[1][2][3][4][5] Although many variations exist for two, three, five or six players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards.

The game of Canasta was devised by attorney Segundo Sánchez Santos and his Bridge partner, architect Alberto Serrato in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1939,[6] in an attempt to design a time-efficient game that was as engaging as Bridge.

[7] They tried different formulas before inviting Arturo Gómez Hartley and Ricardo Sanguinetti to test their game.

[8] After a positive reception of Canasta at their local bridge club, the Jockey Club, in the 1940s the game quickly spread north throughout South America in myriad variations to Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentina,[6] where its rules were further refined.

[9] It was introduced to the United States in 1949 by Josefina Artayeta de Viel (New York), where it was then referred to as the Argentine Rummy game by Ottilie H. Reilly in 1949 and Michael Scully of Coronet magazine in 1953.

[10] In 1949/51 the New York Regency Club[11] wrote the Official Canasta Laws, which were published together with game experts from South America by the National Canasta Laws Commissions of the US and Argentina.

[15] Santos and Serrato never patented the game rules, and thus never received royalties from the later Canasta boom.

Canasta is "the most recent card game to have achieved worldwide status as a classic".

The rotating of the wild card freezes the deck (see picking up the discard pile, below).

If a player was dealt red threes, they must instantly play them face up in front of them and draw the same number of replacement cards.

The player to the dealer's left has the first turn, and then play proceeds clockwise.

A turn begins either by drawing the first card from the stock into the player's hand or by picking up the entire discard pile.

A legal meld consists of at least three cards of the same rank, and there is no limit on how large it can grow.

If the combined value does not meet the minimum requirement, they cannot play the cards on the table nor pick up the discard pile.

At the beginning of the turn, a player may pick up the entire discard pile instead of drawing a card from the stock.

In this case the points of the top card are included to meet the initial meld requirement.

If a wild card or a black three is on top of the discard pile, it may not be picked up.

If the player/team has not yet made any canastas, players in that team may not make a play which would leave them with no cards in the hand at the end of the turn.

The player is not allowed to meld nor discard after picking up the red three in this case.

At the end of each hand, the score for each team is calculated as follows: The total value of all cards melded by that player/team, including cards in canastas minus the total value of all cards remaining in the player's/team's hands, plus any bonuses: If a player/team has collected red threes, but has not yet made the initial melds when the opposition goes out, then the bonus value of red threes counts against them (it is subtracted from the score along with the rest of the cards in their hands).

50 point penalty for taking the upcard on the discard pile and then being unable to use it legally [15] It is possible to have a negative total score.

The most significant changes are in the number of cards dealt at the beginning of the hand and the fact that each person plays individually.

Samba is a variant of Canasta, played with three decks, including jokers, for a total of 162 cards.

Samba allows sequence melds of three or more (for example, the 4, 5, and 6 of hearts or the Queen, King and Ace of Spades).

If a player is able to make a sequence of seven (for example, the 5 through J of diamonds), this is a samba and is worth 1,500 points.

Bolivian Canasta is similar to Samba, as it uses three decks and sequence melds.

When playing in teams a player may ask their teammate for permission to say acaba just as they may ask before going out and they will also be bound by the response in the same way.

This in turn was satisfied by the creation of Boat Canasta, which really is a mix of other known rules, but thoroughly optimized.

Currently this variant of Canasta is steadily gaining popularity mainly in Slovakia, but also in countries such as France, Germany and England.

Important rule changes for this variant include: At the beginning of a game, both teams have an initial meld requirement of 50.