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How to Play and House Rules

KaLaro plays for fun credits only. Credits have no cash value. See the Terms and Conditions.

Getting started

1. Sign in with Google or an email and password. New players get a welcome grant of credits.
2. Find a table on the dashboard (filter Tongits or Mahjong) and tap it, then choose Sit down or Just watch. A private table asks for its invite code before you can sit. Watching shows the table, never anyone's cards, and everyone at the table sees who is watching.
3. Every table has a bet per hand. To sit down you must hold the maximum you could lose in one hand: 4x the bet at Tongits, 10x the bet at Mahjong. Ask an admin for credits (Wallet, Request credits) if you run low.
4. Tap I am ready. When at least 2 players are seated and everyone is ready, the host taps Deal (Tongits seats 3, Mahjong 4, BetGame 6).
5. After each hand the result shows who won and what moved. Tap Ready again for the next hand. Leave between hands (or tap Watch only to stay and watch), or flag Leave after this hand during one.

Hosting: ask an admin for host access (dashboard, "Want to host?"). Host approval is per app: a KaBingo host is not automatically a KaLaro host. A host creates the table, deals each hand, can remove a player between hands, and ends or cancels the table. Nobody is seated just by entering a table, the host included: after creating a table the host is a spectator who can Deal and run the table, and taps Sit down only to play. A host who never sits needs no credits and, like every spectator, never sees a hand. Cancelling voids the hand in progress: no credits move.

Tongits (2 or 3 players)

One standard 52-card deck. Aces are low (A-2-3 is a run, Q-K-A is not).

• Players: 2 or 3. The host may deal as soon as 2 are seated; a third player can sit down between hands.
• Deal: the dealer gets 13 cards, the others get 12; the rest is the stock. The dealer goes first without drawing.
• Your turn: draw the top card of the stock, or take the top discard if you immediately meld it (select 2 or more of your cards that go with it, then tap the discard). Then meld and lay off as you like, then discard one card.
• Melds: a set is 3 or 4 cards of the same rank; a run (escalera) is 3 or more consecutive cards of one suit. Select the cards and tap Meld.
• Lay off (sapaw): select cards, then tap any exposed meld on the table, yours or an opponent's, to add them. House rule: a card you discard that fits a meld on the table is laid onto that meld automatically (your own melds first, then the others in turn order); it never reaches the discard pile.
• Tongits: get rid of every card in your hand and you win at once.
• Draw (fight): at the start of your turn, if you have at least one exposed meld, you may Call Draw. Each opponent has 20 seconds to Fight or Fold. A player with no exposed meld is burned (sunog) and cannot fight. Among the caller and the fighters, the lowest deadwood wins; a tie goes to the caller.
• Stock out: when the stock runs out the hand ends and the lowest deadwood among the non-burned players wins (a tie splits).
• Deadwood: Ace 1, 2-9 face value, 10-J-Q-K 10 each, added over the cards left in your hand.

Mahjong (2 to 4 players, Filipino 16-tile)

144 tiles: bamboo, characters (萬) and dots 1-9, four winds (東 南 西 北), three dragons (中 發 and the white dragon □), and 8 flowers (花). You hold 16 tiles. A winning hand is 5 sets and a pair. Sets are a pong (three identical tiles), a chow (three in a row of one suit) or a kang (four identical). Sets you have exposed count.

• Flowers are bonus tiles: they are set aside automatically and replaced from the back of the wall.
• Arrange your hand: drag tiles between the three rows (drag one of several selected tiles to move them together); tap Sort to reset the order.
• Your turn: tap Draw, then tap one tile and Discard. If you hold four of a kind (or an exposed pong plus the fourth tile), you may declare a Kang first; you draw a replacement.
• Calling a discard: when someone discards, the app tells you privately if you can Pong (you hold two), Kang (you hold three), Chow (only the next player, two tiles that complete a run) or Mahjong (the tile completes your hand). Answer within the call window, or pass. Priority: Mahjong beats Kang beats Pong beats Chow. If two players can win, the one nearer after the discarder wins.
• Mahjong! When your hand is complete after a draw, tap Mahjong! (self-draw, bunot).
• Wall out: if the wall runs out the hand is a draw (tabla): nobody pays and the dealer keeps the deal. The dealer also stays after a dealer win; otherwise the deal passes to the next seat.

BetGame (2 to 10 players, five-card showdown)

One standard 52-card deck, five cards each, no draw. The table's bet is the minimum bet; every player needs at least that many credits to sit.

• The mano (the dealer seat, it rotates every hand) opens: names the bet (at least the minimum, at most their own credits) or folds, in which case the next player opens. If the opener stays silent for 40 seconds the minimum bet is placed for them.
• Then, in seat order, every player who has not matched the bet either folds, fights (calls: pays the difference) or raises (a new bet at least one minimum higher). After a raise the turn goes back to everyone who has not matched it. Thirty seconds of silence counts as a fold.
• Showdown: when everyone still in has matched the bet, they show their cards. Best poker hand wins: high card, one pair, two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush (royal flush on top). Aces are high; A-2-3-4-5 is the lowest straight. Equal hands split the pot.
• At least a pair to bet: you can only name the bet or raise when you hold at least a pair. With just a high card you may fold, or fight when someone else has bet. A silent high-card opener folds when the clock runs out.
• Last one standing: if everyone else folds, the remaining player takes the pot, but only with at least a pair. With just a high card the hand is a draw and every credit goes back.
• Pooled pot: everyone who does not win pays what they put in (credits you committed before folding stay in the pot); the winner receives it. Folding before betting costs nothing. The host and the house take nothing.
• Folders keep their cards hidden even after the hand; the cards of the players still in are shown to everyone. Drag your cards between the rows to arrange them.

Pusoy (2 to 4 players, 13 cards in three rows)

One standard 52-card deck, 13 cards each, no draw. To sit you need 12x the bet (a scoop lost to three opponents).

• Arrange: drag your cards into three rows: front (3 cards), middle (5) and back (5). The back must be at least as strong as the middle and the middle at least as strong as the front, by the usual poker ranking (aces high, A-2-3-4-5 the lowest straight). A 3-card front can only be high card, a pair or three of a kind. The app starts you with a legal arrangement (best five at the back) and refuses an illegal one, so nobody loses by a slip.
• Submit when you are happy. You have two minutes; when the clock runs out the app arranges the remaining hands automatically.
• Showdown: every pair of players compares front vs front, middle vs middle and back vs back. Each row won is worth 1 unit (the bet); a tie is worth nothing; winning all three rows against a player (a scoop) is worth one unit more. Credits move directly between the players of each pair. The host and the house take nothing.
• Everyone's rows are shown at the end.

House rules

• The server enforces every rule; the app only shows what is allowed. If a button is greyed out, the move is not legal right now.
• Nobody can see your cards or tiles during a hand. Everyone's hand is revealed when the hand ends.
• A hand needs every player present. If someone disappears, the host can cancel the table (the hand is voided, no credits move).
• Be kind in chat. Offensive words are masked and the host can turn chat off.

Not yet in this version: special hands (ambisyon), robbing the kang, Tongits secret bonuses, turn timers. See the app's documentation for the full list.