The buy-in is the upfront amount of money that the player must pay to participate in a tournament or a cash game. The bulk of the buy-in amount goes into the prize pool, while the organizer takes a small percentage of this sum to arrange the MTT.
For example, an organizer might set a $55 buy-in for the poker event. From this amount, they will take $5 as the rake, while the $50 will go directly into the prize pool that will pay out the best-ranked players.
For cash games, buy-in is usually determined by the blind level, so the usual buy-in in a $1/$2 game will be $200, which represents 100 big blinds and is also referred to as stakes. Some games can also be freerolls.