A real-time card game is a card game in which all players may act simultaneously (that is, in real-time). The concept was invented by James Ernest in his game Falling, and was later expanded in the games BRAWL and Fightball.

The card game Set has a real-time element; in Set, the players are racing to identify patterns in the cards on the table.

There are also real-time card games that use a standard deck of 52 playing cards. A large number of real-time card games are in the Slapjack family: players take turns playing cards and then race to "slap" a jack or face card when it is turned up. In this family are Spit, Egyptian Ratscrew, and Nertz.

Another group of real-time card games are related to Spoons, in which players exchange cards asynchronously until one or more players have a certain hand; then the first player to perform a certain action wins. In this family are the 52-card game Pig and Parker Brothers' Wall-Street-themed Pit.

Card game terminology