Andar Bahar: How to Play, Rules, Payouts and Odds

Andar Bahar is a traditional Indian banking card game. The dealer turns one card face up, then deals cards one at a time, alternately to two piles called Andar and Bahar, until a card of the same rank appears; you bet on which pile gets it. The side that receives the first card wins slightly more often (51.5% of rounds against 48.5%), so it usually pays 0.9 to 1 while the other side pays 1 to 1, a house edge of about 2.15% and 3.00% according to the Wizard of Odds.

This guide covers the full rules, the starting-side conventions, every main and side bet with its probability and house edge, how the game compares with baccarat and Dragon Tiger, and where US players can actually find it as of October 2026. For the wider picture of dealer-run table games, see our live casino games guide.

What Is Andar Bahar?

The name means “inside” (Andar) and “outside” (Bahar) in Hindi, after the two piles the dealer builds either side of the first card. According to pagat.com, the card game reference site, the game is said to come from Bengaluru (Bangalore) in Karnataka, and in Tamil it is known as Mangatha or Ullae Veliyae. It needs nothing more than one standard 52-card deck, which is why it spread from home games and festival tables to casino lobbies.

Online you will meet it in two forms:

• Live dealer Andar Bahar, streamed from a studio with a real dealer and a physical deck. Ezugi, part of Evolution, runs the best-known table, and Evolution launched Super Andar Bahar with random multipliers in April 2022.
• Digital (RNG) Andar Bahar, where software deals the cards. This is the version US players are most likely to find on offshore sites.

The card turned up at the start goes by several names: the house card, the middle card or, in live studios, the “Joker”. Despite that last name, it is not a wild card; its only job is to set the rank that the rest of the deal is trying to match.

Andar Bahar Rules: How a Round Works

The Wizard of Odds analyses a single 52-card deck, and the digital versions at Bovada and Ignition also state one deck. A round runs like this:

1. Reveal the house card. One card goes face up in the middle of the table. Only its rank matters: if it is a 7, any of the other three 7s will end the round.
2. Place your bet on Andar or Bahar. Most games also open their side bets at this point (see below).
3. Deal alternately. Cards are dealt face up, one at a time, to the Andar pile and the Bahar pile in turn.
4. Stop at the first match. As soon as a card of the same rank as the house card lands, the pile it lands on wins. Suits do not matter.
5. Settle the bets. Winning bets are paid at the table’s odds and every other main bet loses.

There are no ties in the main game, because the deal always ends on one side or the other. With 51 cards left and three matching ranks among them, at most 49 cards can be dealt before a match must appear.

Worked example

Say the house card is the 5 of clubs and you put $10 on Bahar at a table where Andar is dealt first. Cards then fall: Andar 9, Bahar King, Andar 2, Bahar Jack, Andar 5 of hearts. A match on Andar after five cards ends the round, so your Bahar bet loses. Had you backed Andar at 0.9 to 1, you would have won $9 and kept your $10 stake.

Some casinos add a second betting window: after the first card or two, you may place another bet before the deal continues. Pagat.com lists these “secondary bets” among the additions online casinos have made, and the in-game help shows whether your table offers them and at what odds.

Which Side Gets the First Card?

This rule decides the pay table, so check it first. Two conventions are in use:

• Andar always first. This is the version the Wizard of Odds analyses: Andar wins whenever an odd number of cards has been dealt after the middle card, Bahar whenever the number is even.
• Colour decides. In the traditional game described on pagat.com, a black house card (clubs or spades) means the first card goes to Andar, and a red one (hearts or diamonds) means it goes to Bahar.

Under both conventions the logic is the same. The pile dealt first gets the first chance to match, and every time the deal comes back round it is still one card ahead. That small head start is worth about 3 percentage points, which is why a fair-looking game cannot pay both sides at even money. Pagat.com describes the traditional settlement exactly that way: a winning bet on the side dealt first is paid 0.9 to 1, and one on the side dealt second is paid 1 to 1.

Andar Bahar Payouts and House Edge

The figures below come from the Wizard of Odds analysis (updated 3 August 2026) for a single deck with the first card going to Andar. We re-derived the win probabilities from the deck and they match: the chance that the first-dealt side wins is 51.5006%.

Two points follow from the table. First, the side dealt first is normally the cheaper bet: 2.15% against 3.00% on the common 0.9 / 1 to 1 pay table. Second, the pay table matters more than the side. A game that trims the first side to 0.85 to 1, or the second side to 0.95 to 1, more than doubles the cost of that bet, so read the payout panel before you sit down.

Why the odds are not 50/50

Digital game pages sometimes describe Andar Bahar as a 50/50 game. Bovada’s own page says so. It is close but not exact. Once the house card is out, three of the remaining 51 cards match it, so the very first card dealt matches 3 times in 51 (5.9%), and that card always goes to the side dealt first. The advantage shrinks as the deal goes on but never reverses, which leaves the first side ahead 51.5% to 48.5% over all possible deals.

On average a round runs 13 cards after the house card, and half of all rounds are over within 11 cards. Very long deals are rare: the match arrives after card 40 in less than 1% of rounds.

Andar Bahar Side Bets

Side bets are where the game adds bigger payouts, and where most of the extra house edge sits. They fall into two groups.

Bets on the house card

These are settled as soon as the middle card is shown. Wizard of Odds lists the following pay tables:

Bets on how many cards are dealt

These predict how many cards it takes, after the house card, to find the match. The Wizard of Odds pay table:

The top line explains the “win up to 120 times your stake” that Evolution’s page for Ezugi’s live Andar Bahar advertises: a 119 to 1 win returns 120 times the bet including the stake. Ezugi does not publish its full pay table on that page, so confirm the numbers in the game’s help screen; side-bet tables vary between studios and casinos. Bovada and Ignition both describe their digital version as having six betting areas, the main bet plus five side bets.

Super Andar Bahar multipliers

Evolution’s Super Andar Bahar, announced in April 2022, keeps the base game unchanged and adds ten card-count side bets: Cards 1 to 5, 6 to 10 and so on in steps of five, ending with Cards 46 to 49. In every round one to five random multipliers are applied to those side bets, with a top win of 4,000x on Cards 46 to 49. Evolution does not publish the base pay table or return to player on its game page, so any house edge figure for this version would be a guess. Treat the multipliers as entertainment: the longest ranges hit only a small fraction of the time.

Andar Bahar vs Other Quick Card Games

Andar Bahar sits in the same group as baccarat and Dragon Tiger: one decision per round, no skill, rounds over in seconds. Here is how the main bets compare, using the figures from our game guides:

So Andar Bahar’s main bets are cheaper than Dragon Tiger’s and most side bets anywhere, but dearer than baccarat’s Banker or Player. If low cost per hand is what you want, baccarat wins; if you prefer Andar Bahar’s slower build-up to the match, the first-dealt side at 0.9 to 1 is the bet to choose.

Is There an Andar Bahar Strategy?

Not in the sense of a method that wins over time. Every card is dealt blind and the result depends only on where the first matching card sits in the deck. Your only real decisions are which table to join and which bet to make:

• Back the side dealt first when it pays 0.9 to 1. At 2.15% it is the cheapest bet on a standard pay table.
• Avoid trimmed pay tables. A side paying 0.85 or 0.95 to 1 costs 4.72% or 5.43%.
• Treat side bets as a premium. Most carry 4% to 9%, and the few lower ones (16 to 25 cards at 1.90% on the Wizard of Odds table) only apply if your game pays exactly that table.
• Ignore streaks and “patterns”. Where the last match landed tells you nothing about the next round. Each round is a fresh deal, and the cards have no memory of earlier results.

Staking systems do not help either. No staking system changes the house edge; it only changes how your results are spread. The expected loss is simply the total amount wagered multiplied by the edge. One hundred $10 bets on the first-dealt side at 0.9 to 1 put $1,000 in action and cost about $21.50 on average ($1,000 x 2.15%). The same hundred bets on the second side at 1 to 1 cost about $30. A Martingale that doubles after each loss raises the total wagered, so it raises the expected loss in dollars: on the 1 to 1 side, a run of seven straight losses starting at $10 needs a $1,280 eighth bet to win back $10, and runs of that length do happen over a long session.

Set a budget and a time limit before you start, and stop when either is reached. Our responsible gambling page covers deposit limits and where to get help.

Live vs Digital Andar Bahar

Live tables suit players who want to watch a physical deck and chat with the dealer; the slower pace also means fewer rounds and less money wagered per hour. Digital versions are quicker and often have a free practice mode, which is the easiest way to learn the rules without risk.

Where US Players Can Find Andar Bahar (October 2026)

We checked the casino lobbies of the four offshore sites we review on 6 October 2026:

• Bovada lists Andar Bahar in its card games, supplied by Qora: one deck, six betting areas including five side bets, $1 to $500 on the main bet and on side bets, with a practice mode.
• Ignition has the same Qora game with the same deck, betting areas and limits.
• MyBookie’s table game and live casino lobbies showed no Andar Bahar, and neither did BetOnline’s public casino lobby.

None of the four has a live dealer Andar Bahar table. The Qora game pages do not publish the pay table or the starting-side rule, so open the help screen before you bet and compare it with the payouts above. All four sites are offshore and hold no US state licence; each one excludes some states, there is no state regulator to complain to if a withdrawal is refused, and your balance is not protected. Massachusetts’ Attorney General sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bovada’s operators on 3 October 2024.

Ezugi and Evolution supply state-licensed US casinos, and Ezugi returned to New Jersey in October 2025, but we could not confirm a live Andar Bahar table at a US state-licensed casino as of October 2026. Studios choose which titles to certify in each state, so the international lobby is not a guide to what US players see.

Is Andar Bahar legal?

In the US, eight states have legalised online casinos; seven markets are live (NJ, PA, MI, WV, CT, DE, RI); Maine legalised a tribal-only market (LD 1164: became law without the governor’s signature in January 2026, effective 29 Jul 2026) that has not launched (Oct 2026). Whether a state-licensed casino offers Andar Bahar depends on the operator and the state.

In India, the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Act No. 32 of 2025) prohibits offering online money games, and its penalties target operators, advertisers and payment providers. A constitutional challenge is pending in the Supreme Court. This page is a game guide and does not recommend any site to players in India.

Andar Bahar Glossary

• Andar: “inside”; one of the two piles. In many versions it receives the first card.
• Bahar: “outside”; the other pile.
• House card / middle card / Joker: the first card turned up. Its rank is the one the deal must match.
• Match: the first later card of the same rank, which ends the round.
• Card-count side bet: a bet on how many cards are dealt before the match.

Looking for something similar? Lucky 7 is another one-card Indian game, and our Teen Patti rules guide covers India’s best-known three-card game.

Andar Bahar FAQ

How do you play Andar Bahar?

Once the dealer turns one card face up, you bet on Andar or Bahar, and cards are dealt alternately to the two piles. The round ends when a card of the same rank appears, and the pile it lands on wins.

Is Andar Bahar 50/50?

No. The side that receives the first card wins about 51.5% of rounds and the other side about 48.5%, according to the Wizard of Odds. That is why the first side usually pays 0.9 to 1 and the second side 1 to 1.

What is the house edge in Andar Bahar?

About 2.15% on the side dealt first at 0.9 to 1 and 3.00% on the other side at 1 to 1. Trimmed pay tables raise this to 4.72% or 5.43%, and most side bets cost between about 2% and 9%.

Which side gets the first card in Andar Bahar?

It depends on the version. In the game the Wizard of Odds analyses, Andar always gets the first card. In the traditional rules on pagat.com, a black house card sends the first card to Andar and a red one sends it to Bahar.

Is there a winning strategy for Andar Bahar?

No. Results depend only on where the matching card sits in a shuffled deck, and no betting system changes the house edge. The best you can do is pick the side dealt first at 0.9 to 1 and avoid expensive side bets.

Can US players play Andar Bahar online?

Bovada and Ignition listed a digital Andar Bahar game from Qora when we checked on 6 October 2026; both are offshore sites without a US state licence. We found no live dealer Andar Bahar table at the four offshore sites we cover and could not confirm one at a state-licensed US casino.

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