regardless of their remaining health. Some MUGEN characters have these, particularly in X-tier. Watching a 30-second fight end in one hit is either thrilling or infuriating depending on which side you bet.
Palette — A color variation of a character. MUGEN characters can have multiple palettes (like alternate costumes in commercial fighting games). Same character, different colors.
Screenpack — A complete UI theme for MUGEN that changes the character select screen, menus, health bars, and overall visual style.
Spriteswap — A character that uses one character’s visual sprites but another character’s moveset and AI. Looks like one fighter, plays like another. Can create confusing (and entertaining) results on SaltyBet.
Stage — The background environment where fights take place. Community-created, with their own animations and music. Purely cosmetic — stages don’t affect gameplay.
Watch mode — MUGEN’s built-in AI vs AI spectator mode. This is what SaltyBet uses — two characters controlled entirely by their built-in AI, no human input.
These terms come from the broader fighting game community (FGC) and help explain what you’re seeing during matches.
Armor — A property that lets a character absorb hits without being interrupted. An armored move keeps going even when the opponent lands an attack. Some MUGEN characters have very generous armor, making them hard to stop.
Block stun — The brief freeze when a character blocks an attack. During block stun, the character can’t act. In MUGEN, some characters have moves that cause extremely long block stun, keeping the opponent locked down.
Combo — A sequence of attacks that connect without the opponent being able to escape between hits. MUGEN characters can have anything from simple 2-3 hit combos to absurd 50+ hit chains.
Footsies — The mid-range spacing game where both characters are poking at each other, trying to land hits while staying safe. Good footsies means a character’s AI understands proper spacing. You’ll see this more in S-tier than P-tier.
Frame data — The speed of every move, measured in animation frames. How fast a move comes out (startup), how long it’s active (active frames), and how long the character is vulnerable after (recovery). Good custom AI uses frame data awareness to choose optimal punishes.
Infinite — A combo that loops endlessly, trapping the opponent until they’re KO’d. Some MUGEN characters have intentional infinites. When you see a 99-hit combo on SaltyBet that’s still going, that’s usually an infinite.
Juggle — Hitting an opponent while they’re airborne, keeping them in the air with successive attacks. Juggle-heavy characters can deal massive damage before the opponent ever touches the ground.
Mixup — Forcing the opponent to guess between multiple attack options — high, low, throw, left, right. If the opponent guesses wrong, they eat a combo. Characters with good mixup AI are dangerous because the opposing AI has to “guess” correctly too.
Neutral — The state where neither fighter has a clear advantage. Both characters are at mid-range, neither is being combo’d or pressured. How a character’s AI handles neutral is a big part of their overall win rate.
Projectile — A ranged attack, like a fireball or energy blast. Some MUGEN characters are “zoners” that spam projectiles to keep the opponent at distance. Others have no way to deal with projectiles at all, which creates very lopsided matchups.
Rushdown — An aggressive playstyle focused on getting close and staying in the opponent’s face with constant pressure. Rushdown characters win by overwhelming the opponent before they can respond.
Zoning — The opposite of rushdown. A playstyle built around controlling space, usually with projectiles, keeping the opponent at a specific range where the zoner has the advantage.
Now that you know the language, put it to use. Install the SaltyTrack Chrome extension — free AI predictions, win rates, and head-to-head records for every fighter in the SaltyBet roster. We’ve analyzed 570,000+ matches so you can make informed bets instead of guessing.
SaltyBet uses virtual currency only. No real money is wagered or exchanged. SaltyTrack is not affiliated with SaltyBet.