This sport is mostly considered as a game and is practiced by millions of vacationers, especially in France, where the game was born. However, petanque as a sport require a good strategy and address. This sport's conviviality and easy access for anyone made it very popular all around the world. It allows anyone, without distinction of gender, age or physical skills, to distinguish oneself. Which makes it a very democratic sport!

The game is played either in triples (3 players play against 3), doubles (2 vs 2) or singles (1 vs 1). in the first case, each player gets 3 balls (also called boules), whereas in both other cases, they get each two boules. The purpose of the game is to throw the boules as closer as possible from the jack (or cochonnet, smaller ball).

They are two main strategies to play petanque: the first one is called pointing (or placing), meaning throwing your boule with the intent of stopping near the jack. The second one is shooting, which means throwing your boule at one of the opponent's boule to knock it out of play. The last technique is often done when the opponent has pointed his boule very close to the jack.

To throw a boule, you must be in a circle that has been traced at the beginning of the game. The jack must be thrown between 6 and 10 meters far from the circle. Official grounds are not more than 15 meters long, but the ground itself may be of any kind (grass, sand...), which makes the games even more accessible.

When all the boules have been played, the best team scores as many points as it has boules closer to the jack than the best boule of the opposing team. The other team does not get any point. The first team that scores 13 points wins the games.