In Händler der Karibik, you're a shrewd merchant trying your luck in the Caribbean Sea to amass as much coin as possible. But beware, if greed gets the better of you, you might return empty-handed!

The game revolves around a deck of 110 cards, each featuring a coin on its back and different elements on the front. Your turn begins by drawing cards one by one from the deck, placing them in an area called the 'harbor'. Each card can be a Person (available for hiring), a Ship (which you can attack if you have enough 'swords' from hired People), an Expedition (fulfilled by discarding People with the right items), or a Tax Increase (which can make you lose half your money if you have too much!).

The core mechanic is 'push your luck': you can stop at any time and decide what to do with the cards in the harbor. But if you draw a ship identical to one already there, your turn ends immediately, and everything in the harbor is discarded! If you manage to stop before disaster strikes, you can use the cards from the harbor. With 3 or fewer ships, you take one card; with 4, you take two; with 5, you take three. You can raid ships (gaining coins) or hire people (paying coins). And there's more: after your turn, other players can pay you one coin to take a card as well.

The game ends when a player reaches 10 influence points (found on People and Expedition cards) and has fulfilled at least one expedition. Then, everyone plays the final round, and the player with the most influence points, having completed at least one expedition, claims victory. It's a quick game, filled with tense decisions that test your courage to push your luck or stop at the right moment.