GAME GUIDE · WAR

How War Works: Finite Shoe, Ties and Decision Risk

Royal Court War uses an eight-deck, 416-card finite-shoe Practice. Player and Dealer draw one card without replacement; the higher rank wins and equal ranks lead to a Surrender or Go to War decision.

Runtime: Practice default / Staged server
Shoe: 8 decks / 416
First Tie: 31 / 415
First Win: 192 / 415

How to play

Each round builds and browser-crypto shuffles a fresh eight-deck shoe, then draws the Player and Dealer opening cards.
A higher Player card returns 2× the wager gross; a lower card returns zero.
On an opening Tie, Surrender returns 0.5× the wager gross, for a net result of −0.5×.
Go to War adds another 1× wager. A WAR win returns 3× the original bet gross, a loss returns zero, and another Tie returns 2× for a push on total exposure.

First-deal finite-shoe odds

After the first card is known, the second is drawn from 415 remaining cards. There are 31 cards of the same rank left, so P(Tie)=31/415≈7.4699%. By symmetry, Player and Dealer first-deal wins are each 192/415≈46.2651%. A Tie then introduces a player decision that changes exposure and payoff.

Player wins first deal	192 / 415	46.2651%
Dealer wins first deal	192 / 415	46.2651%
Tie	31 / 415	7.4699%
Surrender after Tie	Net	−0.5× original bet

Practice boundary

Mode availability follows the current runtime configuration shown above; Practice status and server capability are disclosed separately.

Frequently asked questions

Does the shoe carry over between rounds?

No. startRound currently rebuilds and reshuffles a 416-card shoe for every round, so card depletion does not persist across rounds.

Why is the Tie probability 31/415?

Once the first rank is known, 31 cards of that same rank remain among the 415 remaining cards.

Is Go to War a free redraw?

No. It adds one original bet, taking total exposure to 2× the original bet.

What happens on another WAR Tie?

Current Practice resolves it as a Push, returning 2× the original bet gross and zero net, with no further WAR round.