Polish Bank (German : Polnische Bank), Polski Pachuck, Grundehrlich, Polish Red Dog or Stitch, is a gambling game using playing cards which resembles Häufeln and Mauscheln. The game is recorded as early as 1836 in the Austro-Hungarian Empire where it was banned on the grounds of being purely a game of chance or hazard. [1]
The game is played with a 52-card pack of French playing cards. The Ace is the highest card; the Two the lowest.
At the beginning of a game, the banker places an agreed fixed amount on the table in front of him. The other players now bet against it, but the sum of the opponents' bets must not exceed "half" the amount in the bank.
The banker shuffles, offers the pack for cutting and plays the first card face up to the table and then deals the next three cards are to the other players. If his opponents can beat the banker's card, i.e. if there is a card of the same suit and higher rank than the banker's among the three punters' cards, the opponents win in the ratio 2:1.
If the opponents cannot beat the banker's card, the banker collects the bets, thus increasing the bank total. The banker may not, however, take any winnings from the bank unless he surrenders the role of banker.
If the bank goes bust (gesprengt), i.e. there is no more money in the bank, the banker has to give the bank up and the player to his left becomes the next banker.
If the amount in the bank after a game is at least three times the original deposit, the banker may hold the bank for one last 'trick round'. After this game, the banker must hand over the bank to his left neighbour. If the bank is not bust after this round, the amount in the bank belongs, naturally, to the banker.
The probability of a win for the punters is 30.38% and, for the banker, 69.62%. Due to the payout ratio of 2:1, this results in a bank advantage of 8.85 %.
If a pack of 32 (Piquet pack or German-suited) cards is used instead of a 52-card pack, the probability of winning is 29.55% for the punters and 70.45% for the banker, increasing the bank advantage to 11.35%.
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Blackjack is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. The game is played with decks of 52 cards and is an American descendant of a global family of banking games known as Twenty-One. This family of card games also includes the British game of Pontoon and the European game, Vingt-et-Un.
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Blind Hookey, also known as Dutch Bank, Banker and Broker and Honest John, is a simple game of chance using playing cards. The game is popular in Germany where it is known as Häufeln, Bockspiel or Päckchen wenden, after the little packets of cards used.
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Bruus, formerly Brausebart or Brusbart, is a very old north German card game for four players in two teams of two. It was once highly popular but has since died out except for a few pockets in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. As Brusbart, it was the ancestor of a family of similar games in northern Europe, including Swedish Bräus and Danish Brus which are still played today. Bruus features 'daring and tormenting' which has been said to give the game a certain charm. Once considered the national game of Hamburg, Bruus is a descendant of Karnöffel, the oldest identifiable European card game in the history of playing cards with a continuous tradition of play down to the present day. The game is named after the Bruus or Brusbart, once its top card, but now its second-highest trump.
Pontoon, formerly called Vingt-Un, is a card game of the banking family for three to ten players and the "British domestic version of Twenty-One," a game first recorded in 17th-century Spain, but which spread to France, Germany and Britain in the late 18th century, and America during the early 19th century. It is not, as popularly supposed, a variant of Blackjack nor is Pontoon derived from Blackjack, but both are descended from the early British version of Vingt-Un. In Britain, it first became known as Pontoon during the First World War, the name apparently being a soldier's corruption of its former French name. The games has no official rules and varies widely from place to place. It is a popular family game, but also widely played by children, students and in the armed forces. In 1981, Pontoon was the 3rd most popular card game in Britain after Rummy and Whist. It has been described as "an amusing round game and one which anyone can learn in a few minutes."
Gilten or Giltspiel is a "very old" Austrian card game for four players, playing in partnership, with 32 German-suited cards of the William Tell pattern. Despite its age, it is still played locally in parts of Austria today. It is a trick-taking game which involves betting on the outcome and certain card combinations.
