Egyptian Ratscrew Rules: How to Play and Every Slap Rule
Nov 10, 2026 · The Editors
How to play Egyptian Ratscrew: the deal, face-card challenges, the standard slap rules (doubles and sandwiches), penalties, slapping back in, and the game's other names.
Egyptian Ratscrew is a fast card game of reflexes and luck: players flip cards into a central pile, face cards force challenges, and anyone can slap the pile when certain patterns appear. The player who ends up with every card wins. It goes by Egyptian War, Egyptian Rat Screw, ERS or simply Slap.
Setup
- Players: 2 or more; it is best with 3 to 6.
- Cards: one standard 52-card deck. Jokers are optional (see house rules).
- Deal: deal the whole deck out face down, one at a time. Nobody looks at their cards. Uneven piles are fine.
How to play
In turn, starting left of the dealer, each player turns the top card of their pile face up onto the centre pile. Turn it away from you so you do not see it first.
Face-card challenges. When someone plays a jack, queen, king or ace, the next player must play a face card or ace within a set number of tries:
| Card played | Tries for the next player |
|---|---|
| Jack | 1 |
| Queen | 2 |
| King | 3 |
| Ace | 4 |
If the next player turns up a face card or ace in time, the challenge passes to the player after them. If they run out of tries, the player who played the last face card wins the whole centre pile and puts it under their own.
Egyptian Ratscrew slap rules
Any player may slap the centre pile when one of these appears. The first hand on the pile wins it, even in the middle of a challenge.
- Double: two cards of the same rank in a row (a seven, then a seven).
- Sandwich: two cards of the same rank with one different card between them (a seven, a king, a seven).
Those two are standard everywhere. Popular extra slaps, used only if everyone agrees:
- Top and bottom: the card just played matches the bottom card of the pile.
- Tens: two cards in a row that add up to ten (ace counts as one).
- Marriage: a king and queen next to each other.
- Jokers: any joker can be slapped.
- Four in a row: four cards in sequence, up or down.
Bad slaps and penalties
Slap when there is nothing to slap and you pay a penalty: usually one or two cards from your pile, placed face down at the bottom of the centre pile. If two players slap at once, the hand underneath wins.
Running out and slapping back in
When your pile is empty you stop turning cards, but in most games you can still slap back in: win a pile with a correct slap and you are back in the game. Some groups allow only one slap-in. You are out for good only when you have no cards and miss your chance. The game ends when one player holds the whole deck, which can take a while; set a time limit if you prefer, and the biggest pile wins.
Some groups add a gesture — a salute or a word — that must be made before a slap counts. That is house rules; decide before you start.
Use a deck that can take it
Egyptian Ratscrew is hard on cards: they get slapped flat, bent and grabbed hundreds of times. A waterproof plastic deck flexes and springs back where paper creases. For gentler games with the same deck, see war and cheat.
