Round Games with Cards by W. H. Peel. A Practical Treatise on All the Most Popular Games, with Their Different Variations, and Hints for Their Practice. Poker is a family of gambling card games involving betting and individual play, whereby the winner is determined by the ranks and combinations of players' cards, some of which remain hidden until the end of the game. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or "community" cards, and the number of cards that remain hidden. Betting procedures vary widely among dozens of different poker game variants.