From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishup/raise the anteup/raise the anteFORCE somebody TO DO somethingto increase your demands or try to get more things from a situation, even though this involves more risks They’ve upped the ante by making a $120 million bid to buy the company. → ante
Examples from the Corpus
up/raise the ante• The owners are constantly carping about runaway salaries, then fall over themselves to jump the gun and up the ante.• What they are now doing is compromising, in this half-baked manner, by raising the ante to 70.• Logan said, referring to the Colorado Avalanche star whose $ 21-million contract upped the ante for Kariya.• Creating an economic asset in the form of a parental dividend would obviously up the ante in these kinds of contentious issues.• Sometimes the parents upped the ante.• Sanctions upped the ante considerably in the Middle East crisis.• Looking to the future, however, the Forest Service decided to up the ante next time around.• The group mind plays Pong so well that Carpenter decides to up the ante.• Palmer's contribution was to up the ante. 