Two teams. Everyone holds four cards and one extra card goes round the table. Collect four of one suit, sign it to your team where the whole table can see, and have a teammate call it before the other side works out who is holding.
Four, six or eight players in two equal teams. Eight, four a side, is the standard table. Before the deal, everyone picks a side. The app then seats the teams alternately and shows the table where to sit, so the players on either side of you are opponents.
A standard 52-card deck. Everyone gets four cards and the dealer gets a fifth. The rest is set aside as the stock. The deal moves one seat round each round.
Whoever is holding five cards passes one, face down, to the next seat. That seat is always an opponent, so you can never feed a teammate. Everyone sees who passed to whom. Only the two of you know which card it was.
Four cards of one suit. It counts whether you are holding four cards or five.
A tell is a small gesture: a sip, a yawn, a shrug, a tap on the table, a look at the phone. Each table has twelve of them, picked from sixteen when the table opens, and everyone sees the same twelve. Any player can fire a tell at any time, and the whole table sees who did what. You get six tells a round, and everyone can see how many you have left. When they are gone you cannot fire any more, so you cannot sign.
Each team has a sign: one, two or three tells in a set order. Only your team knows what it is. Every round starts with a one-tell sign already chosen for each team. Anyone on the team can change it whenever they like, except while a call is on the table. The other team is told that you changed it, never what to. A new sign only counts for tells fired after it was set.
When you hold four of a suit, fire your team's sign. Your most recent tells have to be the sign exactly, in order, with nothing after them. A teammate then calls Jackpot and names you as the one who signed. With only one teammate there is nobody else to name. You cannot call for yourself, and the call has to come within 15 seconds of the last tell of the sign. Playing in one room? Switch the table to In the room before the deal: you sign with a real wink across the table, and a call only has to prove the hand.
A call does not land at once. The table is told that a call has been made, but not who made it or who it is for. Passing stops for four seconds. In that time the other team gets one suspect between them.
Each player has three suspects a round and can use one at any time, not only during a beat. Name an opponent and their hand is shown to the whole table. If they hold four of a suit, they are caught: two of those cards go face up to the discard, they take two from the stock, and you keep your suspect. If they do not, the suspect is used up. Catch the player a call was made for and the call is cancelled. Nobody scores and the round carries on. The team that called cannot use a suspect until its own beat is over.
The named player's hand is shown to the table. If it holds four of a suit and the sign was properly fired when the call was made, the calling team wins the round. If not, it is a misfire and the other team wins the round.
Each round your team wins earns the next letter of J-A-C-K-P-O-T. The first team to spell JACKPOT wins the game. If a round runs to 60 passes for every player at the table (240 at a table of four, 480 at a table of eight) without a winner, it is a dead deal: the cards are dealt again and nobody scores. A game that reaches 4,000 moves ends as a draw.
The rules above use the defaults. A table can be opened with any of them changed, inside the range shown.
A table of four: you and one partner. Your team's sign is cap, then yawn. The pass has just brought you a fourth heart. This is the tell log the whole table can see.
Your last two tells are cap, then yawn, so the sign is fired. Your partner has 15 seconds to call Jackpot. They do, and the table freezes for four seconds. The other team knows that one of you two is holding four, and has one suspect to spend on working out which.
They suspect you. Your four hearts are shown. Two of them go to the discard, you take two cards from the stock, and the call is cancelled. Nobody scores and the round carries on.
They suspect your partner. Your partner's hand is shown, it holds no four, and that suspect is used up. When the four seconds are over your hand is shown instead: four hearts, sign fired, and your team takes the round. The same happens if they suspect nobody.
What would have spoiled it. If you had tapped the table after that last yawn, your last two tells would be yawn, then tap. That is not the sign. A call made then is a misfire, and the other team takes the round.
Jackpot is a Nigerian team card game. At a real table the sign is a wink, a cough or a hand on the cap. Everyone can see you do it. They just do not know that it meant anything.
The tells on our tables are there to keep that true. Every signal is something the whole table sees, and only its meaning is private. Two partners talking on the phone gain nothing, because the sign still has to be fired in front of everyone before a call can count.
Jackpot is one of the games in the Arcade.