Sabacc / Legends Sabacc , or jhabacc , was a popular card game that was often played for high stakes . When played professionally , the game was overseen by a dealer , either organic , as in Coruscant ' s Outlander Club , where four - armed Kiughfid dealers passed out the cards and took up money for the house , or mechanical , as in other locales , where automated sabacc dealer droid s oversaw proceedings . The Ryn claimed to have invented the sabacc deck and cards as a means of fortune telling . Rules . The game of sabacc used a deck of seventy - six cards featuring sixty numbered cards divided into four suits , and two copies of eight special cards . Each player is dealt two cards ( sometimes five , depending on the set of rules in play at the table ) which make up their hand . There are four phases within each hand : Betting , Calling , Shifting and Drawing . Betting phase : Beginning with the player to the left of the dealer , the player has the option to place a bet . A typical game of sabacc is composed of several sequential rounds , and officially ends when a player wins with one of three special winning hands . At the beginning of each round , each player contributes an ante to the hand pot , which goes to the person with the winning hand at the conclusion of that hand . The winner in standard sabacc is the player who holds the hand with an absolute value closest to 23 ( with both + 23 and −23 being possible ) ; this player wins the hand pot . Since −21 is closer to −23 than 20 is to 23 , −21 would trump positive 20 ; however , in a situation where both −21 and 21 are in play at the same time , the positive 21 would triumph . Players with a hand above 23 or below −23 are considered to have Bombed Out , thus losing the hand , and in some cases , being forced to pay into the sabacc pot . The sabacc pot is another pot to which players must ante each hand . This special pot can be won only by winning a hand with one of the three trump scores : a pure sabacc of either + 23 or −23 ( with the former trumping the latter ) or an Idiot ' s Array . The Array is a special hand containing a card called The Idiot , worth zero , a Two of any suit , and a Three of the same suit . When laid out on the table , an Idiot ' s Array is read , literally , as 023 , and is considered the highest hand in the game , trumping even a pure sabacc of 23 . A win with any of those three special hands will give that player both the hand pot and the sabacc pot , and is typically seen as the end of gameplay for a single game . Calling phase : A player has the option to call the hand during another player ' s calling phase but never his own . Shifting phase : The cards themselves are small , electronic devices with a display panel covering the surface of one side ; this panel is capable of shifting the displayed suit and value of each card when told to do so by the computer running the game , or when a player has the option to manually shuffle the card ' s value . In this fashion , a player can receive new cards of any possible suit or rank without actually having to take new cards from the deck itself . Drawing phase : A player may also draw or discard individual cards from his hand . During the Drawing phase , a player may exchange a card in his hand for one in the deck . If the player decides to simply discard a card during this phase , that individual card is removed from play and is not subject to shifting . Strategy . In sabacc , strategy is as much about the fact that other players may have better hands as it is about the fact that a player ' s hand might change when he least expects it . The values of the cards in play are shuffled at random and without warning ; depending on the variant in play , this can even happen after a game has been called , but before the cards have been shown or tallied . Standard sabacc also includes the concept of locking the values of cards so that they do not change . When played at a professional table or venue , the table itself generates an interference field that players can push a face - down card into , and cards within this field are not subjected to randomization pulses sent by the game . Amateur or private games that do not utilize a professional table instead use cards that may be individually frozen by means of a special button on the card , or by placing a small interference chip over the card , simulating the field ' s effect . In some rule sets , however , the cards are randomized only when specifically chosen by the player , typically by pressing a spot on the card itself . Tournament play . Tournament play includes several variations on the order of play , the dealing of cards , and the options available to players . Due to the higher stakes nature of the cash games in such tournaments , players traditionally have the option to do something known as " folding out of play " ; essentially picking up their earnings and simply leaving . Of the five final players at the notable Cloud City Sabacc Tournament in 2BBY , two chose to fold , rather than bomb out . Additionally , at that tournament , players who had less than four cards were allowed to request an additional card during the rounds of betting . Han Solo used this option to receive a fourth card which , after the scrambling of all of his cards , gave him a score of twenty three , a pure sabacc . House rules . Outside tournament play , most private games and professional establishments played sabacc using " house rules " or allowed players to specify one of the many rules variants that the table would use . House rules used a selection of modifications to the rules , for example often stating that a player could place at most two cards in the neutral field where they were unaffected by shifting , or that an Idiot ' s Array could be crafted using two different numerical suits , rather than requiring both the Two and Three be of the same suit . Another common house rule , as mentioned before , was that the bet amount was paid into the sabacc pot on bust , zero , or loss on call . Variants . There were several common styles of sabacc play , including Bespin Standard , Empress Teta Preferred , Cloud City Casino , and Corellian Gambit . Each style had slightly different rules . Other variations included Random sabacc , in which the house rules were changed at random intervals ; Force sabacc , which used an altered deck with Light side of the Force and Dark side of the Force themed suits ; Centran sabacc , which included extra cards and was often used in divination ; and 1 seen in the Lucky Despot where the cards are printed on ceramic tiles . Two other variants were Rylothean rules and Dantooine rules . The Gungans of Otoh Gunga developed a sabacc variant in which low scores prevailed . Baron Administrator Lando Calrissian was rumored to have won the position playing the Cloud City sabacc variant . Another variant was Riftwalker invented and played by asteroid miners in Chiloon Rift . Cheating . As with any kind of gambling , the high - stakes nature of sabacc often led to cheating . Besides various basic sleight - of - hand palming tricks , many cheats used a cheater , a small handheld device that could be secretly used to manipulate the game cards and neutral field to give the user an unfair advantage in the game . Another means involved a skifter , a rigged card that was unobtrusively substituted for a normal one in the deck . Barpotomous Drebble once employed this against Lando Calrissian in a tournament , just before the latter won the deed to Cloud City on the planet Bespin . On some planets , cheating at sabacc could mean death or prison and a heavy fine . Force users who play sabacc may sometimes use the Force to stack the deck , or to view their opponents ' cards . Deck List . A standard sabacc deck includes 76 cards . In Centran sabacc , the deck only includes a single copy of the standard face cards listed above and possesses these additional face cards : Other uses . The Centran sabacc deck was also used for and . Lando Calrissian became familiar with using sabacc cards for fortune - telling early in his career . In a conversation with Vuffi Raa on the planet Sharu , Lando described the fortune - telling implications of several cards : The order in which the cards were drawn suggested their meaning to the subject . The first card described the subject ; the second his or her principal opponent or antagonist . The third card drawn , placed above the others , represented the subject ' s conscious or stated motivations , while the fourth , placed below the others , represented a deeper , subconscious motive . The fifth card , placed to the left , represented the past ; the sixth , placed to the right , represented the immediate future . Cards placed above it represented future obstacles . The final card drawn represented the final outcome . It is unclear how widespread such use ( or belief in its effectiveness ) may have been . Behind the scenes . A complete deck and official rules were included in West End Games ' RPG supplement " Crisis on Cloud City " . Michael Stern is credited , along with Douglas Kaufman and Greg Gorden , with developing these offical sabacc rules . The game is identical to its in - universe counterpart except that dice are used to simulate the shifting of card values . To date , this is the only printing of an official and complete sabacc deck . Sabacc likely had its origins in the second draft of the script of the " " , when Han Solo mentions that his friend Lando Calrissian won Cloud City in a " sabacca game . " The Face Cards in the sabacc deck bear a definite resemblance to several of the Major Arcana cards in the deck , most likely a , given that the value of The Idiot ( The Fool ) is 0 , Endurance ( Strength in the Rider - Waite deck ) is 8 , and Balance ( Justice ) is 11 . Each face card ' s value seems to correspond with the number of its Major Arcana equivalent . In addition , the number of cards in a sabacc deck ( 76 ) is similar to that of a Tarot deck , which has 78 cards . The Centran sabacc deck , used in L . Neil Smith ' s Lando Calrissian novels ( which contain the first named sabacc cards ) , is even more similar . Further parallels can be found in the use of sabacc cards for fortune - telling — which Lando Calrissian demonstrates in " Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu " — just as some people use Tarot cards in real life . In the " " duology , sabacc ' s predecessor , pazaak , makes an appearance , though it is not essential to play it in order to progress in either game .