THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS

I was told this was the only page of the manual still left...

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Warning: this game is complicated, hard, and, above all else, cursed.

The House Always Wins is a single player puzzle/strategy game based on Blackjack. The game is minimalist: there is no progression, unlocks, or story. You are simply trying to win, and - maybe while you're at it - have some fun. You play as a crew of master gamblers trying to bankrupt three increasingly powerful casinos. To do this, you'll hire crew members with special powers, build them decks of cards, and level them up. Patrons will give you access to the casinos, but be careful; they'll want a cut of the money, and if you can't pay them, they'll make it hurt.

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In 1321, Dante Alighieri detailed the nine circles of hell. But embarrassingly, he forgot one: Facebook Marketplace. It's a forgivable mistake. After all, Facebook didn't exist then. Though I'm as equally sure that Mr. Alighieri would cringe now at his mistake, as I am that in 1321 the Devil had already set aside the real estate and torturous labor for the buyers and sellers of Facebook's various sundries.

In 1998, Golden Beluga Games published a small, digital version of a seemingly well known casino card game for interactive home entertainment. However, this did not occur in our 1998. Searching for this video game, the console it was released for, the company that supposedly made it - hell, even the playing cards it uses - returns no results. For all intents and purposes, this game does not exist. And yet, here it is for you to play.

In 2025, I found a listing for an strange looking retro game cartridge on Facebook Marketplace. I met a strange person in the parking lot of a Dillon's grocery store in Lawrence, KS. Being unplayable on anything I owned or even knew about, I decompiled the cartridge code, and rebuilt this strange game from scratch. I am unsure if this effort is for better or worse; if passing this strange curse on to you will free me from it. Regardless, I urge you to heed the words inscribed on the cartridge:

"The House Always Wins"