The game is played by placing two handfuls of small objects on a board and guessing the remaining count when divided by four.

Before that time, fantan was known as 掩錢; yǎnqián; 'covering coins', 攤戲; tānxì, 攤錢; tānqián, or 意錢; yìqián.

[3] It was prominent during the Late Qing and Republican period in Canton and the Pearl River Delta region.

As a rule, in places where a significant number of Cantonese migrants could be found, fantan was also present.

[2][6] Jacob Riis, in his famous book about the underbelly of New York, How the Other Half Lives (1890), wrote of entering a Chinatown fan-tan parlor: "At the first foot-fall of leather soles on the steps the hum of talk ceases, and the group of celestials, crouching over their game of fan tan, stop playing and watch the comer with ugly looks.

The city's former police commissioner Jesse B. Cook wrote that in 1889 Chinatown had 50 fan-tan games, and that "in the 50 fan tan gambling houses the tables numbered from one to 24, according to the size of the room."

California amended Section 330 of the California Penal Code in 1885, adding fan-tan to its list of banned games;[7] this coincided with the general rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States, as fan-tan was considered a differentiating vice on par with opium use[8][9][10] and the direct cause of property crime and violence.

[11] Raids on fan-tan parlors were regularly featured in contemporary news articles, with police in some cases posing as Chinese to infiltrate the games.

[12][13][14] In San Jose, California, a typo in a local printed law led to charges being dismissed against several bettors.

[15] Despite its illegality, it was estimated that 100 fan-tan parlors were operating in San Francisco's Chinatown around the turn of the 20th century.

If the guard posted on the exterior doors did not recognize the prospective bettor or the guard raised an alarm in the event of a raid, the interior doors, often heavily reinforced with iron, would be shut and barred, giving the fan-tan patrons and parlor time to dismantle the game, conceal evidence, and flee the premises.

The banker puts on the table a double handful of small objects (buttons, beads, coins, dried beans, or similar articles), which he covers with a metal bowl.

[11] Fan-Tan uses a fixed-odds betting system where all winning wagers are paid according to the true odds of success.

The pool of money used to pay off bets is the total amount wagered on all positions, less a house commission,[6] which ranges from 5% to 25%[17] depending on the time and place.

The second three-number bet that can be made is an all-primary wager, known as "Sheh Sam Hong", sometimes romanized as "Shen Sam Hong" (三門; sān mén; saam1 mun4; 'three gates' or 射三紅; shè sān hóng; se6 saam1 hung4; 'shoot three row'), where any one of the three numbers will win.

Fan Tan Alley in the Chinatown of Victoria, British Columbia is named for the numerous gaming parlors that once lined it.