Trash Card Game Rules
Turn up your ten cards in order from Ace to 10 before anyone else: how to play Trash, also called Garbage.
Trash, also called Garbage, is a simple card game for two or more players. Each player has ten face-down cards laid out in two rows, one spot for each number from Ace to 10, and the first to fill every spot with the right card wins the hand. Jacks are wild, Queens and Kings are “trash” and end your turn. Every hand you win, your layout gets one card shorter, and the first player to win with a single card wins the game. It is almost pure luck, which makes it a good game for children learning their numbers and for adults who want to talk while they play. This guide covers the Trash card game rules: setting up, a turn, Jacks, winning, house rules, tips and odds.
Trash Rules at a Glance
| Trash (Garbage) | |
|---|---|
| Players | 2 or more. |
| Cards | One 52-card deck for two players; two decks for three or four; three decks for five or six. No Jokers. |
| Layout | 10 cards each, face down, in two rows of five: Ace to 5 on top, 6 to 10 below. |
| Card values | Ace counts as 1, 2 to 10 are face value. |
| Wild | Jacks. |
| Trash | Queens and Kings end your turn. |
| Goal | Fill your layout first. The winner plays the next hand with one card fewer. |
| Ages | Bicycle lists it for 8 and up; many families play it with younger children. |
How to Set Up Trash
- Shuffle the deck (or decks), with the Jokers taken out.
- Deal ten cards face down to each player. Nobody looks at them.
- Lay them out in two rows of five. The top row is Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5 from left to right, and the bottom row is 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
- Put the rest of the deck face down in the middle as the stock. The discard pile starts next to it once the first card is thrown away.
How to Play Trash
- Draw. Take the top card of the stock, or the top card of the discard pile. The first player has to draw from the stock.
- Place it. If the card is an Ace to 10, put it face up in its spot. A 7 goes in the 7 spot, an Ace in the Ace spot.
- Turn up the card you replaced. Pick up the face-down card that was in that spot and look at it. If it fits an empty spot, place it there and turn up the card it replaces.
- Keep going as long as each card you turn up has somewhere to go.
- Discard to end your turn. Your turn ends when you get a card you cannot use: a Queen, a King, or a number whose spot already holds that number face up. Put it face up on the discard pile, and play passes to the left.
Jacks Are Wild
A Jack can go in any spot that still has a face-down card, and you turn up the card it replaces as usual. Later, if you get the real card for that spot, you can put it there and move the Jack to any other face-down spot, turning up the card under it. That way one Jack can fill several spots over a hand.
Winning a Hand and the Game
The first player with a face-up card in every spot wins the hand. Shuffle and deal again, but the winner now gets only nine cards and plays Ace to 9. For them, a 10 is now trash like a Queen or King. Each hand you win takes one more card off your layout. The winner of a hand plays first in the next one, and the first player to win a hand with a one-card layout, filled by an Ace or a Jack, wins the game.
If the stock runs out, keep the top card of the discard pile and shuffle the rest to make a new stock.
Trash vs Garbage: House Rules
Trash and Garbage are the same game, and almost every family plays it slightly differently. These are the most common house rules:
| House rule | How it works |
|---|---|
| Kings are wild | Some families, often those who call the game Garbage, make Kings wild instead of Jacks, and Jacks and Queens become the garbage. |
| Jokers are wild | Jokers are added as extra wild cards, alongside or instead of Jacks. |
| All face cards wild | Jacks, Queens and Kings are all wild. The only dead cards are numbers you already have, or numbers bigger than your layout. |
| King for a bonus turn | Drawing a King gives you another turn instead of ending yours. |
| One last turn | When someone fills their layout, everyone else gets one more turn, and anyone who also fills theirs moves down a card too. |
| Short game | The first player down to six cards (or another agreed number) wins, or play a set number of hands and the smallest layout wins. |
| Friendly neighbour | A card you turn up that you already have is given to a player who needs it, instead of going on the discard pile. |
How Many Decks for Trash?
| Players | Decks |
|---|---|
| 2 | 1 |
| 3 or 4 | 2 |
| 5 or 6 | 3 |
| 7 or more | Add a deck for every two extra players |
Many families play three-handed with a single deck. It works, but the stock runs out sooner, so expect to reshuffle the discards.
Trash Tips
- Always check the discard pile first. If the top card fits one of your empty spots, take it: it is a sure thing, and the stock might give you trash.
- Do not worry about where a Jack goes. In 40,000 simulated two-player games per strategy, putting Jacks in the highest open spot, or in the spot whose number had shown up most often, won no more than putting them anywhere: every strategy came out within half a point of 50%.
- Playing with young children? Trash is good practice at recognising and ordering numbers 1 to 10. Shorten the game by stopping at six cards.
Trash Odds
- The first draw: 8 of the 52 cards are Queens and Kings, so the first card of the game is trash 15% of the time.
- Jacks in your layout: with one deck, a ten-card layout hides at least one Jack 59% of the time, and 0.8 on average.
- Going first: in a two-player hand with ten cards each, the player who starts wins 53% of the time. A hand lasts about 6 turns each.
- A whole game: someone has to win ten hands, so a full game takes a median of 16 hands with two players, 20 with three and 24 with four.
The first-draw and layout figures are exact. The rest come from 80,000 simulated two-player hands and 20,000 simulated games for each player count under the rules above.
More Family Card Games
If you like Trash, try Golf, another game of turning up a face-down layout, or Kings Corner. For more quick games for all ages, see Go Fish, Crazy Eights and Slapjack.
Trash (Garbage): frequently asked questions
How do you play the Trash card game?
Is Trash the same as Garbage?
What are the rules for Garbage?
How many decks do you need for 3 people to play Garbage?
Can you move the wild card in Garbage?
What happens when you draw a Queen or King in Trash?
How do you win the Trash card game?
How long does a game of Trash take?
Fadi Hayek
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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.
