Play this flip for treats card game for Halloween, birthdays, or any other time you want a fun way to win and lose treats! Flip your own cards, your neighbors’ cards, or flip one from the center to try and win! It’s simple to play, fun for most ages, and quick and easy to learn!
Easy Card Flipping Game
My family has been playing card games that include flipping cards forever. One of our favorites is Screw Your Neighbor because it includes elements of people playing cards together, getting screwed when you steal someone else’s cards, and just luck of the flip.
This flip for treats game was originally designed to be one of our new Halloween party games but there’s really nothing Halloween to it other than it includes treats! Well and I guess I used the numbers 1 and 3 for the impactful cards (for 13!) And the flip for treats name is supposed to be a play on the phrase trick or treat.
But really it’s fun anytime you want people to win treats or small prizes and to do it in somewhat of a random manner by flipping different cards. People get to make choices in the cards they flip but at the end of the day, the cards decide who gets what!
Each round only takes a few minutes to play and it takes even less time to learn how. We played enough rounds that everyone got to be the person who started the game but the kids would’ve kept playing if we let them because they were having so much fun!
Who Is This Game best For?
- Best Ages: While any age can technically play this game since it’s just flipping cards, I recommend ages 8+ because you’re not always going to win treats, people are going to “steal” your treats, and other people may win more than you. If your younger kids can handle that, they can totally play!
- Group size: You can play this with any size group, but I’d probably keep it to 12 people or less simply so the rounds don’t get too long.
- People who like games of chance: If you like games where winning isn’t based on skill, you’ll love this one. You do make choices but the majority of the gameplay is chance, which makes it so fun!
Supplies
Supply notes
You really only need a few things to play this game and you likely already have all of them at home! Just a few notes on the things you’ll need!
- Card key – you can download these and instructions for this game at the bottom of the post. There is a full-sheet version you could print out for everyone to look at or smaller versions that you could print so everyone has their own cheat sheet.
- Playing cards – you’ll need one full deck of cards for up to 12 people including the jokers. The jokers are very important in this game!
- Treats or small prizes – we did treats to make it a Halloween game but if you want to do small prizes instead, I have a whole set of ideas that would be fun and reasonably priced in the prizes section of this post!
Play for Points instead!
If you’d prefer to not have people win treats or prizes every single round, you can also just play for points instead. Where they would’ve won a treat, they just win a point instead. I like to give out these bingo markers as point markers to keep track. Then at the end of the entire game, whoever has collected the most total points wins a larger prize, just like in our double down dice game!
How to play Flip for Treats
The game may seem a bit confusing at first glance so I recommend playing a practice round with everyone to make sure they understand before playing for real. It’s actually super simple, it just takes a second to get the concept for all the places you can choose to flip from.
1 – Setup the Game
Print out the card key and put it on the table somewhere everyone can see or print out individual keys for people to have at the table with them.
Put all of your treats or prizes in a prize bowl that everyone can see so they know what they’re playing for.
Have everyone sit around a table or in a circle on the ground. This is a card game so everyone needs to have space to put cards on a flat surface in front of them.
2 – Play a Round
To start the first round, deal three cards face down in front of each player to be their flip deck. They CANNOT look at these cards at any point, not until they flip them face up during the game.
Place any remaining cards in the center to be your flip from center pile.
Choose who starts the round. That person can choose to do one of three things:
- They can flip over one of the cards from the cards in front of them.
- They can choose a card from a neighbor (on their right or left) to switch with one of their face down cards. The card they give to their neighbor remains face down, the card they got from their neighbor gets flipped over and put in their deck.
- They can choose the top card from the center flip pile and replace one of their face down cards with it. The card they chose from the center pile gets flipped over and added to their deck. The card they switched gets flipped over and added to a discard pile. The discard pile doesn’t get touched during the game.
Important Note
You only ever switch your face down cards with a neighbor or the center flip pile. Once a card is face up, it is frozen in your deck and does not get moved.
Once that person has completed their action, play moves clockwise around the circle and that person choices which of the three actions to complete.
Keep going around the circle taking turns flipping one of your three face down cards (either by literally flipping it or by switching with your neighbor or the center pile) until everyone has flipped over all their cards UNLESS someone flips over a joker.
What Happens When You Flip a joker?
A joker causes the chaos you’d expect from a joker. If at any point in the round, someone flips a joker, the round is over. No other cards are flipped over and only cards that have already been flipped over count toward treats.
3 – Choose Treats
Once the round is over (either because everyone has flipped over all their cards or a joker was flipped), it’s time to give out treats.
The value of the three cards in front of them determines how many treats they get:
- Ace – if anyone has an ace in their set of three, they get zero treats regardless of what other cards are in their set, even if they flipped a joker. Aces cancel out everything.
- 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 – these do nothing
- 3 – every three in your set wins three treats
- J, Q, K – any face card wins you one treat each
- Joker – wins you five treats (and immediately ends the round)
The treats add up so if you have a 3 and a Jack you would get four treats. Each round you could technically win up to 11 treats (two 3s and then pull a joker) or as few as zero but I’d say the average tends to be more like 1-2 treats per round.
Who chooses first?
If it’s just a basket of treats (or all the same thing like dollar bills) and no one cares who chooses first, then just let people choose from the basket.
But if you’re doing prizes and the order matters at all, have everyone flip a card from the center flip pile. If you don’t have enough cards still in the pile for everyone to flip, just do a quick shuffle.
The person who flips the highest card (Ace is high) chooses first then just choose in order of cards. If there’s a tie in the flip, those two flip again (but just as a tie breaker).
3 – Play the next round
Once you’ve chosen treats, shuffle the cards, deal, and start the next round.
Each round is played in the exact same way, the only difference is that you should rotate the person who starts the game clockwise by one person each round. It really doesn’t matter that much, but it feels more fair to change the starting person!
Keep playing the number of rounds equal to the number of people around the table so everyone has a chance to go first. You could keep playing after that if you really want to, but that seems to be a good amount of time for this game.
4 – Count Up All The Treats
Once all the rounds are over, people keep their treats and prizes. Or if you’re doing the earn points version of this, tally up all points and whoever has the most wins a larger prize!
Depending on the number of rounds you play, you could have people with upwards of 20 points and people like my sister who ended up with zero points even after our entire game. It was impressive how many non-scoring points she pulled!
How to Win Flip for Treats
The goal of the game is simply to earn the most treats or prizes during the game!
Once all the rounds are over, people keep their treats and prizes. Or if you’re doing the earn points version of this, tally up all points and whoever has the most wins a larger prize!
Prize ideas
Choose your prizes based on the age of people playing. Treats of some sort are always going to work for kids, teens, and even adults (although adults winning a bunch of treats may not be the best).
Other prizes that I think would work great:
- Quarters or dollar bills – you could have people trade in the quarters for $1s at the end
- Beauty items – things that come in larger packs you can split like these collagen face masks, these lip balm sticks, hair clips, or under eye masks.
- Earring sets – grab a pack like these Halloween earrings that come with 24 pairs to toss in the treat basket! Or these bracelets would be great too!
- Practical items – things like these box cutters, these travel size lint rollers, or even
- Movie theater candy boxes – think the ones you get at the dollar store that feel like you’re winning more than just one little treat.
If you need more prize ideas, there are a ton in this 12 days of giftmas game that would work great!
Game FAQs
Can you switch one of your face up cards?
No, once a card is flipped over it’s frozen in place. You only ever switch for and flip face down cards, even if you’re taking a card from your neighbor.
When you switch with a neighbor, do they flip the card?
The card that is ending up in YOUR set gets flipped face up. The card that is getting switch remains face down when placed in your neighbor’s set. That gives them the choice to switch it with another card later!
Helpful Tips
Keep the game moving fast. There really shouldn’t be that much strategy going into choosing where to get your card to flip, so encourage people to keep moving. It will be less fun if the game moves really slow.
Have a deck of cards shuffled and ready to go so you can move right into setting up the next round while people are choosing their treats at the end of the game. A card shuffler makes this super easy!
Download the Flip for Treats Keys
Enter your first name and email address in the form below to get the printable free download PDF. You will receive a link to download the PDF of the keys plus instructions to your email within minutes.
If you’d prefer to not provide your email address, you can get a copy in my shop here.
If you do not see the form, click here to get to it.
If you do not see the email with the printable game immediately after you fill out the form, make sure to check your promotions, spam, and junk folders!
The file will include:
- Flip or Treats key cards
- Printable instructions
- Use policy (everything is for personal use only)
More Printable Party Games
If you like printable party games, try one of these next! They make great birthday party games, holiday games, and more!
- Music bingo – this one is a hit for any of the music lovers in your life!
- Birthday bingo – free printable birthday themed bingo cards! Or you could use this picture bingo tutorial to make your own custom cards!
- Chase the rainbow dice game – another candy winning game where things get switched around so you never know who’s going to win!
- Lucky dice game – can you end up with the gold coin and avoid the red one?
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