Escoba is a Spanish variant of the Italian fishing card game Scopa, which means "broom", a name that refers to the situation in the game where all of the cards from the board are "swept" in one turn. The game is usually played with a deck of traditional Spanish playing cards, called naipes.

The object of the game is to be the first player to score 21 points through capturing cards. Points are scored in a variety of ways as detailed below. It does not necessarily follow that the player with the most captured cards in any particular round will get the greatest score.

A traditional Spanish deck of 40 cards is used to play. For traditional decks which have 1 through 12 of each suit, the 8 and 9 of each suit must be removed, leaving 40 cards. A standard deck of playing cards (having Ace, 2-10, Jack, Queen, King) can be modified by removing the 8, 9, and 10 of every suit, leaving 40 cards. At the start of each round the dealer will deal three cards to each player, face down. After all the players have been dealt cards, four board cards are dealt, face up, in the center of the table, and play commences.

On rare occasions where the four initial cards dealt to the board add up to 15, they are taken by the dealer and added to his scoring pile.

Play commences with the person to the right of the dealer. Each player in turn attempts to match one card from the hand with one or more cards on the board to produce a total of 15. When using a traditional deck, all cards are worth their face value except for the 10 sota (Jack or Page), 11 caballo (Horse) and the 12 rey (King), which are reduced in value to 8, 9 and 10, respectively. All cards matched, including the one from the player's hand, are removed from the board and placed in a scoring pile beside the player. A player unable to make a total of 15, must discard a hand card, adding it to the available cards in the centre of the table. After either scoring a hand or discarding, play then moves to the next player in anticlockwise order.

If a player can combine one hand card with all of the cards on the board to total 15, that player has scored an escoba, worth one additional point at the end of the round. Each escoba scored is typically noted by the player turning one card of their pile face up.

After players have exhausted their hands, the dealer will then deal a fresh hand of three cards each just as in the beginning of the round. The last hand in any particular round is the one which exhausts the deck. At the end of this round, the last player to have taken cards from the board receives any remaining cards regardless of their value. After this, the round is scored, and the deal progresses to the next player on the left.

Points are determined at the end of each round. Players score points based on the following categories: