Drug Dealer

Drug Dealer is the card game you play while the party carries on around it. It belongs to the Mafia family: one secret dealer, one secret cop, and a table of buyers who do not know which is which. Among drinking card games it is the only one where looking at your cards is the least important part. You will also find it written up as Candyman, Dealer and Cops, or Cops and Dealers; the rules are the same, and so is the wink.

What you need

• A few cards from one deck: one Ace, one King, and enough numbered cards (2 to 10) to give every player a single card
• A drink for every player
• A circle of chairs or a table. The game falls apart if people are scattered around a room, because the wink has to be seen
• 4 to 12 players

Setup

1. Pull out one Ace, one King, and one number card for every other player. Mix the numbers: a few low, a few middle, a few high. With 8 players that is an Ace, a King, and six number cards.
2. Shuffle the small stack and deal one card face down to each player. Everyone takes a quick look at their own card and keeps it hidden.
3. Remember the roles. The Ace is the dealer, the King is the cop, and every number card is a buyer. Put your card face down in front of you and get on with the party.

How to play Drug Dealer

1. The dealer sells by winking at a buyer. Discreetly. The dealer wants to wink at as many buyers as possible before being caught, and the cop is watching every face. Nobody but the dealer is allowed to wink.
2. A buyer who has been winked at waits, then announces the deal. Give it ten or twenty seconds so the timing gives nothing away, then say “the deal has been made”. The buyer does not say who winked, and turns their card face up.
3. The cop reveals themselves and starts accusing. The cop points at one player and names them as the dealer. The accused turns over their card.
4. A wrong accusation costs the cop the value of that card. Accuse a buyer holding a 7 and the cop drinks 7. The buyer’s card stays face up, and the cop accuses again.
5. A correct accusation ends the round and the dealer drinks. The dealer drinks one for every buyer they never winked at: the number of unsold number cards, not the sum of them.
6. Collect the cards, shuffle, and deal again. Same stack, new roles. Play until the party moves on or the cop has had enough.

Variations and house rules

• Caught in the act. If the cop sees the wink as it happens, they can call it on the spot and skip the investigation. The dealer drinks for 5 seconds plus the usual one per unsold buyer. A dealer who winks at the cop by mistake gets the same treatment.
• Buyers bluff. Any buyer may announce “the deal has been made” whether or not they were winked at. The cop now has to work out which announcements were real. If the cop accuses a bluffing buyer, the cop drinks the card value as usual, which is what the buyer wanted.
• Buyers pay. When a buyer turns their card over after a sale, they drink the value on it. It gives the dealer a reason to target the low cards and gives the buyers a reason to pretend they saw nothing.
• Two cops. For 10 or more players, deal two Kings. Either cop can accuse, and wrong accusations are drunk by the cop who made them. Makes a big table move faster and gives the dealer two faces to avoid.
• Tap instead of wink. Some people cannot wink, and some lighting makes it invisible. Agree on a different signal, a scratch of the nose or a tap on the chin, and play exactly the same way.
• Joker informant. Add a Joker to the stack. The informant knows nothing but can, once per round, point at a player and say “not them”. If right, the cop owes the informant a drink. If wrong, the informant drinks 3. Our house rule.
• Short stack. With 4 or 5 players, drop the low number cards and play with 7 to 10 only. Wrong accusations hurt more, which makes up for the cop having so few suspects.

Tips

• Dealers, sell to the people who are already talking. A wink across a loud conversation is invisible; a wink at someone staring at the table is a confession.
• Buyers, count before you announce. A deal announced the instant it happens points the cop straight at whoever was in your eyeline.
• Cops, pick the high cards last. A wrong accusation on a 10 is ten drinks for one mistake, so clear the 2s and 3s off the table first while you are still reading faces well.
• Use number cards 2 to 7 for a long session, and save the 8, 9, and 10 for when people can handle it. The game is light by design, and the one way to make it heavy is a cop who keeps guessing wrong against a stack of 10s.