How to Play Trente et Quarante

How to Play

A historic French casino banking game, also called Rouge et Noir, in which the croupier deals two rows of cards from a six-deck shoe and bettors wager which row will land closest to a total of 31. A fixture of Monte Carlo since the 19th century, prized for its simple, near-even odds.

Trente et Quarante (French for 'thirty and forty', also called Rouge et Noir) is a French casino banking game that has run continuously at Monte Carlo since the 19th century, ranking alongside roulette as one of the two great 'grands jeux' of the European casino floor. A croupier deals two rows of cards face up from a shoe of six shuffled decks, one row for Noir (black) and one for Rouge (red), stopping each row the moment its card total passes 30. Whichever row lands closer to the ideal total of 31 wins, and players who bet on that color are paid even money. A side wager on Couleur or Inverse lets players also bet on whether the very first card dealt matches the winning row's color. Every decision in the game belongs to the dealer; the only choice a player ever makes is which of the four even-money boxes to back.

Players

One croupier deals for the house, and any number of bettors, typically up to about 12 seated at a single layout, place wagers against the bank; there is no limit on how many people can bet on the same outcome at once, since everyone is betting against the house rather than against each other. Players never touch the cards and never take turns; every seat at the table watches the same two rows resolve simultaneously. A single coup (the deal of both rows) takes well under a minute, so a session can run through many dozens of coups per hour.

Card Deck

• Six standard 52-card decks (312 cards) are shuffled together and loaded into a large dealing shoe. No jokers are used.
• Card values for counting: Ace = 1, cards 2 through 9 count at pip value, and 10, Jack, Queen, and King each count as 10. would count as 1 + 7 + 10 = 18.A♠7♦K♣
• Suit rank has no meaning in Trente et Quarante; only a card's counting value and its color (black for , red for ) matter.K♠Q♣K♥Q♦
• The layout: a green baize table marked with four betting spaces, Noir, Rouge, Couleur, and Inverse, usually printed as diamond shapes with a diagonal line used for the refait rule (see Scoring).

Objective

Predict, before the croupier deals, which of the two rows dealt that coup, Noir or Rouge, will finish with a total closer to 31 without the round being voided. Bettors may also predict whether the color of the single card that opens the deal (the first card of the Noir row) will match the winning row's color (Couleur) or not (Inverse). Every coup is resolved independently; there is no hand to build and no decision to make once a bet is placed.

Setup

1. The croupier shuffles all six decks together and loads them into the dealing shoe.
2. Players place chips on Noir, Rouge, Couleur, and/or Inverse before the croupier begins dealing; once dealing starts, no bets may be added, changed, or withdrawn.
3. The croupier confirms all bets are down and removes the betting rake or marker used to close the betting window.

Gameplay

1. Dealing the Noir row: the croupier turns cards face up, one at a time, into a row and keeps a running count of their values. Dealing continues until the running total exceeds 30; the row then stops, showing a final total somewhere between 31 and 40.
2. Dealing the Rouge row: the croupier deals a second row the same way, again stopping the instant its total exceeds 30.
3. Comparing the rows: whichever row's final total sits closer to 31, the theoretical minimum and best possible score, is the winning color for that coup. A total of exactly 31 in either row is the best result achievable and cannot be beaten, only tied.
4. Couleur and Inverse: the very first card dealt in the Noir row decides these bets. If that card's own color matches the winning row's color, Couleur wins and Inverse loses; if it does not match, Inverse wins and Couleur loses.
5. The croupier announces the winning color and settles all bets before the cards are cleared and the next coup begins.

Scoring

• Noir, Rouge, Couleur, and Inverse all pay even money (1:1) on a correct bet; a losing bet forfeits the full stake to the house.
• Refait at 31: if both the Noir row and the Rouge row total exactly 31 in the same coup, it is a tie called a refait, and Couleur/Inverse bets are simply returned since the first card's color is irrelevant to a tied result. Noir and Rouge bets are not settled normally; house rule decides whether they are resolved by partage (the bettor immediately forfeits half the stake and keeps the other half) or en prison (the whole stake is locked in place for the following coup; if the same color wins that next coup the stake is freed with no further loss, otherwise it is lost in full).
• A refait at any total other than 31-31 cannot occur, since only one row can ever land on exactly 31 unless both do.
• House edge comes entirely from the rare 31-31 refait; on every other coup the game is a pure, unweighted coin flip between Noir and Rouge, which is why Trente et Quarante is historically considered one of the fairest games on a casino floor.

Winning

Each coup is settled the instant both rows are dealt and compared, so there is no single 'winner' of the whole game the way there is in a hand of Poker or Bridge. Bettors who backed the winning color collect even money immediately, losers forfeit their stake, and the next coup begins fresh with no memory of previous results. A session simply continues, coup after coup, until players choose to leave the table or the shoe of 312 cards runs low enough that the croupier reshuffles; any overall 'win' for a session is purely a matter of a player's accumulated winnings against their accumulated losses.

Variations

• En prison house rules vary: some Monte Carlo-style casinos offer players the choice between partage and en prison in advance by how they place their chip against the layout's diagonal line, while others fix one rule for the whole table.
• Reduced-shoe home version: family and club play sometimes uses two or three shuffled decks instead of six to shorten reshuffling time, without changing any other rule.
• Side-bet-only play: some casual groups skip Couleur and Inverse entirely and bet only on Noir versus Rouge, which simplifies the table to a single even-money coin flip with the refait as the only house edge.

Tips and Strategy

• There is no card-counting edge to chase: with six full decks reshuffled well before they are exhausted, the composition of remaining cards barely shifts the odds on any single coup.
• Bet Noir or Rouge, not Couleur or Inverse, if you want the simplest, most transparent even-money proposition; the side bets add variance without changing your expected return.
• Learn whether your table uses partage or en prison before you sit down; the two rules produce slightly different effective house edges and change how a refait affects a locked-in stake.
• Because every coup is independent, no sequence of past reds or blacks makes the next coup more or less likely to repeat or reverse; treat any 'hot streak' on the scoreboard as coincidence, not a signal.
• Set a loss limit before you start. With coups resolving in well under a minute, a long losing run can burn through a bankroll far faster than in slower card games.

Glossary

• Coup: one complete deal of both the Noir and Rouge rows, settled as a single betting round.
• Layout: the marked table surface where Noir, Rouge, Couleur, and Inverse bets are placed.
• Refait: a tie that occurs when both rows total exactly 31 in the same coup.
• Partage: a house rule that returns half of a Noir/Rouge stake immediately when a refait occurs.
• En prison: a house rule that locks a Noir/Rouge stake in place through the next coup instead of settling it immediately after a refait.
• Shoe: the dealing box holding the shuffled six-deck pack, used to control the pace and fairness of the deal.