The dealer shuffles the cards and the player to the dealer's right (who will be the first to play) cuts four cards out of the middle of the deck, and puts them face up in the centre of the playing area to form the initial layout, and returns the deck to the dealer (who plays last). The usual direction of play is anticlockwise.įor the purpose of capturing, pip cards from 2 to 10 have their face values, jacks count as 11, queens 12, kings 13 and aces 1 or 14. When there are four players, the players sitting opposite each other are partners. The version for 3 or 4 players is described first. Swazi Casino is played by 2, 3 or 4 people using a standard 52 card pack. Captured cards are kept face up, and the top card from your pile of captures can be taken by your opponents to add to their builds. The building process is different from that of Anglo-American Casino. This interesting version of Casino, which is popular in Eswatini, was contributed by Jonathan Dushoff. This page is based on information from Jonathan Dushoff on the versions from Eswatini and Lesotho and Faizal Asmal on the South African version. Alexey Lobashev reports that a similar game is played at Windhoek in Namibia where it is known in the local language (Oshiwambo) as Omulongo Womadi.

This page describes versions of Casino played in Eswatini, Lesotho and South Africa. In these African games all cards (including picture cards if used) have a numerical capture value, so they can be thought of as versions of Royal Casino. Their characteristic feature is that captured cards are kept face up, and that a played card can capture not only cards from the central layout but also the top cards of opponents capture pile. This page describes some variants of Casino that are played in southern Africa.

The card game casino