Casino games for Party

The Game Girl can answer your questions now!

Hosting a casino party and need to know what games to play or how to turn your casino party into a contest? Casino games are games in themselves, but if you want to add to the excitement here are some other game ideas.

Highest Bidder

Ingredients

To Play

• Before the games start, announce that prizes will be awarded to those who have the highest chip counts.
• At the end of the night count out everyone’s chips.
• The person with the most chips wins the big prize. Award prizes for second and third as well.

Traditional Casino Games
Here are a few traditional Vegas games. Raise the stakes and award your guests prizes when they win.

Texas Hold Em’
At the start of the game, two players to the left of the dealer put out blind bets. Usually the "first blind" (the player to the left of the dealer) puts up half the minimum bet, and the "second blind" puts up the full minimum bet.

Each player is dealt two cards, face down. These are known as hole cards.A round of betting takes place (clockwise), beginning with the player to the left of the second blind. Each player can call, raise, or fold when it's their turn to bet.

The dealer then flips the next three cards face up on the table. These cards are called the "flop", and are are community cards in that everyone can use them in combination with their own hole cards to make their hand.

Betting begins again with the player to the dealer’s left. The dealer plays another card face up onto the table. This fourth community card is called the "turn" or "Fourth Street." Betting begins again with the player to the dealer’s left. The dealer plays the final community card, the "river" or "Fifth Street."

Players use any combination of seven cards to form the best possible five-card Poker hand. The final round of betting occurs, starting with the player left of the dealer. All players who remain in the game (if you didn't fold) reveal their hands. The player with the best 5 card poker hand wins.

Black Jack
Blackjack is a counting game. Each of the numeric cards are valued at the number of the card (2, 3, 4... etc). Face cards (jack, queen, and king) and 10's are worth 10. Aces can be used by the player as either one or eleven, whichever is best for their hand.

The ideas is to accumulate cards with a total value as close as possible to twenty-one without going over. A player wins if his hand is closer to twenty-one than the dealer's hand, or if the dealer goes over 21, which is called busting. Players can take as many cards as they wish from the dealer until they stand (stop taking cards) or bust (the hand goes over twenty-one).

If a player busts, he automatically loses the hand, even if the dealer busts. A player also loses if the dealer's hand is closer to twenty-one. If the player's hand and the dealer's tie (and do not bust) it is called a "push" and no money is won or lost.

If the initial two cards of a player's hand or the dealer's hand add up to exactly twenty-one (like an ace and a queen) that is called blackjack. A blackjack beats any other hand, even if the other hand adds to twenty-one. Additionally, if a player is dealt a blackjack and the dealer is not, then the dealer has to pay the player 1.5 times his original bet (if player bet $10, the dealer pays him $15).

At the start of each hand the dealer starts by dealing two cards to each player and to himself. One on the dealer's first two cards is dealt face up. The players' cards are either dealt all face up or all face down.