Buki-Domino

Buki-Domino is a gambling variant of dominoes that was widely played in Vienna in the early twentieth century. Its name comes from the English word bookie, reflecting how the game was run more like betting on horse racing than like an ordinary domino game between friends. Four players take part in a block-style domino game using a double-eight set of thirty-six tiles with the nine doubles removed; each player is dealt six tiles, and the rest form an unused reserve pile. The player holding the heaviest tile, the eight-seven, opens play, and turns proceed counter-clockwise, with any player unable to place a tile sitting out that turn. The first player to empty their hand wins the round, or, if play is blocked, the player left holding the fewest pips wins instead. What made Buki-Domino distinctive was its gambling layer: spectators and players placed side bets on the outcome through a banker figure called the Buki, with a winning bet paying triple the stake, giving the banker roughly a twenty-five percent average edge. That house advantage made the game attractive to organizers but also led the Austrian government to ban it in September 1916.