Card games in India

There are probably many card games played in India. Games played with the standard international 52-card pack include:

• Twenty-nine is a point-trick game descended from the jass group, played by 4 people with a 32 card pack.
• Two games similar to 29 are played in Kerala: Twenty-eight using the same 32 card pack, and Fifty-six, using a double pack of 2x24 cards.
• Literature, a sophisticated game of the Quartet family, is played in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
• Seep, also known as Sip or Sweep - a fishing game related to Casino, played in northern India.
• Mendikot - a west Indian game trick-taking game in which the object is to capture tens.
• Dehla Pakad - a north Indian game of capturing tens, in which cards can only be won by a player who takes two consecutive tricks.
• Indian Rummy in which each player is dealt 13 cards, and a player must make at least two runs, one of them without wild cards, in order to go out.
• Vazhushal (Wipe), a rummy game in which more than one card can be taken from the discard pile, played in Tamil Nadu.
• Teen Pathi (Three Cards) - a gambling game similar to the British game Three Card Brag.
• Judgement or Kachuful is the local name for Oh Hell, which is played in Gujurat and perhaps elsewhere.
• Coatpees (or Court Piece) is a four-player plain-trick game with fixed partnerships. The first player chooses the trump suit on the basis of his first 5 cards, and the object is either to win the first 7 tricks or to win the majority of the tricks in 7 consecutive deals. A similar game called Seven Hands, in which the object is simply to be the first team to take 7 tricks is played in Goa.
• Langdi is a four-player game without partnerships in which each player tries to win at least the number of tricks bid.
• Getaway, also known as Bhabhi, as played in the Punjab.

There are also the traditional circular Ganjifa cards, which are still used in a few places. With these cards there are the plain-trick games Hamrang and Ekrang, and the gambling game Naqsh, which can also be played with standard international cards.

The World Casino Directory includes a listing of Casinos in India.