How to Play Jackaroo — your first game online

Jackaroo is the beloved Gulf board game where playing cards race marbles around a track. This is a step-by-step walkthrough of your first game of Jackaroo online on Karooty — free in your browser, no download, on phone or computer.

Step 1 — open the game

Go to karooty.com/jackaroo. The game starts instantly in your browser — there is nothing to install and no account needed. You can play solo against smart bots (your partner and your two opponents are honest, clearly-labelled bots with their own personalities), or open a table and invite friends to play live with you from any device.

Step 2 — understand the table

• You sit at the bottom of the board; your partner sits across from you. The two players on the sides are the opposing team.
• Each player has 4 marbles waiting in their base next to the board.
• Your mission as a team: get all 8 of your team's marbles around the track and into your goals — the four protected holes that branch off the track in front of each player.
• You hold 4 cards. Cards are your moves: each rank moves a marble a different way (see the complete Jackaroo rules for the full card table).

Step 3 — your first moves

You can't move what isn't on the board, so job one is bringing marbles out. Only an Ace or a King brings a marble out of your base onto your start square. If your opening hand has one, play it. If you have no legal move at all, the game will ask you to burn a card — you discard one card and the turn passes. That's normal; everyone burns sometimes.

Once a marble is out, play number cards to push it around the track. An Ace moves 1 or 11, a Queen moves 12, a King charges 13, a 4 moves backward, and most other cards move their face value.

Step 4 — let the board guide you

On Karooty you don't need to memorise anything to start. Tap a card and the marbles that can legally use it light up; pick a marble and the game highlights the exact path it would travel. If a move would capture a marble, a red ✗ shows you exactly who gets sent home — including when it would be a teammate, so you won't hit your partner by accident. Illegal moves are simply greyed out.

Step 5 — capture, and watch your back

Land exactly on another marble and you capture it: it goes all the way back to its base to start over. Opponents will do the same to you, so marbles standing alone in the open are never fully safe — except on their own start square, where a marble can't be touched at all.

Watch out for the special cards: a 5 can move anyone's marble (even shove an opponent right past their goal entrance), a Jack swaps two marbles' positions, a 7 can split its steps between two marbles, a 10 can make the next player discard a card and lose their turn, and a King played as a move ploughs through everything in its path.

Step 6 — bring it home

To finish, a marble must enter your goal on an exact count — overshooting is not allowed, so near the end you'll be hunting for precise cards (this is where the Ace's 1 and the 7's split shine). Marbles inside the goal are untouchable. When all 4 of your marbles are in, your cards start moving your partner's marbles — and when your team's 8 marbles are all home, you win.

Playing with friends

From the Karooty home page choose Play with a friend, open a table and share the link. Friends join from their phone or computer — no app, no sign-up required to play. Empty seats can be filled by bots so you can start any time.

Frequently asked questions

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