How to Play Give One, Take One Drinking Card Game

At its heart, Give One, Take One is a social drinking game that thrives on its quick pace and unpredictability. It’s the perfect choice for parties and gatherings where you want everyone involved, from card game regulars to absolute newbies.

While the core concept is straightforward, the potential for hilarious scenarios and light-hearted strategic decisions keeps this game exciting.

An Introduction to Give One, Take One

Searching online, you’ll find an absolute boatload of variations on this game, and when I get around to it, I’ll update this post to showcase the original and find out some history.

But for now, here’s all the variations I could find put together in one place. Try them all or just try your favourite, these are all pretty good, quite fun, and are sure to get you nice and merry. Have fun and stat safe.

Know your limits and all that!

The “Get Drunk Fast” Version (Nice and Simple)

Take a single deck of cards and nominate a dealer (I like to suggest everyone draws a card and the highest value deals first). Don’t worry, everyone will get a go anyway.

Dealer then shuffles the deck and deals out three face up cards to each player. The dealer will then ask the person to their left to “give or take”. After their answer, the dealer will then flip the top card on the remaining cards (the stock pile).

Now, one of two things will happen, depending on the answer.

If the player chose “give”;

Any player who matches the card that was flipped with a card in front of them can dictate who takes a drive. For example, if the flipped card was a four and someone has a four. If two or more players have a four, they can give out a drink each.

This affects everyone bar the person who says give, since they are the ones giving the drinks out.

If a player has, as in this example, two fours in their hand, they can give out two drinks to individuals or the same person.

If the player chose “take”;

Then the opposite happens. If you say take and the card matches a card you have, you drink. Of course, the drink is supposed to be a kind of forfeit, but it’s all just a bit of fun.

Nice and simple!

Give or Take – Two Deck Mayhem

Okay, something a little different now in this version, this time you need two decks of standard playing cards, various types of alcohol, and some friends.

Shuffle the deck together and get a drink each, and have a dealer deal four face up cards to each player, including themselves.

Now the game works pretty much in the same way as above, but every player who matches the flipped card with the cards in their hand can give a drink out to other people.

However, after everyone has drunk, the next card is two drinks, then the next is three, and the next is four.

BUT, here’s the twist, the game alternates between giving a taking. So the whole game looks like this;

• Give 1 – Dealer flips a card and those who match the card tell people who to drink one drink.
• Take 1 – Those with a matching card to the flipped card drink one drink themselves.
• Give 2 – Those who have a card that match the flipped card give out TWO drinks to others.
• Take 2 – Those who have a card that matches the next flipped card take TWO drinks themselves.

This goes onto until Give 4 and Take 4 is done, and then you go back to one and PICK UP THE PACE.

As you can imagine, this gets pretty messy pretty quickly, and with two decks in the mix, there’s plenty of chances to get caught out.

Give or Take – Truth or Dare?

This version is probably the most complicated but it’s still pretty simple, adding an interesting Truth or Dare spin to the game, although you could probably have guessed that from the title.

In my opinion, this is also the most FUN version!

All you need is a standard 52-deck of cards, a group of friends, and some drinks and you’re ready to play.

So, for this one, the dealer shuffles the deck and deals four cards out to each player, face up.

Then, the dealer places six cards in two rows of three in front of them face down, making one of the rows the “give or dare” row, and the other the “take or truth” row.

Now the first player to the dealer’s left picks one of the cards. It’s flipped face up and anyone who was a matching value card (six to a six or a King to a King and so on) must either drink for that many seconds (face cards are 10 and Ace is 1, or 11 if you’re into that), and numbers equal themselves.

OR, the player can agree to a truth or dare depending on what row the card was drawn from.

If they do this, the rest of the group decides a truth or dare for the player to do and all agree on.

If two players have matching cards, the group can either give them a dare to do together, or do a classic rock, paper, scissors, to see who gets the honours of playing the card.

When done, simply place a new face-down card in the flipped cards place and move onto the next player.

Conclusion

And there we go! Three versions should keep you busy for now, and these roulette-styled games are a lot of fun. Try them out, have a laugh, don’t take yourself too seriously, and have a good night.

Don’t forget to share your experiences, questions, or thoughts below!