Newmarket Card Game Rules

Newmarket is the classic British family card game with a racing theme. Before each deal, players put counters on four “horses” – an Ace, King, Queen and Jack from a second pack – and anyone who plays the matching card during the hand collects the stake on it. The first player to get rid of all their cards wins the kitty. It is a game of almost pure luck, easy enough for young children, and is usually played for matchsticks, sweets or pennies. The same game is called Boodle or Stops, and its American descendant is Michigan. This guide covers the Newmarket card game rules step by step, the many family variations, where the game comes from and the odds of each horse paying out.

Newmarket Rules at a Glance

What You Need

• Two packs of cards. One full pack for playing, and four cards from a second pack to be the horses (also called boodles or money cards). The most common horses today are the Ace of hearts, King of clubs, Queen of diamonds and Jack of spades.
• Counters. Matchsticks, buttons, sweets or coins. Give everyone the same number to start – ten or twelve each works well; more makes a longer game.

How to Play Newmarket

1. Lay out the horses. Put the four horse cards face up in a row in the middle of the table, with a space for the kitty.
2. Place the stakes. Before the deal, each player puts one counter in the kitty and one on each horse (or an agreed number, spread however they like). In some families the dealer stakes double.
3. Deal. Deal the whole pack, one card at a time, to every player and to one extra hand – the dummy. It does not matter if some hands have one more card. The dummy stays face down and is not played.
4. Sort your hand. Arrange your cards by suit and in order. You will need to spot the next card quickly.
5. Open the play. Whoever holds the 2 of diamonds plays it face up in front of themselves and calls it out (many families start with the 2 of clubs instead). If nobody has it, call for the 3, and so on.
6. Follow in sequence. Whoever holds the next card of the same suit – the 3, then the 4 – plays it in front of themselves and calls it out. Play does not go round the table: it goes to whoever holds the next card, so you may play several in a row.
7. Stop. The run stops when it reaches the Ace, or when the next card is in the dummy or has already been played. The player of the last card starts a new run with their lowest card of the other colour (after a red run, a club or a spade). If they have no card of that colour, the next player to the left who does starts instead.
8. Collect the horses. Whenever you play a card that matches a horse, take all the counters on that horse.
9. Go out. The first player to play their last card wins the kitty and the hand ends. Counters left on horses that nobody played stay there for the next deal. The deal then passes to the left.

Paying the winner

Families settle the hand in one of two ways. In most British homes, the first player out simply takes the kitty. In older rules and in Michigan there is no kitty: instead, every other player pays the winner one counter for each card left in their hand, so it pays to get rid of cards even if you won’t go out first.

Newmarket Variations

Newmarket has been played in so many homes for so long that almost every family has its own version. The common ones:

The horses through history

Which four cards are the horses has changed from book to book:

Where Newmarket Comes From

Newmarket grew out of Pope Joan, an older English gambling game played on a round, divided staking board. A duke was reported “losing considerably at Newmarket” as early as 1820, and the first printed rules appeared in the 1850s. The staking cards are called horses in a nod to Newmarket Racecourse. In America it became known as Stops or Boodle before Michigan replaced it in the 1920s. Newmarket stayed popular in Britain: as late as 1981 it was still the sixth most popular card game in the country.

Newmarket Odds

Newmarket is mostly luck, but the numbers show which horses pay and how often the money rolls over. From 50,000 simulated hands per table size, using the rules above (aces high, 2 of diamonds starts, change colour after a stop):

• The Queen of diamonds pays most often – in 60% of four-player hands, because play always opens in diamonds. The Jack of spades pays 54%, the Ace of hearts 51% and the King of clubs 48%.
• Stakes roll over a lot. On average 1.9 of the four horses go unclaimed in a hand, so their counters stay for the next deal and the piles grow.
• The dummy is the spoiler. Any given card – a horse included – is in the dummy 25% of the time with three players, 19% with four, 15% with five and 13% with six. A horse in the dummy can’t be won that hand.
• Fewer cards, better chances. When hands are uneven, the shorter hands go out first more often: with five players, the dealer holds 8 cards to everyone else’s 9 and wins the kitty 21.6% of the time, against about 19.5% for each of the others.

Tips for Newmarket

• Sort your cards by suit and in order before play starts, or you will miss your turn to play.
• Call every card clearly. Play moves to whoever holds the next card, not round the table, so everyone needs to hear it.
• Watch for the gaps. A card that never turns up is in the dummy. Once you know where a suit stops, you know which of your cards will be stuck.
• Buy the dummy with a weak hand. If you hold few picture cards, few runs and lots of low cards, it can be worth buying the dummy when your family plays that rule.
• Keep the stakes small. Matchsticks or sweets are traditional, and the game is just as much fun without real money.

More Card Games

For more family card games, try Chase the Ace, Pontoon, Three Card Brag, Shithead or Go Fish.

Another game of playing cards in suit order: Sevens (Fan Tan), where every suit is built out from its 7.

Newmarket card game: frequently asked questions