Best Gambling Games To Play With Friends
- Origins of the Nassau. The $2 or $5 Nassau is probably one of the most fun.
- Card games are often used for gambling, but board games and live sports can also be used. Read on to learn about gambling card games and activities to do with friends. Poker is one of the most popular money card games that can be played in casinos and online. All it takes is a few friends and a standard deck of cards to get started.
- Fun Gambling Games To Play With Friends
- Best Gambling Songs
- Best Gambling Site
- Best Gambling Games To Play With Friends Play On
- Best Gambling Games To Play With Friends Fun
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If you’ve been reading my articles for long, you probably already know that I love gambling. I enjoy games of chance and games where you can use strategy to improve your chances to win. Most of the time I write about playing casino games, poker, and sports betting, because these are the most common forms of gambling.
While many people play in casinos, poker rooms, and sportsbooks, they’re not your only options. Sometimes I just want to put a few dollars on something and have some fun with my friends. So I put together a list of things I’ve bet on with friends over the years.
The best thing about all of the gambling activities that you can enjoy with friends is that you and your friends get to set the stakes. You can make the stakes low enough that everyone can enjoy the activity without stressing about losing too much money.
1 – Bet On Individual Sporting Events
One of the easiest ways to gamble for fun with your friends is to bet on upcoming sporting events. Most of my friends are sports fans, and it’s always more fun for me to watch a game if I have a few bucks on it.
The best thing about betting on sports with your friends is you can play for any stakes you want.
We always use the lines posted by a popular sportsbook so things are fair, and usually we bet on games that we’re planning to watch anyway. The main advantage of betting with your friends when you bet on sports is that you aren’t charge vig like you get charged when betting with a sportsbook.
While it’s easiest to use against the spread betting, you can also make over/under wagers on games.
2 – Put Together a Friendly Poker Game
I occasionally play in a home poker game that a friend of mine puts together. We play spread limit Texas holdem with everyone anteing $1 before the deal and every bet is between $1 and $5 on each round. Everyone by sin for $50 or $100, and we have a good time playing. No one has to worry about losing too much money, and when players bust out they can buy in again or stop playing.
Like the other fun gambling activities on this list, you can play for smaller stakes and it doesn’t reduce the fun of the game. You can play for pennies, quarters, or dollars.
You can play with coins or cash, but we prefer playing with poker chips. We use $1 and $5 chips because they match the stakes we play for. But you can use chips and have all of them worth the same amount, based on your stakes. If you’re playing for quarters, just make all the chips worth a quarter, no matter what color they are.
I recommend starting with Texas holdem because most people have seen it played on television, but you can play any form of poker everyone agrees to play. I’ve played five card draw, seven card stud, and Omaha in private games. And even though it isn’t poker, I’ve also played in a few home blackjack games for low stakes.
3 – Weekly Pool of Games
This is one of the simplest ways to gamble with friends. It doesn’t require any skill or knowledge so it’s fun for everyone involved. And it doesn’t have to cost much to play. You can use any stakes that everyone agrees to, but somewhere between $1 and $20 is common.
You put together a group of games in the upcoming week that’s evenly divisible by the number of people in the pool. If you have four people in the pool, you pick eight, 12, or 16 games. Each bettor pays the same fee and everyone receives the same number of teams from a blind draw.
At the end of the week the player with the most wins gets the pot. If two bettors have the same number of wins they split the pot.
You can have as many people in the pool as you want, and as I mentioned above you can play for any stakes. The simplest way is to just assign teams and if the team wins the bettor wins the game, but you can also use point spreads published by a popular sportsbook.
This works years round, because there’s always sporting events running. You can go throughout the year using the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA football, and NCAA basketball.
4 – Euchre
Euchre is a game where four players split into two teams of two and compete for tricks. It’s a trump based game, and only takes a few minutes to learn. It’s not usually associated with gambling.
In high school I played euchre for money a great deal. The stakes are up to the players, and I usually played for $10 a game plus $5 a euchre or $20 a game and $10 a euchre.
I rarely play euchre anymore because my wife insists on being my partner when we play and I’m very competitive. It drives me nuts when she doesn’t use proper strategy, so for the sake of our marriage we don’t play often.
5 – High Low
When I started in college the opportunity to lay euchre for money started drying up. But I found a group of guys playing a new game to me. They called it acey deucy, and this is how it’s played. You can play for any stakes, but we played for quarters. But don’t let the small stakes fool you; I often won $50 or more in a playing session.
Everyone who was playing put a quarter in the pot. Whoever is dealing shuffles a standard deck of cards and places two cards face up in the center of the table. Play goes around the table to the left. Players can bet any amount from a quarter up to the amount in the pot.
You have to bet at least a quarter when it’s your turn to play. You win the bet if the next card falls between the two cards on the table. When you win a bet you take the amount you bet out of the pot. When the third card falls outside the two cards you lose, and put you bet in the pot. If the third card matches one of the first two cards you have to put double your bet into the pot.
Here’s an example of how the game works.
The dealer places a six and a jack on the table. You bet $1 into a pot with $3 in it. If a seven through 10 is the third card, you take back your $1 and collect $1 from the pot. If a two to five or queen to ace is the third card you put you $1 in the pot. If the third card is a six or a jack you put $2 in the pot.
After each hand, the three cards are placed in a discard pile and two more cards are dealt and the next layer to the left bets. This continues until someone wins the entire pot. Then everyone antes again, the deck is shuffled, and play starts with the next player to the left.
We always had two decks of cards, with one in play and the other being shuffled by a second player.
This is a fun game you can play when you have four or more people who want to play, and you don’t have to play for high stakes. You can even play for pennies.
Conclusion
The nest time you get together with a group of friends, try one of the fun gambling activities listed on this page. Make sure everyone understands the rules before you start playing, set the stakes at a level where everyone can play, and have some fun.
Some of these games you can play when you get together, and others you can play on a schedule. It doesn’t matter which game you play or how often you play, as long as everyone has fun and has a chance to win.
A couple of the games listed on this page involve strategy, like euchre, poker, and high low, but betting on sports and doing a weekly betting pool don’t require any skill. A few people are able to bet on sports better than others, but when you use the point spreads it’s usually a break even activity in the long run.
Betting on anything instantly makes it instantly more exciting. You can prove that to yourself easily enough. Find a sport on TV that you have literally no interest in. Put a bet on one of the teams to win and see how quickly your interest rises. Even if it’s only a small bet, the possibility to win some money will instantly ramp up the thrills!
In this article, we look at some games you can play with your friends that often involve betting money. We think you’ll agree, putting a cash prize on the line is sure to increase the enjoyment you can get from these classic games. However, remember not to take it too seriously. You don’t want to lose any friends by following our suggestions!
There are better things to do than look at the screen
Poker
Poker is one of the most recognisable card games in the world. The game is an elegant blend of skill and luck that makes it perfect for playing with friends. Unlike games like blackjack that have distinct roles for those participating (the dealer and the players), everyone comes to the poker table equal. The rules of the game do not provide an advantage to anyone.
Since there is no distinction between players, it’s everyone for themselves at the poker table. This makes it ideal to enjoy when you have friends over. There are various different ways you can monetise your poker games too. You can play “cash poker” where everyone brings their own money to the table and each bet is made using actual money (or chips representing actual money). Players can top up their bankroll when they run low on funds and can cash out whenever they please.
Alternatively, you can play “tournament poker”. Here, each player buys a stack of chips for a set amount of money. Once they have bought in, the action continues until one player has all the chips. Prizes for first, second, and third positions will be decided prior to the game. You can make the buy-in as little or as large as you want too.
Mah-jong
Mah-jong is massive in China and has been exported around the world. It can be played for fun but is much more exciting when you get real money involved. Like poker, it blends luck, strategy, and skill, making it perfect to enjoy with friends.
Mah-jong is a game that uses a set of 144 tiles. These are differentiated from one another with various Chinese symbols. Whilst different regions of China have slightly different rulesets, most involve players receiving 13 tiles and they must make up a winning hand using a 14th tile taken from the table. A legal hand involves four sets of three tiles and a pair.
This article is much too short to fully describe all the rules of mah-jong. It might look a little daunting to play at first (there aren’t many Western games that use such beautifully designed tiles!) but watch a few YouTube videos and you’ll soon get an idea of how to play. If it’s your first time playing, it might be an idea to get through a few games for fun before you start betting.
When you’ve a good handle on the rules of mah-jong, you can introduce some real money. Most people bet on each round of the game (most versions have 16 rounds). The bet per round can be the same each time or different. You can decide on the bets per round at the beginning of the game or between rounds. It’s entirely up to you. Alternatively, you can bet on an overall winner of the entire game.
Slots
Believe it or not but slots can provide great entertainment with a group of friends. You might think that slots are a rather solitary pastime but they don’t have to be at all.
Get together with your mates and club together a bankroll to take to the casino. Whatever you win, you’ll split. If you lose, you’ll all share the grief!
Whilst it’s possible to play slots with a group of friends huddled around a single machine in a pub or casino, we think the games are best enjoyed online. This is because you can connect your laptop to a larger screen using a HDMI port and everyone can follow the action without being bunched together around a computer or phone.
The best thing is that you don’t need to spend money. You can play for free using free spins that are freely available at nodepositexplorer.com. The site lists loads of different promotions that mean you and your friends can try your luck at winning real money with zero risk. If you win big, you can use the cash to fund a group outing somewhere fun. This might be a dinner in a restaurant, a trip to a brick-and-mortar casino, or whatever you and your friends decide on. If you lose, it’s no big deal. You can always signup to the next casino offering a similar promotion and try again.
Pitch and Toss
Pitch and Toss, Coins, Pitching Pennies, or just Pitch, is a great game that requires skill, a few coins, and little else. The court for the game is the floor. Ideally, you want an area of floor that’s pretty smooth, flat, and about six feet long with a wall at the far end. Before the game, you set a line behind which coins must be thrown from – just like the oche in the game of darts. The shorter the distance between the wall and the line, the easier the game will be.
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Each player brings their own money to a game of Pitch. The stakes are decided by the value of the coin used to play each round. Therefore, every player should use the same value coin for each round of the game played.
Players take it in turns throwing their coins the length of the pitch. The player that manages to land their coin closest to the wall will take all the money used in the round.
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It’s very simple to play and each round takes less than a minute. This means it can be perfect to pass a bit of time when waiting for a bus or train. It’s also a real party favourite and kitchens can make the ideal arenas for epic Pitch and Toss games!
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Rummy
Our last great game to gamble on with friends is the card game rummy. It’s a bit like mah-jong in that there are loads of different variations of the game. It’s, therefore, important to make sure all the players are familiar with the same set of rules before you start.
The object of the game is also similar to mah-jong. Players must pick up and put down cards to make an eligible hand. Eligible hands consist of melds. A meld can be either a set (either three or four cards of the same rank) or a run (three or four cards of the same suit in ascending numerical order).
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We won’t go too far into the rules of rummy here because whichever version of the game you decide to play will dictate how you play. However, in terms of betting, you’ll typically bet on rounds prior to any cards being deal. The winner of each will take all money bet for that round. New bets will be placed prior to the next round.
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In terms of how much to bet, that depends on your friends’ appetite for risk! You could choose just a few cents or go high stakes. And if you think high stakes gambling on cards is the reserve of poker players, check out High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story. This biopic documents the life of legendary gambler Stu Ungar. Ungar made a name for himself playing rummy long before switching to poker after he beat literally all of the competition!