How to Play Yahtzee

Yahtzee is a dice game for one or more players. On each turn you roll five dice up to three times, trying for a scoring combination such as a Full House, a Large Straight or a Yahtzee (five of a kind). After the turn you must write a score, or a zero, in one of the 13 boxes on your score card. When everyone has filled all 13 boxes, the highest total wins. This page covers the full rules and scoring, and has a free printable Yahtzee score card, plus the odds of every combination.

Yahtzee Rules at a Glance

How to Play Yahtzee

1. First roll. Roll all five dice. Set aside any you want to keep (your “keepers”). You can stop and score now.
2. Second roll. Reroll any or all of the dice, including keepers from the first roll. You don’t have to say which combination you are going for, and you can change your mind.
3. Third and final roll. Reroll any or all of the dice again.
4. Score a box. After your last roll (or earlier, if you stop), you must fill in one box on your score card, either with a score or with a zero. Each box can be used only once, in any order.
5. End of the game. After 13 turns every box is full. Add up your score; the highest grand total wins.

Yahtzee Scoring

The score card has an upper section of six boxes and a lower section of seven.

Upper section

The upper bonus: if your six upper boxes add up to 63 or more, you get 35 bonus points. 63 is exactly three of each number (3 + 6 + 9 + 12 + 15 + 18), but any mix that reaches 63 counts, so four 6s can make up for only two 1s.

Lower section

One roll can often go in several boxes. With 6-6-6-2-2 you could take 25 in Full House, 22 in 3 of a Kind or Chance, or 18 in Sixes. If the dice don’t fit the box you choose, you score 0 there.

Free Printable Yahtzee Score Card

Lost the score pad? Download the free Yahtzee score card (PDF). It prints on one landscape page (US Letter; choose “fit to page” for A4), has columns for six games, and lists how to score every box so new players don’t need the rules to hand.

How to fill in a Yahtzee score card

1. Use one column per game, and write one score (or 0) per turn.
2. At the end, add the six upper boxes into Total score. Write 35 in Bonus if that total is 63 or more, then add both into Upper total.
3. Tick Yahtzee bonus once for each extra Yahtzee (100 points each).
4. Add the lower boxes and the Yahtzee bonus into Lower total, copy the upper total underneath, and add them for the Grand total.

Yahtzee Bonus and Joker Rules

If you roll a second Yahtzee and already have 50 in the Yahtzee box, you earn a 100-point Yahtzee bonus (the game gives you a bonus chip; on paper, put a tick). If your Yahtzee box has a 0 in it, you get no bonus. Either way, you then score the roll using the Joker rules:

1. Score the total of all five dice in the matching upper box (five 4s go in Fours), if it is still open.
2. If that box is already filled, score it in any open lower box. Here the Yahtzee works as a Joker: Full House scores 25, Small Straight 30 and Large Straight 40, even though the dice don’t form them.
3. If the matching upper box and every lower box are filled, you must put a 0 in an open upper box.

Many families play a simpler free-choice Joker: you can put the extra Yahtzee in any box, but it only counts as a Joker for the straights and Full House if the matching upper box is already used.

Yahtzee Rules Questions

Yahtzee Strategy

• Chase the upper bonus. 35 points is more than a Full House. Aim for three of each number, and keep track of whether you are “up” or “down”: four 6s puts you 6 up, two 4s puts you 4 down.
• Go for high numbers in the upper section. Three 6s are worth 18 and three 1s only 3, so the 5s and 6s carry the bonus.
• Keep Chance for a bad turn. It takes any roll, so it is the safest place to save a turn that fits nowhere else.
• Know where to put a zero. Late in the game, a 0 in Aces costs at most 5 points, while a 0 in Large Straight throws away 40.
• Know your straight odds. Holding 2-3-4-5 with two rolls left, a 1 or a 6 turns it into a Large Straight 55.6% of the time. Holding 1-2-3-4 or 3-4-5-6, only one number works, so it is 30.6%. With one roll left those drop to 1 in 3 and 1 in 6.
• Use your three rolls. A Full House comes up on 3.9% of single rolls but 36.3% of turns when you chase it.

Yahtzee Odds

All figures are exact. “One roll” is a single roll of all five dice; “full turn” is up to three rolls, chasing that one combination and keeping the best dice each time.

Going for one number in the upper section, keeping every die that shows it: you finish the turn with at least three of that number 35% of the time, at least four 10%, and all five 1.3%. In 2003 Phil Woodward worked out the strategy that gives the highest average score by checking every possible decision; perfect play averages about 255 points.

Yahtzee vs Yatzy

Yatzy, popular in Scandinavia, is a close relative with different boxes:

Yahtzee grew out of older dice games such as Yacht, Poker Dice and Generala. Compared with Yacht, it added the upper bonus, the 3 of a Kind box, the four-dice Small Straight, and the Yahtzee bonus and Joker rules.

Where Yahtzee Comes From

Toy and game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe first sold Yahtzee in 1956. According to Hasbro, it was invented by a Canadian couple who called it The Yacht Game because they played it on their yacht; Lowe bought the rights in exchange for 1,000 gift sets. Milton Bradley bought the E.S. Lowe Company in 1973, and Hasbro now owns the game. Lowe sold over 40 million copies, and Hasbro said in 2007 that 50 million Yahtzee games were sold each year.

More Dice Games to Try

For more dice games, try Farkle, Ship, Captain and Crew (another five-dice, three-roll game), Liar’s Dice, Bunco or Pass the Pigs.

Yahtzee: frequently asked questions