Zecchinetta
An old Italian gambling card game, close cousin to games like Basset and Faro, in which a banker deals cards one at a time and players bet on whether a matching card appears before the banker's own.
Coming soon — not yet playable
Rules
Zecchinetta is a historical Italian banking game rather than a hand-vs-hand comparison game like most entries in this library — it belongs to the same family as Faro and Basset. One player acts as banker for the round; every other player places a bet on a card of their choosing (or is dealt a card to represent their bet).
The banker turns over cards one at a time from a shuffled deck, alternating between "player" cards and the banker's own card. If a player's chosen rank appears before a matching rank appears for the banker, that player wins their bet from the banker; if the banker's matching rank appears first, the banker collects that player's stake instead.
Historical accounts (including a famous scene in Casanova's memoirs, where he describes running a Zecchinetta bank) describe it as a fast, high-turnover gambling game popular in 18th-century Italian gaming houses and social gatherings, prized for its simplicity and quick resolution compared to hand-based vying games like Primero.
Strategy notes: Because Zecchinetta is a banking game rather than a hand-comparison game, there is no bluffing or hand-reading in the poker sense — the only real decision points are which card to back and, for the banker, managing bankroll risk across many quick rounds, making it a change-of-pace curiosity for a table more used to vying games.
Common house rules
Rotate the bank
Most modern revivals rotate who deals as banker every few rounds (or every hand) so no single player carries all the banking risk for an entire session.
Cap the banker's exposure
Since the banker can in principle owe every other player simultaneously, home games typically agree on a maximum payout per round to keep the banker's risk bounded.
A banking game, not a vying game
Worth stating clearly at a mixed dealer's-choice table: unlike every other game in this library, Zecchinetta has no bluffing or hand comparison between players — it's closer to a simple card-based betting game than to 'poker' in the modern sense.
Related games
Based on shared category, origin, and rules that reference each other.
Basset
A 17th-century Italian banking game, brought to fashionable prominence at the French court, in which players bet on cards turning up from the banker's deck — a direct ancestor of Faro.
Learn the rules →Faro
A once-massively popular banking card game (also called Pharaoh) that dominated American and European gambling halls for over two centuries, simplifying Basset's mechanic into a fast, simple bet-on-a-card game.
Learn the rules →Lansquenet
A German banking game named after 15th-16th century mercenaries, first referenced by Rabelais in 1534 — a direct precursor to Faro and Baccarat, and ancestor of Italian Zecchinetta.
Learn the rules →Naqsh
A banking game from the Ganjifa card tradition, which originated in 15th-century Persia and flourished at the Mughal courts of India — players bet on reaching specific card-total combinations.
Learn the rules →