Drinking card games

18 drinking card games with one deck

Sorted by the kind of night they make. Big group games run themselves once the cards are down, guessing games put one player in the hot seat at a time, and bluffing and fast games are proper card games with sips added.

How to play the most popular drinking card games

One shuffled deck of 52 cards and a drink each is all you need, unless a game says otherwise. Aces are low in the guessing games and high in President and Blackjack.

Kings Cup

Spread the deck face down in a ring around an empty cup. Take turns drawing a card and doing what it says: 2 is you, 3 is me, 10 is categories, a jack is never have I ever, and so on. Each king adds a splash to the cup, and the fourth king drinks it. All 13 cards and the best house rules are on the Kings Cup rules page.

Ride the Bus

Each player is dealt four cards, one per round, by guessing: red or black, then higher or lower than your first card, then inside or outside the first two, then the suit. Wrong guesses are sips. A pyramid round follows where matching cards hand out sips, and whoever holds the most cards at the end rides the bus alone. The full four rounds are on the Ride the Bus page.

Pyramid

1. Build the pyramidLay 15 cards face down in rows of 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. Deal four cards to every player. Look at them once, then put them face down in front of you.
2. Flip a rowStart at the bottom row. Flip one card at a time. Cards in the bottom row are worth one sip, the next row two, and so on up to five for the top card.
3. Hand out sipsIf you hold the same rank as the flipped card, you can tell any player to drink its value. You are allowed to say it even if you don't have the card.
4. Call the bluffThe player you picked can drink or call bluff. If you can't show the card, you drink double. If you can, they drink double. Shown cards are swapped for new ones from the deck.

Horse Race

1. Line up the horsesTake the four aces out and put them side by side at the start line. Lay seven cards face down in a line going sideways, as the track.
2. Place your betsEveryone picks a suit and says how many sips they bet on it. Write it down if the table is getting loose.
3. Run the raceThe dealer flips cards from the rest of the deck. The ace of that suit moves one step forward. When every horse has passed a track card, flip it, and the horse of that suit moves one step back.
4. Pay outThe first ace past the last track card wins. Everyone who backed it hands out their bet, and everyone else drinks theirs.

F the Dealer

The dealer holds the deck. The player on the left guesses the value of the top card. Wrong, and the dealer says higher or lower for a second guess. Right on either try and the dealer drinks; miss both and you drink the difference between your guess and the card. Played cards go face up in rows by value, so the table can count what is left. In most house rules the dealer passes the deck on after three players in a row guess wrong.

Higher or Lower

Flip a card. The next player says whether the next card is higher or lower, then flips it. A wrong guess is a sip, and a card of the same value is a sip for everyone. Guess right three times in a row and you pass the deck on. It works with two players and keeps working with ten.

President

• Deal the whole deck. Twos are the highest card, threes the lowest.
• The first player leads a single card, a pair or a triple. Each next player must play the same number of cards of a higher rank, or pass and take a sip.
• When everyone passes, the last player to play clears the pile and leads again.
• The first player out is the president, the last is the scum. Next round the scum gives the president their two best cards and gets two cards back, and the president can make a rule or hand out a sip at any time.

Spoons

1. Set the tablePut spoons in the middle, one fewer than the number of players. Deal four cards each.
2. Pass fastThe dealer draws from the deck and passes one card face down to the left, and everyone keeps passing at the same time. Never hold more than five cards.
3. GrabWhen you get four of a kind, take a spoon. The moment one spoon moves, everyone can grab. The player left without one drinks.

Cheat

Deal the whole deck. Go around the table playing cards face down in order, aces then twos then threes, saying what you put down, like "two queens". You can lie. Anyone can shout cheat: if the cards are wrong, the liar picks up the pile and drinks, and if they are right, the caller does. First player with no cards wins. Also known as BS or I Doubt It.

Drunk UNO

Play normal UNO with an UNO deck. A Draw Two is two sips as well as two cards, a Wild Draw Four is four. Forget to say UNO and it's a sip. A skip hands one sip to the player you skipped, and whoever finishes last deals the next round.

Which card drinking game fits your table

Tips for a good card drinking game night

• Use an old deck. Drinks get spilled on cards. Keep a cheap deck for the table and the good one in the drawer.
• Explain one game, then play it. Start with Higher or Lower or Kings Cup while people arrive. Save Pyramid and President for when everyone is sitting down.
• A sip is small. Agree before the first card that a penalty is one small sip, and that water or a soft drink counts the same.
• Anyone can sit a round out. Nobody has to drink, and a player who skips still gets to play the next hand.
• Two decks for big groups. Shuffle two decks together for President or Cheat with more than eight players, so the hands don't get tiny.

Looking for games with no deck at all? See the drinking games without cards. Just the two of you? Try the drinking games for two people.

Keep the night going