Andar Baharअन्दर बाहर

The cards and the felt

Andar Bahar uses one 52-card pack with no jokers in it. Every round starts with all 52 cards, shuffled again.

The felt has a place for one card, the joker, and two rows for the deal: Andar, which means inside, and Bahar, which means outside.

The joker is simply the first card turned up each round. It is not a wild card. Some people call it the game card, the house card or the middle card.

Betting

Once the joker is face up, everyone bets at the same time:

• Put your chips on Andar or on Bahar: one side a round.
• Stake at least 10 chips and at most 500 (the table limit) in a round, counting all your bets. If you have fewer than 10 chips left, you stake all of them.
• Or sit the round out. It costs nothing.
• Bets lie open on the felt in each player's own colour of chip, so everyone can see what the others have put down.
• Until you tap Bet you can move your chips or take them back. Once your bet is in, it stays for the round.

To save time, the table sets out your last round's bet again at the start of each round, if you can still afford it. Change it or simply tap Bet.

A player with no chips left watches the rest of the game. In an online game with a turn timer, a player who runs out of time sits that round out.

The deal

When every player has bet or sat out, the dealer deals single cards face up from the pack: the first to Andar, the next to Bahar, and turn and turn about after that.

The deal stops at the first card with the same rank as the joker. Suits do not matter: if the joker is the seven of hearts, any seven ends the deal. The side that gets that card wins the round.

Three cards in the pack match the joker, so the deal can end on the very first card or run as long as 49. On average it takes 13 cards.

How bets are paid

Because Andar gets the first card, the match falls there a little more often: 51.5 rounds in 100. So the two sides pay differently:

• A winning bet on Andar pays 0.9 to 1: your chips back plus nine tenths as many again. 100 chips come back as 190.
• A winning bet on Bahar pays 1 to 1 (evens): 100 chips come back as 200.
• A bet on the other side loses, and the house keeps it.
• A match on the very first card pays the same as any other.

Winnings are paid in whole chips and rounded down, so 25 chips on a winning Andar come back as 47.

With the joker's colour rule the first card can go to either side; then whichever side got it pays 0.9 to 1 that round and the other pays evens. The felt always shows what each side pays.

Side bets on the card count

If the side bets are turned on at the start, you can also bet on how many cards the deal will take. The count includes the card that matches and leaves out the joker.

• 1 to 5 cards pays 2.5 to 1.
• 6 to 10 cards pays 3.5 to 1.
• 11 to 15 cards pays 4.5 to 1.
• 16 to 25 cards pays 3.5 to 1.
• 26 to 30 cards pays 14 to 1.
• 31 to 35 cards pays 24 to 1.
• 36 to 40 cards pays 49 to 1.
• 41 or more cards pays 119 to 1.

Put chips on as many boxes as you like, with or without a bet on Andar or Bahar. Side bets count towards the 10 to 500 chips you may stake in a round, and each one is paid on its own.

Example: you put 50 on Andar and 25 on 6 to 10. The match falls on Andar with the seventh card. Andar pays 45 and the side bet pays 87, so you finish the round 132 chips up.

The house

The dealer is the house. It has no seat, it pays every winning bet, it keeps every losing one, and it never runs out of chips.

How the game ends

The game ends after the number of rounds chosen at the start: 20 unless you pick 10 or 30. It ends sooner if only one player still has chips.

The player with the most chips wins. Players level at the top share the win, and if everyone finishes level it is a draw.

Play chips only

Played for real money, Andar Bahar is gambling, which Nepali law forbids apart from small games that the government approves at fairs and festivals. This table uses play chips only: they cannot be bought, traded or carried over, and they are gone when the game ends.

The payouts are set so that the house always wins in the long run. Of every 100 chips staked, it keeps on average about 2 on Andar, 3 on Bahar and between 2 and 9 on the side bets. That is a good reason to enjoy Andar Bahar only as a game.

Where these rules come from

Andar Bahar has no single rulebook, so this table follows what the sources agree on and says where they differ:

• One card turned up, bets on Andar or Bahar, then single cards dealt to each side in turn until one matches the joker's rank: every source agrees, and Gaming.net and Wizard of Odds say plainly that only the rank counts.
• Pagat and Casinos.com turn the joker up before anyone bets, as this table does. Gaming.net also describes tables where it is drawn only after the bets are in.
• Which side gets the first card is the main difference. Pagat, GameRules.com, The Hans India and Casino.org give the older rule, where a black joker starts the deal on Andar and a red one on Bahar. Wizard of Vegas reports that Ezugi's live tables always start on Andar, and Gaming.net and The Hans India describe the same rule. Always Andar is the default here because it is the rule at the popular live online tables, and the colour rule is an option. Some guides say live tables start on Bahar instead; that only moves which side pays 0.9 to 1.
• 0.9 to 1 on the side that gets the first card and evens on the other come from pagat, Wizard of Odds, Wizard of Vegas and Gaming.net. The Hans India and Wizard of Odds also mention tables that pay 0.85 or 0.95 to 1; this table pays 0.9.
• The card-count side bets and their odds follow the table Wizard of Odds gives, counting the cards up to and including the match. Casinos.com lists the same eight boxes as total returns (3.5 times the stake for 1 to 5).
• Rounding winnings down to a whole chip, one side a round (chips on both sides can never come out ahead), sitting a round out, the 1,000 starting chips, the 10 to 500 chip limits and the early end are this table's own choices for a fair game of chips. Pagat says only that a home game agrees its limits in advance.
• Pagat and EastMojo say the game began in Bengaluru (Bangalore) in South India; pagat adds that it is called Mangatha in Tamil. We found no written rules from Nepal, so this page does not claim a Nepali version.

First card by the joker's colour

In the older home game a black joker (a spade or a club) sends the first card to Andar and a red one (a heart or a diamond) sends it to Bahar. The side that gets the first card pays 0.9 to 1 that round and the other side pays evens, so the odds are the same as the default; only the side that pays less moves from round to round.

Side bets on the card count

Turn these on to bet on how many cards the deal will take, in eight boxes from 1 to 5 up to 41 or more, at odds from 2.5 to 1 up to 119 to 1. They make a long game swing more, and they are the quickest way to catch up late on.

Shorter or longer games

Choose 10, 20 or 30 rounds before you start. The game still ends early if only one player has chips left.

House rules this table does not use

In the version played at Deltin's casinos in India, Bahar is dealt first, a match on the very first Bahar card pays only a quarter of the stake, players may add a second bet after the first two cards, and a Super Bahar bet pays 11 times on a first-card match. Some online tables pay 0.85 or 0.95 to 1, take bets on the joker itself (high or low), or add random multipliers. This table plays the plain game described above.