It has one of the best names in card gaming and absolutely nothing to back it up historically. Egyptian Ratscrew is loud, fast, occasionally painful on the hands, and one of the most addictive slapping games ever passed around a dorm room.
How to Play Egyptian Ratscrew
Egyptian Ratscrew (often just called "Ratscrew" or "Slaps") is a fast-reflex card game for two or more players using a standard 52-card deck. The goal is to win every card in the deck by playing cards and slapping the central pile at the right moments.
Deal the entire deck out evenly among players, face-down, forming individual draw stacks that nobody looks at. Players take turns playing the top card of their stack face-up onto a shared central pile. Number cards are simply played with no effect. But face cards trigger a challenge: if a Jack, Queen, King, or Ace is played, the next player must play a face card of their own within a set number of chances (four for a Jack, three for a Queen, two for a King, one for an Ace) or the challenge fails and the player who played the original face card takes the whole pile.
The real hook, though, is slapping. At any point, if the two top cards on the pile match in rank, or form specific combinations (commonly "sandwiches," where a card is repeated with one different card between them, or two cards that add up to ten), any player can slap the pile. The fastest hand to slap it wins the entire pile and adds it to the bottom of their draw stack. Slap on an invalid combination, though, and you typically have to give up a card as a penalty.
Players who run out of cards stay in the game as long as they still have a chance to slap a valid pile and steal it back. The game ends when one player has collected the entire deck.
The History of Egyptian Ratscrew
Despite its evocative name, Egyptian Ratscrew has no real connection to ancient Egypt whatsoever — the name is playground slang, and its actual origin is unknown even to card game historians. What is clear is that it's a distinctly American folk game, most likely developed sometime in the 20th century by combining two older games: the challenge-and-capture mechanic of the 19th-century British game Beggar-My-Neighbour, and the shared-pile "slap when it matches" trigger borrowed from Slapjack.
Written references and player accounts suggest the game existed at least as far back as the 1970s, and it grew rapidly in popularity through American schoolyards, summer camps, and college dormitories during the 1980s and 1990s. Because it spread entirely through informal, in-person play rather than being published by a game company, no single inventor or founding date can be pinned down — it's best understood as a genuine modern folk game, the kind that gets reinvented and passed on hand to hand rather than written down. The colorful name is very likely just an invention meant to make the game sound more exotic and dangerous than a home-grown slapping contest actually is.
Common Slap Rules to Agree On First
Because Egyptian Ratscrew has no single official rulebook, it's worth agreeing on the exact slap conditions before the first card is even dealt. "Doubles" (two cards of the same rank played back to back) and "sandwiches" (a repeated rank with exactly one different card between them) are almost universal, but variants that add "tens" (two consecutive cards adding to ten), "marriages," or top-and-bottom-of-pile matches are common house additions that can catch new players off guard.
Penalty rules for a false slap also vary — some groups require the false-slapper to give up one card to the pile, while others make them forfeit their next turn entirely. Whatever you decide, settle it up front, since disputes over an invalid slap are the single most common source of arguments in an otherwise fast, simple game.
Why Play Egyptian Ratscrew on RivalPit
- Free and no download. Egyptian Ratscrew runs instantly in your browser.
- Real-time multiplayer. Challenge a friend with a link, or play a solid CPU opponent.
- Points, never money. Every match is played for points and bragging rights — no betting, no wagering, ever.
- One of 100+ free games on RivalPit, with new games added every week.
Want more fast, reflex-driven card action? Explore our full list of classic card games you can play online.