Vegas Solitaire

Klondike with house rules: you buy in for $52, every card you send to the foundations pays $5, and the deck only goes around a limited number of times. The money is pretend, but the tension is real.

How Vegas scoring works

• Each game starts at −$52. That's your buy-in, one dollar per card.
• Each card on a foundation pays $5. Move a card back off a foundation and you give the $5 back.
• A perfect game pays $260 for all 52 cards, a $208 profit on the buy-in.
• Your bank carries over. The total of all your games is kept as your bank on this device, so you can see if you're ahead over many games.

How the stock works

This is where Vegas gets tough. In Draw 1 you go through the stock only once, with no second pass. In Draw 3 you get three passes. When the passes are used up, the stock space dims and no more cards come from it.

How to play

Apart from scoring and the stock, the rules are the same as Klondike Solitaire. Build the columns down in alternating colors, move whole runs of face-up cards, put only Kings into empty columns, and build each foundation from Ace to King in one suit.

Tips for a better bank

• Eleven cards on the foundations puts you in profit. Early Aces and 2s are worth chasing.
• With only one pass in Draw 1, think before you skip a stock card. You won't see it again.
• Turn over hidden column cards before using the stock. Every card you free gives a stock card somewhere to go.
• Don't pull cards back down from the foundations unless it unlocks something big. Each one costs $5.

Where Vegas scoring comes from

Vegas scoring became widely known through the Solitaire game that shipped with Microsoft Windows, which offered it as an option alongside standard scoring. The idea of buying in for a deck and being paid per card goes back to casino legends about solitaire played for stakes.

Solitaire Porch has no real-money play. Vegas dollars are only a score.