{"id":77070,"date":"2026-04-18T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/apr\/18\/inside-smoky-shelters-a-fast-paced-card-game-has-taken-off-in-solomon-islands"},"modified":"2026-04-18T08:00:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T23:00:01","slug":"inside-smoky-shelters-a-fast-paced-illegal-card-game-has-taken-off-in-solomon-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=77070","title":{"rendered":"Inside smoky shelters, a fast-paced, illegal card game has taken off in Solomon Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Growing numbers in the capital Honiara are playing the street card game Pass for a chance of a big payout, while risking big losses<\/p>\n<p>As the school day ends in Honiara, *Irene, a 43-year-old teacher in a floral dress with a yellow daisy in her bun, steps on to a minibus.<\/p>\n<p>After 10 minutes, Irene gets off the bus, walks down an alley, and enters a damp, smoky shelter. Plastic tables fill the space and playing cards are scattered on the floor. Irene has stopped by a hidden gambling table in a western suburb of Honiara to play Pass, a street card game gaining popularity in the Solomon Islands capital.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/apr\/18\/inside-smoky-shelters-a-fast-paced-card-game-has-taken-off-in-solomon-islands\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing numbers in the capital Honiara are playing the street card game Pass for a chance of a big payout, while risking big lossesAs the school day ends in Honiara, *Irene, a 43-year-old teacher in a floral dress with a yellow daisy in her bun, steps &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":725,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1730,874,79,63,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-gambling","category-pacific-islands","category-society","category-solomon-islands","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/725"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77071,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77070\/revisions\/77071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}