Give some stream of consciousness and then the answer. The deck consists of 162 cards, twelve each of the numbers 1 through 12 and eighteen "SKIP-BO" wild cards which may be played as any number. Alternatively, the 162 cards could be three regular decks of playing cards, including the jokers, with ace to queen corresponding to 1 to 12 and the kings and jokers corresponding to the SKIP-BO cards. Before 1980, the commercial game consisted of four decks of regular playing cards with eight SKIP-BO cards replacing the standard two jokers in each deck. In addition, the aces, twos and threes in the fourth deck were marked SKIP-BO. The remainder of the fourth deck was discarded.

Answer this question: how many cards in a skip bo deck?
To answer the above question, the relevant sentence is: The deck consists of 162 cards, twelve each of the numbers 1 through 12 and eighteen "SKIP-BO" wild cards which may be played as any number.
Therefore, the answer is 162.