Red or Black Game Rules

(In the game Red or Black, players (understandably) guess if a drawn card is going to be of a red suit or of a black suit)

Card Game Rules

Red or Black is a betting or drinking game for 2 or more people. The game uses a standard 52 playing card deck and the objective is to guess the correct color of the drawn card.

For more casino games, check out our guides for Blackjack and Fan Tan.

If you are looking for cards to play Red or Black with, check out a standard pack here or check out one of our more recent arrivals here. 

Set Up

To start, all players place a minimum bet into the pot.

Before gameplay can begin, a dealer must be selected. To do so, players must choose a random card from a shuffled deck. The player with the lowest card becomes the dealer. Ties are broken with repeated drawings. The dealer then shuffles the deck. 

How to Play

For both Betting and Drinking Red or Black, play is only between two people with players rotating after each round.

Betting

For betting Red or Black, the non-dealer places a minimum bet on the table while the dealer places five cards face down on the table. The non-dealer says either Red or Black and the dealer then turns up the five cards face up. If three or more cards are the color guessed, the non-dealer collects 2:1 from the pot. If three or more cards are not the color guessed, the non-dealer loses the bet.

After all players have played a round, the dealer position is rotated to the left.

Drinking

For Drinking Red or Black, the non-dealer first guesses what the drawn card’s color will be. The dealer then draws a card and if the non-dealer was wrong, they must drink a shot or any amount of alcohol preestablished. If the non-dealer was right, then the dealer drinks. The dealer position then rotates to the left.

For more information of Red or Black and its rules, check out Wikipedia’s article here.

Looking for more card games to play?  Check out this article:

40+ Great Card Games For All Occasions

About the author: John Taylor is a content writer and freelancer through the company Upwork.com. You may view his freelancing profile here. He has a B. A. in English, with a specialty in technical writing, from Texas A&M University and a M. A. in English from the University of Glasgow. You may view his previous articles about card games here and his LinkedIn profile here.