The Olelo deck has 100 letter cards and 3 wild cards. The game plays like Texas Hold 'Em poker without bidding or betting. Players try to make the highest-scoring word using letters from their hand and/or the community cards (called the Circus) on the table. In each hand, all players are dealt 2 cards, and there are 3 rounds: a) 3 cards are dealt to the Circus (the Drop) b) a 4th card is dealt to the Circus (the Joey) c) a 5th card is dealt (the Ringer) In each round, after the cards are added to the Circus each player may choose to discard one of their cards and get dealt a new one. After the third round each player shows their hand and announces the word they are making. The player with the highest-scoring word adds its score to their total; any tied players all add their scores. The first player to 50 or 100 points wins the game. There is an Easy Play version for younger players, with these differences: The deck is split into a vowels deck and a consonants deck. Players' hand cards come from the consonants deck. The rounds are: a) the Circus starts with one vowel; b) the Circus gets a second vowel; c) (optional) the Circus gets a consonant. The player(s) with the highest scoring word each get 1 point. The first player to 5 or 10 points wins the game. The name "Olelo" was chosen because it is Hawaiian for "spoken words", and it's a palindrome.

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