Here's an example of the kind of question I have been bugging Lxndr with in instant messages (I haven't asked him this one yet, it's new) --

* If someone shirks a favor, then the favor's creditor gets a number of chips equal to the value of the favor. (Not exact wording, but close, I don't have it handy.)

But it never says whether these chips come from the favor-owing player or from outside the game.

There are a bunch of situations where players get or lose chips and it is ambiguous where those chips come from or go. I think there needs to be a term for the storehouse of chips which are not in play -- call it the "House" or something. Then you'd express this rule as:

"If someone shirks a favor, then the favor's creditor gets a number of chips equal to the value of the favor *from the house*."

If you had a term like that for the pile of chips which are not currently in play, you would be able to go through the rules and make sure that when anybody's chips changed, you always specified whether they were going to or from another player or the Croupier's Bank, or to the House.

Right now I keep stumbling over situations where players are said to gain or lose chips and it's not 100% clear to me whether that gain or loss is at the expense of another player's, or the Croupier's, Bank, or whether the chips just come out of nowhere or go into nowhere.

Aha! The House! Excellent.

You're right, and consider this ganked for future use.

Generally, though, when no specific source is stated, it's from the House.