How to Play Crazy Eights Card Game

Match the suit or the rank, change the suit with an eight, and empty your hand first.

1: Deal five cards to each player, one at a time. With two players, deal seven each.Use one regular 52-card deck for up to five players.
2: Stack the rest face down as the stock. Turn its top card face up beside it.The face-up card starts the pile that everyone plays onto.
3: The player on the dealer's left goes first, and turns pass to the left.Each turn is one card played or one draw.
4: Play one card face up on the pile. It must match the top card in suit or in rank.On the king of hearts, any king or any heart can be played.
5: An eight can be played on any card. Name the suit that must come next.You may name the suit of the eight itself or any other.
6: After an eight, play a card of the suit that was named, or another eight.A new eight lets its player name a suit again.
7: Cannot play, or would rather not? Draw one card from the stock.Many tables keep drawing until a card can be played. Agree on one way before the deal.
8: Stock used up? Shuffle the pile, apart from its top card, into a new stock.The top card stays where it is, and play goes on.
9: The first player to play their last card wins the hand.Play one hand as a whole game, or keep score over several.

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How it works

Crazy Eights is a card game for two to seven players and a regular deck. It began as a children's game, and tables have added rules ever since, so two families rarely play it the same way.

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Directions to play the Crazy Eights card game

Say the top card is the 6 of clubs. You can play any 6, any club, or any eight, and with an eight you name the suit that comes next. Holding none of those, you draw from the stock.

Which rules are house rules?

Only the eight is special in the basic game. Draw two on a 2, skip on a queen and reverse on an ace are common additions, and tables give those jobs to different cards. House rules: draw two, skip, reverse lists them, so a table can say which are in play before the deal.

An eight left in your hand costs 50 points when someone else goes out. Do not sit on one too long.

Questions and answers

How do you play the Crazy Eights card game?

Deal five cards each and turn one up. In turn, play a card that matches the top card in suit or rank, or play an eight and name a new suit. If you cannot play, draw. The first player out of cards wins.

How do you play the kids' game Crazy Eights?

The same way, with no added rules: the basic game has one special card, the eight. It is one of the easy games to play with cards, because every turn is a single match of a suit or a number.

What does an 8 do in Crazy Eights?

An eight can be played on any card. Its player names a suit, and the next player must play that suit or another eight. Eights name suits only, never a number.

How many cards do you deal in Crazy Eights?

Five to each player, or seven each in a two-player game. One deck serves up to five players. With more than five, shuffle two decks together.

All 34 rows

Standard game 9

1: Deal five cards to each player, one at a time. With two players, deal seven each. Use one regular 52-card deck for up to five players.
2: Stack the rest face down as the stock. Turn its top card face up beside it. The face-up card starts the pile that everyone plays onto.
3: The player on the dealer's left goes first, and turns pass to the left. Each turn is one card played or one draw.
4: Play one card face up on the pile. It must match the top card in suit or in rank. On the king of hearts, any king or any heart can be played.
5: An eight can be played on any card. Name the suit that must come next. You may name the suit of the eight itself or any other.
6: After an eight, play a card of the suit that was named, or another eight. A new eight lets its player name a suit again.
7: Cannot play, or would rather not? Draw one card from the stock. Many tables keep drawing until a card can be played. Agree on one way before the deal.
8: Stock used up? Shuffle the pile, apart from its top card, into a new stock. The top card stays where it is, and play goes on.
9: The first player to play their last card wins the hand. Play one hand as a whole game, or keep score over several.

Show all 34 rows (25 more)

House rules: draw two, skip, reverse 9

1: These are house rules. Use all, some or none, and say which before the deal. Without them, the eight is the only special card.
2: Draw two: a 2 makes the next player draw two cards, unless they play another 2. An eight cannot be played to escape the draw.
3: Twos add up: a 2 played on a 2 makes the next player draw four. After drawing, that player's turn is over. They may not play a card.
4: Skip: a queen makes the next player miss a turn. With two players, the one who played the queen plays again.
5: Reverse: an ace turns the direction of play around. With two players an ace does nothing.
6: Last card: say "last card" when you are down to one. Forget to say it before the next player takes a turn, and you draw two cards.
7: The winner's last card has no effect, whatever it is. Going out on a 2 ends the hand, and nobody draws.
8: Other tables use other cards: a jack to skip, a 4 to reverse. The effect matters, not the card. Write your table's choices on the sheet.
9: A special card turned up to start counts as played by the dealer. A 2 makes the first player draw two or play a 2. A queen skips the first player.

Scoring over several hands 8

1: When a player goes out, everyone else counts the cards left in their hand. No card is played after the winning card.
2: An eight left in a hand counts 50 points. It is the worst card to be caught with.
3: A king, a queen or a jack counts 10 points. Three picture cards are 30.
4: Every other card counts its number, and an ace counts 1. A 9 is 9 points and a 2 is 2.
5: One way to score: the player who went out scores the total of all the other hands. The first player to reach the target wins the game.
6: The target is 50 points for each player at the table. Two players 100, three 150, four 200, five 250, six 300, seven 350.
7: The other way: each player takes the points left in their own hand as a penalty. After an agreed number of hands (ours), the lowest total wins.
8: A worked hand (ours): an eight, a king and a 3 left in a hand count 63. 50 and 10 and 3.

Kids, two players and table rulings 8

1: For kids: play the standard sheet with no house rules. One special card, the eight, is all a new player has to remember.
2: Two players: seven cards each. Play is the same, and the turn simply goes back and forth.
3: More than five players: shuffle two decks together. That is 104 cards and eight eights.
4: An eight turned up to start: the dealer looks at their hand and names the suit. The first player then plays that suit or another eight.
5: You may draw even when you hold a card you could play. Some tables say a player who can play must. Settle it before the deal.
6: Some tables let you play the card you just drew, if it fits. At others, drawing ends the turn. Pick one.
7: An eight names a suit, never a rank. "Hearts" is a call. "Sevens" is not.
8: No stock left and nobody can play? The hand is blocked. Play stops and everyone counts the cards in their hand.

How this list was compiled: Written for this site on 2026-10-09, in our own words. Crazy Eights is a traditional card game with no governing body, and almost every table has house rules of its own. The basic game (a regular 52-card deck, two decks shuffled together for more than five players; five cards each, seven when two play; one card turned up to start the pile; a card played that matches the top card in suit or in rank; an eight played on any card, its player naming the next suit; drawing from the stock; the pile shuffled into a new stock; the first empty hand winning; 50 points for an eight, 10 for a picture card and face value for the rest) was checked on 2026-10-09 against English Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, Crazy Eights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eights, and against the card game rules site Pagat: https://www.pagat.com/eights/crazy8s.html. Pagat has a player who does not play draw one card; Wikipedia has that player draw until a card can be played; the sheet gives both. Both give draw two on a 2, skip on a queen and reverse on an ace as common added rules, and the sheet marks them as house rules. The call of last card, the first card turned up, a jack or a 4 in place of the queen or the ace and the blocked game are as Pagat gives them; the winner's score, the target of 50 points a player and the game's start as a children's game are as Wikipedia gives them. Rows marked ours are this site's own suggestions and are not official; sums were worked out from the card values above. Wikipedia describes the winner collecting a payment; this page scores points only. Licence: own work