Egyptian Rat Screw Rules
Flip, challenge and slap: how to play Egyptian Rat Screw, with every common slap rule and the odds behind them.
Egyptian Rat Screw (also written Egyptian Ratscrew, or ERS, and also called Egyptian War, Ratslap or simply Slap) is a fast card game where the aim is to win every card in the pack. Players take turns flipping cards onto a pile, face cards and Aces start challenges, and when certain combinations appear, such as two cards of the same rank in a row, the first player to slap the pile takes it. It is an American game, popular with children and teenagers, that adds slapping to the old British game Beggar-my-neighbour. This guide covers the Egyptian Rat Screw rules: the deal, face-card challenges, every common slap rule, penalties, slapping back in, variations, strategy and odds.
Egyptian Rat Screw Rules at a Glance
| Egyptian Rat Screw | |
|---|---|
| Players | Two or more; with a big group, shuffle two packs together. |
| Cards | A standard 52-card pack, sometimes with Jokers. |
| Deal | All the cards, face down, as evenly as possible. Nobody looks at their cards. |
| Play | Turn over the top card of your stack onto the centre pile, one player at a time. |
| Face cards | A Jack, Queen, King or Ace gives the next player 1, 2, 3 or 4 chances to play another face card or Ace. |
| Slapping | Slap the pile first when a slap rule appears (a double, a sandwich and so on) and it is yours. |
| Winning | The player who ends up with all 52 cards. |
How to Play Egyptian Rat Screw
- Deal the whole pack face down, one card at a time. Each player squares their cards into a neat stack without looking at them.
- Play a card. The player to the dealer’s left turns the top card of their stack face up onto the middle. Flip it away from you, so that everyone sees it at the same moment.
- Keep going around the table. As long as the cards are number cards (2 to 10), each player in turn adds one card to the pile.
- Face card challenge. When someone plays a Jack, Queen, King or Ace, the next player must answer with another face card or Ace within their chances: 1 for a Jack, 2 for a Queen, 3 for a King and 4 for an Ace.
- Win the pile. If the next player answers with a face card or Ace, the challenge passes on to the following player. If they run out of chances, the player who played the last face card takes the whole pile and starts the next round.
- Slap! At any moment, if the cards on top of the pile make a slap combination, anyone can slap the pile. The first hand down takes the whole pile, even in the middle of a face-card challenge.
- Add won cards to the bottom of your stack, face down, without shuffling.
- Play until one player has every card.
Face Cards and Aces
| Card played | Chances for the next player |
|---|---|
| Jack | 1 |
| Queen | 2 |
| King | 3 |
| Ace | 4 |
The challenged player plays one card at a time until they either turn up a face card or Ace (which starts a new challenge against the next player) or use up all their chances. Some groups swap the Jack and King values, so check before you start.
Slap Rules
Agree which combinations can be slapped before the game. The double and the sandwich are used almost everywhere; the rest are popular house rules.
| Slap | When the pile shows… | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Double | Two cards of the same rank in a row | 5, 5 |
| Sandwich | Two cards of the same rank with one card between them | 5, 7, 5 |
| Top bottom | A card that matches the first card played in that pile | 8 … 8 |
| Tens | Two cards in a row that add up to 10 (an Ace counts 1) | 3, 7 |
| Four in a row | Four cards in order, going up or down | 4, 5, 6, 7 |
| Marriage | A Queen on a King, or a King on a Queen | K, Q |
| Jokers | Any Joker, if Jokers are in the pack | — |
Slapping Rules and Penalties
- First hand down wins. If two players slap at once and nobody can tell who was first, the pile goes to the hand underneath or, in some groups, to the hand with the most fingers on the cards.
- Wrong slap. Slapping when there is nothing to slap costs you: put one or two cards from your stack under the pile. This is often called burning a card.
- No hovering. Keep your hands back between cards. Hovering over the pile is usually banned.
- Slapping back in. A player who runs out of cards is not finished yet: they can still slap a valid combination to win the pile and get back into the game.
Popular Variations
| Variation | What changes |
|---|---|
| Jokers | Add one or two Jokers; a Joker on the pile is always slappable. |
| Hoagie | A pair with two cards between them can be slapped, like a longer sandwich. |
| Flush | Three cards of the same suit in a row can be slapped. |
| 6 and 9 | A 6 next to a 9 can be slapped (sometimes itself called a “ratscrew”). |
| Reversed chances | Jacks give 3 chances and Kings 1, instead of the other way round. |
| Strict penalties | Players with no cards who slap wrongly three times lose the right to slap at all. |
Egyptian Rat Screw Strategy
- Slap everything you can. Every slap you win is a pile your opponent doesn’t get.
- Watch two cards back. Doubles are easy to see; sandwiches are the slaps most players miss.
- Remember what you won. In a two-player game, a pair you slapped will come back round in the same order, often as a sandwich.
- Stay calm on wrong slaps. A burned card is a small price, but a habit of wrong slaps adds up.
- Face cards are gold. The more Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces in your stack, the better your chance of winning challenges.
Some players advise not slapping piles that contain no face cards, to avoid filling your stack with low cards. A simulation suggests this is a mistake. Over 40,000 two-player games between equally fast players, a player who skipped slaps on piles without a face card or Ace won only 45% of games, against a fair 50% for slapping everything. A player who never slapped won 0.4%.
Egyptian Rat Screw Odds
- Answering a challenge: with an average stack, the next player fails to find a face card or Ace 69% of the time after a Jack, 48% after a Queen, 32% after a King and 22% after an Ace. Sixteen of the 52 cards are face cards or Aces.
- A double on the very next card: 5.9%, since 3 of the other 51 cards match the top card’s rank.
- Slaps are common: with doubles and sandwiches, a slap turns up about once every 11 cards played.
- A two-player game lasts about 386 cards played when both players slap.
Egyptian Rat Screw vs Beggar-my-Neighbour and Slapjack
Egyptian Rat Screw is Beggar-my-neighbour, the 19th-century British game of face-card challenges, with slapping added. Slapjack is a simpler slapping game where only Jacks can be slapped. Without slapping, a two-player game is pure luck; with slapping, quick eyes and quick hands decide almost everything.
More Fast Card Games
If you like Egyptian Rat Screw, try Snap, Irish Snap, Spit and Spoons.
Another fast game for a crowd: Nertz, the racing solitaire game also called Racing Demon.
The calmer cousin: War, where every tie turns into a war.
Egyptian Rat Screw: frequently asked questions
How do you play Egyptian Rat Screw?
What are the slap rules in Egyptian Rat Screw?
How many chances do you get for a face card in Egyptian Rat Screw?
What happens if you slap wrong in Egyptian Rat Screw?
Can you get back in Egyptian Rat Screw after running out of cards?
What is a sandwich in Egyptian Rat Screw?
Is Egyptian Rat Screw the same as Egyptian War?
How many players can play Egyptian Rat Screw?
Fadi Hayek
Author & Casino Expert
After going through several successful experiences with several industry pioneers, Fadi Hayek has managed to excel in the world of content for online gaming by providing unique content for several projects that allowed him to obtain the necessary experience to launch his career. Last but not least, Fadi also holds several certificates, including but not limited to content marketing and iGaming.
