Card Game

Card Game

A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games such as poker. A small number of card games played with traditional decks have formally standardized rules, but most are folk games whose rules vary by region, culture, and person.

Many games that are not generally placed in the family of card games do in fact use cards for some aspect of their gameplay. Similarly, some games that are placed in the card game genre involve a board. The distinction is that the gameplay of a card game primarily depends on the use of the cards by players the board is simply a guide for scorekeeping or for card placement, while board games the principal non-card game genre to use cards generally focus on the players' positions on the board, and use the cards for some secondary purpose.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provides leadership in the national effort to reduce alcohol-related problems by conducting and supporting research in a wide range of scientific areas, including genetics, neuroscience, epidemiology, health risks and benefits of alcohol consumption, prevention and treatment; coordinating and collaborating with other research institutes and Federal programs on alcohol-related issues; collaborating with international, national, State and local institutions, organizations, agencies and programs engaged in alcohol-related work; and translating and disseminating research findings to health care providers, researchers, policymakers and the public.

Pachinko

Pachinko is a Japanese gaming device. A pachinko machine resembles a vertical pinball machine, but has no flippers and uses a large number of small balls. The player fires balls into the machine, which then cascade down through a dense forest of pins. If the balls go into certain locations, sequences of events are triggered that result in more balls being released; these balls can then be exchanged for prizes. Pachinko machines were originally strictly mechanical, but modern ones have incorporated extensive electronics, becoming similar to video slot machines.

The machines are widespread in establishments called parlors, which feature a number of slot machines; hence, they operate and look similar to casinos. Modern pachinko machines are highly customizable, keeping enthusiasts continuously entertained. Because gambling for cash is illegal in Japan, balls won cannot be exchanged directly for cash in the parlor; instead the balls are exchanged for tokens, which are then taken outside and exchanged for cash at a place nominally separate from the parlor and possibly run by organized crime.

As an indicator of the popularity of pachinko in Japan, Japanese government estimates of the annual turnover of the pachinko industry are in the region of 29 trillion yen. To put this in perspective, this is about twice the annual turnover of Japan's automobile industry, and approximately equivalent to the estimated annual turnover of the global narcotics trade.

Pachinko parlors are known for tweaking their machines to maximize their profits without intimidating customers, which means that most machines have different payout settings than what their manufacturers claim. The Japanese police can tolerate such manipulation as long as it happens outside of business hours; generally, those that cause a loss to the player are found in greater numbers.

Resetting of machines every day before opening hours is a feature of all parlors, because of the strict enforcement of closing times implying some players having to give up their machines when they hit a string of jackpots. Those whose machines are in payout mode at this time are allowed to collect their balls for the duration of the payout. Some parlors allow members to hold a particular machine across operating sessions. Timing is another factor in determining how parlors set their machines: holidays, when many people play pachinko, are favorable because many play it for leisure and the parlors are keen to attract them to come back for more. Weekends are unfavorable because the majority of players have only this time to play.

The layout of the different setting machines is a psychological method of attracting players; machines near the entrance are usually set at a high payout rate. When people walk by the parlor and see players at those machines with a large number of balls, they are more inclined to go inside and play the other machines even though they are at lower settings. For this purpose, many parlors employ "sakuras" to sit at these machines and emulate players winning a large number of balls; they are required to return these balls to the parlor free of charge minus their wages.

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Slahal

Slahal Lahal is the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast gambling game known as stickgame, bonegame, bloodless war game, handgame, or a name specific to each language. It is played throughout the western United States and Canada by indigenous peoples. The name of the game is a Chinook Jargon word. The name bone game comes from the fact that the bone sets historically used were the shin bones from the foreleg of a deer or other animal.

The game is played with two opposing teams. There are two sets of bones, and two sets of sticks 10 sticks per team during aboriginal times, but in modern times usually played with 5 sticks per team and a kick or king stick -- an extra stick won by the team who gets to start the game in some areas a kick stick is not used. When a game is in play, one of the two teams will have two sets of bones, shown above. When your team is guessing, your objective is to get the right bone, the one without the stripe. When you have the bones, your objective is to make sure the other team guesses wrong on the bones set. When the other team guesses wrong, you gain a point. When a team has the two sets of bones, two separate individuals will hide the bones and swap them around from hand to hand each person has a striped and non-striped bone. Eventually the bones are brought forward, but are concealed as to not show the other team what one has a stripe on it. The game is usually accompanied by drumming and singing used to boost the morale of the team. The side that has the bones sings, while the other tries to guess. The musical accompaniment is also sometimes used to taunt the other team. Gambling could be done by players, or spectators of a match, placing bets on teams, or individual matches within the game between one guess and the other team's bone hiders.

Oral histories indicate that slahal is an ancient game, dating to before the last ice age.citation needed In the Coast Salish tradition, the Creator gave stickgame to humanity as an alternative to war at the beginning of time. Thus the game straddles multiple roles in Native culture -- it is at once entertainment, a family pastime, a sacred ritual and a means of economic gain through gambling. These juxtapositions are sometimes difficult to comprehend for the Western mind, but to many members of the Native community they are woven together effortlessly as a harmonic whole.