A Loan can be taken to stay in the game in the event of the first (and only the first) time a player goes bankrupt in the game.
When a player in a non-Practice game goes bankrupt, that player may take a Loan and abstain bankruptcy once, by paying the Loan cost. If you do, you gain the money paid to Loan from your main JOY and continue playing the game, and get "Requested a Loan (This game, you cannot request a Loan again)" which enables the Use Condition of loan-related skill cards.
An alternative is to "Give up" and lose the game instead. If you cannot pay the Loan cost, such as when you bet on cities too much, you lose the chance to Loan and goes bankrupt immediately.