Filipinos play card games styles such as pusoy and pusoy dos. These games use poker suits. Pusoy is described to be the 3-5-5 or good-better-best variant of the game. Pusoy dos is described to be variant where one tries to get rid of all his cards by choosing poker hands wisely. The origin of pusoy came from Chinese pai gow blended with poker and the origin of pusoy dos came from coastal China around 1980.
Filipinos play sungka, a board game consisting of small sea shells which players try to take all shells but the winner is determined by who has the most shells at the point were all small pits become empty. This is an Asian game that westerners first observed in 1894.
Filipinos are creative in that they have made toys using insects such as tying a beetle to string and sweeping it circular rotation to make an interesting sound. Salagubang gong is a toy is described by Harvard entomologist Charles Brtjes in his trip to Negros illustrating a toy using beetles to create a periodic gong effect on the kerosene can as the beetle rotates above the contraption.
Filipino games can also include piko, patintero, jack-en-poy, bang!, bahay-kubo, nanay-tatay, and many more. Many children enjoy these games.
Sipa is the national sports in the Philippines. Other popular recreational sports include boxing, patintero, billiards, basketball, chess, ten-pin bowling and football. Boxing, billiards, basketball and soccer are popular among Filipinos. The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) was founded in 1975. Dodge ball or mistakenly called as "touch ball" is also a favorite sport of those who play in schools during break time.
The sports where the Filipinos have gained international successes are boxing, billiards (notably nine ball), ten-pin bowling, chess and football (soccer). Notable champions include Paulino Alcántara, Francisco Pancho Villa, Manny Pacquiao, Mansueto Velasco, Flash Elorde, Efren Reyes, Francisco Bustamante, Rafael Nepomuceno and Eugene Torre.