The hard count is the back-of-house process in which a land-based casino counts the coins and metal tokens collected from its slot machines. The coins are not counted one by one. Staff sort them by denomination in a secure count room, then weigh them on calibrated scales that turn weight into value.
Its counterpart is the soft count, which covers paper: banknotes and vouchers. Both counts follow fixed procedures under camera surveillance, because the totals feed the revenue figures a casino reports to its regulator. Ticket-in/ticket-out systems have replaced coins on most modern floors, so the hard count is far smaller than it once was. Online casinos have no equivalent: every stake and payout is already a ledger entry in the back office.