Casino Card Game Instructions And Rules
Depending on the specific game rules, the dealership usually goes around the table, with each player having a chance to deal a hand. Cards are dealt one at a time, starting from the player to the dealer’s left and going around the table. The ten of diamonds, called Big Casino or the Good Ten, is worth two points; the two of spades, called Little Casino or the Good Two, is worth one point. If there is a tie for most cards or most spades, no one gets those points. Whoever first reaches a total of 21 or more points, over however many rounds it takes, wins the game.
Card games using traditional playing cards have been around for thousands of years. The earliest evidence of their use dates back to China in the 9th century, when it is believed the cards doubled up as a form of currency. It wasn’t until the 14th century that they began to spread throughout Europe; today the suits we are most familiar with (hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades) are of French descent.
Card games remain a popular pastime all around the world for both children and adults. Whether you’re a parent in search of ways to entertain during the school holidays, or you’re a teacher or youth worker looking for activities that stimulate young minds, here’s why card games for kids are a great option, as well as our suggestions for the best free kids’ card games to play.
HOW CARD GAMES BENEFIT KIDS
In a world where digital entertainment is increasingly becoming the norm, many are concerned with the amount of time children spend in front of screens. Not only does prolonged screen time result in less physical activity, but the passive nature of much screen-based entertainment means children are not engaging their brains in a way that stimulates growth and imagination.
With this in mind, playing card games for kids are a welcome antidote to the constant TV show streaming and social media, and they have several unique benefits for children of all ages, including:
- Improves motor skills such as dexterity and coordination
- Enhances memory, concentration and problem-solving capabilities
- Improves social skills and creates valuable family bonding time
- Encourages learning in a fun and engaging way
- Helps kids learn to listen and follow instructions
- Introduces how to deal with competition and sportsmanship
- Improves visual and color recognition
- Good way to practice math and numeracy skills
As you can see, there are tons of benefits to be had from card games kids will love, and they’ll be having so much fun they won’t even realize they’re nourishing their minds at the same time.
10 GREAT KIDS CARD GAMES
Here are ten easy and fun card games for kids that you can play today – all you need is a pack of cards!
1. SNAP
Age: 3+
Players: 2-6
Snap is a delightfully simple game that kids everywhere love and it only requires a pack of cards. You can also get themed sets of cards, which helps engage children with topics and pictures they like, and educational versions are available too. It’s one of the most fun free matching card games for kids available to play, and it only takes a minute to learn the rules.
Aim of the Game: To end up with the most cards.
How to Play:
- Deal the entire pack between all players, so every player has their own little stack of cards, placed face down on the table.
- Player one flips over their top card, and starts a pile in the center of the table.
- Player two, on player one’s left, then flips over their top card and puts it on the pile.
- When one card matches the one beneath, players need to beat each other to saying ‘SNAP!’ The one who gets there first wins the whole pile.
- If someone uses up all their cards, they’re out of the game.
2. WAR
Age: 5+
Players: 2
Another fantastic game that only requires a pack of cards, War is fun for young children and parents alike. Suits are not relevant in this game, as the focus is on the values of the cards only, with the normal values applying here (i.e. Ace, King, Queen, Jack down to 2).
Aim of the Game: To win the whole deck of cards.
How to Play:
- Deal out the cards between all the players until the whole deck has been dealt.
- Players are not allowed to look at their cards; they must be left face down in a pile on the table.
- Each player takes their pile in one hand, and with the other takes one card at a time and lays it face up on the table before them.
- The player with the highest value card wins the round, takes both the up-facing cards and places them at the bottom of their pile.
- This continues until both players draw a card of the same value – at this point war commences!
- To decide who wins the war, more cards must be laid down in succession – one face-down on top of the initial war card, followed by one face-up card, until someone wins.
3. MEMORY
Age: 5+
Players: 2 or more
A great memory card game for kids that encourages concentration, this is one that will get your little ones thinking while having fun at the same time.
Aim of the Game: To win the most pairs of matching cards.
How to Play
- Spread the whole deck all over the table, with every card face down, making sure that none of them overlap.
- Each player takes their turn at flipping two cards, trying to make a match. If unsuccessful, the cards are flipped back over and the next player takes their turn.
- Continue playing until every card has been matched in pairs.
4. CRAZY EIGHTS
Age: 5+
Players: 2-6
This is another fun and easy card game for kids that relies on concentration, and is great for both small and larger groups.
Aim of the Game: To get rid of all your cards.
How to Play
- Players are dealt seven cards each. The rest of the cards are placed face-down in the middle.
- At the start, the top card from the middle pile is drawn and laid face-up beside it.
- Player one must lay down a card on top of the face-up card that matches it in either suit or value (i.e. both Jacks or both sevens). If a player can’t match the face-up card, they draw cards from the face-down pile until they can.
- Once the pile is finished, any player who can’t put down must skip their turn.
- Eights are the wild card in this game, which means that the player who lays down an eight gets to choose the suit of the following card. The next player has to lay down either a card in the designated suit or an eight.
5. OLD MAID
Age: 4+
Players: 2+
This fun and simple game is one of the best card games for kids to play that adults love too, and it improves hand-to-eye skills. All you need is a full deck of cards.
Aim of the Game: To get rid of your cards as quickly as you can and not end up with the Old Maid card.
How to Play
- Before play commences, you need to add either a joker or a card of your choice (traditionally it is the Queen of Clubs) to be the Old Maid card. Add this to the pack and shuffle.
- Deal out all the cards. Players look at their cards, and have a moment to sort them into as many pairs as possible. Once in pairs, these cards can be placed face-up before each player.
- The dealer goes first, and creates a fan with their cards from which the player to their left must choose one card, which they keep hidden from everyone else.
- The game continues, with everyone making pairs in their hands before laying them on the table. The person left with the Old Maid loses.
6. GO FISH
Age: 4+
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Players: 2-6
Go Fish card games for kids are a classic and one of the most enduring pastimes for children the world over – it’s good for learning how to recognize patterns too! Here is the most popular version of the game.
Aim of the Game: To have the most sets of four matching cards (or pairs for younger players) when all the cards have been used up.
How to Play
- Each player is dealt five cards (if you’re playing with two, each gets seven instead). The rest of the cards are placed face down in a pile in the middle of the table.
- The player chosen to go first asks a player of their choice for a specific card rank (e.g. Brian, do you have any fours?). If Brian has any fours, he must hand them over. If Brian has more than one of this rank, player one gets another turn.
- If not, he says ‘Go Fish’ and player one must take the top card from the middle pile. If they draw the card in their chosen rank, they show it to the other player(s) and get another turn.
7. SPOONS
Age: 6+
Players: 3+
This dynamic and supremely fun game has been played by children for generations – you need two packs of cards and a pile of spoons.
Aim of the Game: Collect four matching cards, and be sure to grab a spoon at the end!
How to Play
- Position the spoons – one for each player minus one – along a table so they are evenly spread out.
- From the two combined decks, each player is dealt four cards, and the rest are placed in a pile face down in the middle of the table.
- Player one takes a card from the top of the deck and decides whether it will be of use to them for making a set of four. If they decide not to use it, they pass it on to the player on their left, who makes the same decision, and this continues round all the players.
- If no one wants the card, it is placed face down in the discard pile. This pile is later used once all the cards in the main pile have been used up.
- As soon as someone gets four of the same card, they have to grab a spoon and everyone has to follow suit. The person left without a spoon has to leave the game, and one spoon is taken out.
8. SLAPJACK
Age: 6+
Players: 2-8
This fun and energetic game is closely related to Snap is great for improving coordination and reaction times in kids.
Aim of the Game: To win the entire deck of cards.
How to Play
- The whole pack is dealt out between all players.
- Players take it in turn to flip over a card, laying each one face-up on the table, one after the other.
- If a Jack is laid down, the players must race to be the first to slap it. The slap champion then wins the cards, shuffles them and returns them to their own hand.
9. SNIP SNAP SNOREM
Age: 4+
Players: 3 or more
A fun and noisy game that’s ideal for larger groups of kids, Snip Snap Snorem is as playful as the name suggests.
Aim of the Game: To get rid of all your cards.
How to Play
- The whole pack is dealt out so that everyone has roughly the same number of cards. Each player arranges their card from low to high value (two is low, Ace is high).
- Player one (the person on the dealer’s left) places one card face up on the table. The next player must see if they have a card in the same rank; if they do (i.e. they have a nine), they place it down on top and say ‘Snip’. If they don’t, the turn passes on.
- The next player must do the same. If they have a card in the same rank, they place it down and say ‘Snap’.
- The third and last to lay down a matching card says ‘Snorem’, and wins the round. The pile is discarded and they are able to start the next round with a card of their choice.
10. BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOR
Age: 6+
Players: 2-6
Another one of those classic card games to play with kids, Beggar My Neighbor is easy to learn and can be played with as few as two players.
Aim of the Game: To win all the cards.
How to Play
- A full deck is dealt out to all players. They keep their cards face down in a pile in front of them.
- Player one takes their first card and lays it down face up on the table. If it has a rank of 10 or lower, it’s the next person’s turn.
- If a Jack, Queen, King or Ace is turned over, things are different: for a Jack, the next player needs to lay down one card, for a Queen it’s two, for a King it’s three and for an Ace it’s four.
- If nothing higher than a 10 is laid down, the first person to lay down a ‘court card’ wins and takes the whole pile.
These are just a few of the best card games for kids that can be played at home, on vacation or even on the move while at a picnic. Engage your kids’ minds and spend some quality time – all for the minimal cost of a pack of cards.
Horse race (or “horserace”) is a popular card game/drinking game. Gamblers love it. If you’ve never played it before, or if someone else has suggested that you play, and you don’t remember the rules — this post is for you. It explains how to play the card game horse race in detail.
It’s traditional for the players to bet drinks on each of the aces. But you could bet money on the appearance of the aces, too.
I explain further below.
How to Get Ready for a Game of Horse Race
You’ll need a standard deck of 52 playing cards. You can find these at any convenience store. Nicer decks are fun to play with, and I prefer plastic playing cards like Kem, but you can use a cheap deck that costs 50 cents or less if you like.
Another option is to ask the local casino to give you one of their used decks of cards. They usually have a hole drilled in the middle, or their corners cut off so that you can’t sneak them into the game at the casino.
But neither of those countermeasures prevents you from using them to play horse race.
You then decide which player is going to be the announcer. He’s really the only person in the game who actually does anything. He prepares by going through the deck and taking out the aces. Each ace represents a horse.
He lays the horses up at the end of the table to represent gates. The cards are laid face up and next to each other. If you imagine how the gates at a horse race look, then you’re on the right track.
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Then the announcer shuffles the deck and deals an arbitrary number (often 6, 7, or 8) of face-down cards in a straight line at a right angle to the row of aces. You’ll find up with an L-shaped layout of playing cards, with the links (the face-down cards) forming one side of the L, and the aces (face-up) forming the other side of the L.
Now you’re ready to play.
How to Bet in Horse Race
Betting can be easy or complicated, depending on how seriously you’re taking the game.
You can just bet on which suit is going to win.
You might bet a flat amount on spades to win.
But if you’re interested in horse racing, you know that there are all kinds of other bets available, such as:
- Daily doubles
- Exactas
- Trifectas
Common Bets in Horse Racing
Here’s a list of the most common bets in horse racing and what they mean.
- Win is just a bet on which horse wins the race.
- Place is a bet that a specific horse will win first or second place.
- Show is a bet that a specific horse will win first, second, or third.
- Across the board consists of three bets, one each on win, place, and show.
- Exacta is a bet on which two horses will place first and second. These must win in that order.
- Trifecta is a bet on which three horses will place first, second, and third, in order.
- Superfecta is a bet on which four horses will place first, second, third, and fourth, in order.
Those are the most common bets, but there are plenty of others.
In a lot of games, though, players just choose their suit, and they have a payout set for first, second, and third place, as follows:
- First place gets 25
- Second place gets 20
- Third place gets 15
Sometimes, you’ll also see players make proposition bets, like who’s going to be the first horse out of the gate. You can even penalize a player if he bets on a horse that never gets out of the starting gate.
It’s customary to have betting limits, too. Otherwise, you’d wind up with goofballs betting 150 on spades or something like that.
When you’re playing horse race as a drinking game, it’s customary for the winner to distribute drinks equal to the amount he bet. It’s also customary for the winner to not have to drink. (For an old alcoholic like me, that’s not much of a win.)
How Horse Race Is Played
Gameplay in horse race is ridiculously simple.
The announcer starts the race by flipping over the top card of the cards left in the deck. He looks at the suit of that card, and that’s the ace that gets to move forward to that link. A good announcer will narrate the action with verve and vigor, and if you have a good crowd of players, you’ll have plenty of people cheering and booing the action.
The announcer keeps flipping cards in order, advancing the horses based on the suits of the cards being flipped over. The first horse to pass through the last link into the winner’s circle is the winning horse.
In some games, the optional rule for faltering is used. If a horse moves up to a new link for the first time, the announcer flips over the card that represents that link. The suit on that card must fall back one link.
Since there’s only a single card representing each link, this only can happen the first time a horse gets to that link.
This adds an additional layer of randomness to the game, which can be equal parts frustrating and exciting.
Also, if a horse is still in the gate, it can’t be knocked further back because of faltering.
You’ll even see some games with a rule for stumbling. In these games, the joker is left in the deck, so you’re playing with a 53-card deck instead of a 52-card deck. If the joker gets flipped over, all the horses (except for the lead horse) get to move up one link.
Betting for Real Money at the Card Game Horse
The announcer takes the bets and pays out the winners. He sets the odds, and the trick is to set the odds so that he has a reasonable chance to make a profit. The players also need to find the odds attractive enough to place bets on those propositions.
In games where you play for real money, the links are played face up so that you know the suits that are out there. The more cards of a suit that are already on the table, the less likely it will be for the horse of that suit to win the race.
Do you see why?
You have the aces for each suit at one end of the table already.
That leaves 12 cards of each suit.
Let’s say you have eight links, two of each suit. That leaves ten cards of each suit in the deck. Each ace has the same probability of winning.
But suppose you have four hearts in the links, two clubs, one spade, and one club.
Clubs and spades are tied as favorites to win the horse race because there are still nine of each card left in the deck.
The hearts are a big underdog because there are only six hearts left in the deck.
These are common odds based on how many cards of each suit have been laid out with seven links:
- If no cards of a suit are out there, then winning pays even money.
- If one card of a suit is out, winning pays off at 2 to 1.
- If two cards of a suit are out, winning pays off at 3 to 1.
- If three cards of a suit are out, winning pays off at 5 to 1.
- If four cards of a suit are out, winning pays off at 10 to 1.
- If five cards of a suit are already dealt, the cards are re-shuffled, and new links are dealt.
Calcutta Horse Race
On the excellent card game site Pagat, a variation called Calcutta is described. The rules are based on Calcutta auctions, like the ones held at the Melbourne Cup. You need at least three players for this variation, but six to eight players is better. Also, each player should start with the same amount of money.
In Calcutta, you cut cards to choose who’s going to be the announcer. The highest card gets to announce. The announcer can participate just like the other players.
He’s also responsible for being the auctioneer. The auction is what makes this variation of horse race so interesting.
After the aces are removed from the deck, the rest of the deck gets shuffled. The announcer deals out the seven cards that make up the links of the course. If five cards (or more) of a single suit are dealt, he has to re-shuffle and re-deal.
The announcer also sorts these cards by suit. This makes it easier to see which horse has an advantage, which is important for deciding how much you want to bid during the auction. It’s customary to put these in order from most cards to least to make it as easy as possible to differentiate the suits.
The aces are auctioned off beginning with the longshots, just like at the Melbourne Cup. The longshot is the suit which has the most cards dealt out in the links. Remember, that’s the suit that has the fewest cards left in the deck.
The bidding in the auction starts with a single unit — usually one chip if you’re playing with chips. (I suggest trying this with clay poker chips, by the way. They’re much more satisfying to play with than plastic chips.)
Players can bid at any time. If you’ve run an auction in a game like Monopoly, you already know how this goes. Each horse (ace) is sold to the highest bidder. That money goes into the pool. The player who wins that horse gets the ace to show that he owns that horse.
The game is played normally until a first- and second-place winner are determined. The owner of the first-place horse gets 2/3 of the pot. The owner of the second-place horse gets 1/3 of the pot.
If you can’t divide the pot by three, you round the winnings off to the nearest whole number. This will result in either one or two extra chips being left in the pot. If there’s only one chip left, it goes to the first-place winner. If there are two chips left, each player gets one of them.
Other Racing-Themed Card Games
This is the most common betting game version of the card game horse race that I know of, but it’s actually part of a larger category of card games called racing games.
In most card games with a racing theme, the cards themselves don’t actually race. Instead, a marble or a peg is moved around a board of some kind.
You could play Parcheesi with cards instead of dice.
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Sorry! is a classic example of a racing game, too. It uses a proprietary deck of cards numbered from 1 through 12 (there are no 6s or 9s, though). The deck also has “sorry” cards which allow you to change places with one of the other players in the race.
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Of course, if you’re using cards, you can deal players a hand of cards so that they have some choice in which card to play. This can convert a racing game that is just a game of chance into a game with an element of skill.
Other games in this category include Fast Track, Pegs and Jokers, and Tock.
Conclusion
And that’s how you play the popular card game horse race. There are enough variations that it can be played differently from one game to another. Next time you’re at a home poker game, you should give it a try.
I like the versions where you bet real money instead of playing it as a drinking game. For one thing, gambling should be about money, and drinking should be about alcohol. I don’t want to mix the two.
For another thing, gambling is all about fun.
Drinking is serious business.
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Those are just my opinions, though — you play the way you want to.