Play Yahtzee Online

What Is Yahtzee?

Yahtzee is a dice game for one or more players in which you roll five dice up to three times per turn and try to make thirteen specific combinations, each of which can be scored exactly once. Its genius is the tension between two kinds of scoring: the upper section, where you collect as many of each face as you can, and the lower section, where poker-style combinations such as Full House, straights and the five-of-a-kind Yahtzee are worth fixed, high point values.

The game is published by Hasbro, sells an estimated 50 million copies a year worldwide, and has become the template for an entire family of games: Scandinavian Yatzy, Latin American Generala, the Balkan Yamb, Kismet, and modern designs like Qwixx and King of Tokyo that borrow the hold-and-reroll mechanic. If you enjoy the decision-making here you will also like Farkle and Ten Thousand, which take the same dice and remove the scorecard in favour of push-your-luck banking.

A Short History of Yahtzee

The direct ancestor of Yahtzee is Yacht, a public-domain dice game recorded in Britain and the United States in the 1930s. Yacht used twelve categories, no upper bonus and a 50-point score for five of a kind, and it was in turn a descendant of older poker-dice games and the Puerto Rican and Latin American game Generala.

In 1956 the toy entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe, who had made his fortune commercialising bingo in the 1930s, bought the rights to a version of the game from a Canadian couple. According to Lowe’s own account they had played it aboard their yacht with friends, and asked him to make up a few sets as gifts. Lowe renamed it Yahtzee, filed a trademark and launched it through the E. S. Lowe Company. Early sales were poor because the rules did not read well on a box. Lowe’s solution was to host “Yahtzee parties” so people could experience the game in play; word of mouth did the rest and Yahtzee became one of the best-selling games of the 1960s.

Milton Bradley bought the E. S. Lowe Company in 1973, and Hasbro acquired Milton Bradley in 1984. Hasbro still publishes the game today, along with spin-offs such as Triple Yahtzee, Yahtzee Free for All, Yahtzee Jr., Word Yahtzee and many licensed editions. The scorecard you play on above uses the current Hasbro rules, including the 35-point upper bonus, the 100-point Yahtzee bonus and the Joker rule.

Yahtzee Rules

Equipment

• Five six-sided dice
• A scorecard with 13 scoring boxes divided into an upper and a lower section
• A dice cup (optional, but traditional)

Object of the Game

Score the most points over 13 turns by rolling combinations and recording them in the boxes of your scorecard. Each box may be used only once, so by the end of the game every box is filled, either with a score or with a zero.

How a Turn Works

1. First roll. Roll all five dice.
2. Decide what to keep. Set aside any dice you want to hold. In the game above, tap or click a die to hold it; tap again to release it.
3. Second roll. Re-roll the dice you did not hold. You may now change your mind and hold different dice, including dice you kept earlier.
4. Third roll. Re-roll any dice that are not held. This is your final roll of the turn.
5. Score. Choose one empty box and record the score for your five dice in it. If your dice fit no empty box, you must write a zero somewhere.

You may stop and score after the first or second roll if you are happy with the result. You do not have to roll all three times.

The Scorecard

The card has 13 boxes. The six upper-section boxes score the total of one particular face; the seven lower-section boxes score fixed values or the sum of all dice for combinations.

The Upper Section Bonus

If your six upper-section boxes add up to 63 or more, you receive a 35-point bonus. Sixty-three is exactly what you get with three of each number (3 + 6 + 9 + 12 + 15 + 18). Because the bonus is worth more than a Full House, most of Yahtzee strategy revolves around it: being “on pace” means having three of each number you have scored so far, and every extra 6 or 5 above pace buys you room to accept a weak score in Aces or Twos later.

Yahtzee Bonus and the Joker Rule

Rolling a second Yahtzee after you have already scored 50 in the Yahtzee box earns a 100-point bonus chip. You must still score the dice somewhere, and the Joker rule decides where:

1. If the matching upper box is empty (five 3s and your Threes box is open), you must score there: 15 in this example.
2. If the matching upper box is already filled, you may score the roll in any lower box. As a Joker it counts as a Full House (25), Small Straight (30) or Large Straight (40) even though the dice are not literally those shapes. Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind and Chance score the sum of the dice.
3. If every lower box is filled too, you must enter a zero in any empty upper box.

If your Yahtzee box holds a zero (you scratched it earlier), later Yahtzees earn no 100-point bonus, but the Joker rule for where to score still applies. The game above enforces all of this automatically and shows the bonus on its own line.

Ending the Game and Winning

After 13 turns every box is filled. Add the upper section and its bonus, the lower section and any Yahtzee bonus chips. In a multiplayer game the highest total wins; playing solo, you are chasing your personal best, which the game above remembers on your device.

How to Score: Worked Examples

• 3 – 3 – 3 – 1 – 5. Options: Threes (9), Three of a Kind (15) or Chance (15). Early in the game, Threes (9) is exactly on bonus pace and keeps Three of a Kind open for a bigger total later.
• 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6. A Large Straight for 40. Take it immediately; do not re-roll.
• 4 – 4 – 4 – 2 – 2. A Full House for 25. It also scores 14 in Three of a Kind, 12 in Fours or 16 in Chance, but 25 is the standout.
• 6 – 6 – 6 – 6 – 2. Four of a Kind for 26, or Sixes for 24. With one roll left, most experts re-roll the 2 hoping for a Yahtzee (1 in 6) because they keep both options either way.
• 1 – 2 – 2 – 5 – 6 after three rolls. Nothing fits. Chance scores 16, or you can take a zero in Aces (only 1 point lost against pace) and save Chance for a later emergency.

Probabilities Every Yahtzee Player Should Know

There are 6⁵ = 7,776 equally likely outcomes when you roll five dice. These are the odds of hitting each combination on a single roll, and the approximate odds over a full three-roll turn when you play sensibly for that combination alone.

Some other numbers that shape good play:

• The average roll of five dice sums to 17.5, so Chance is worth about 17 to 18 points on average, and a Three of a Kind is worth more than a Full House only when it contains high dice.
• Holding a pair and rolling three dice, you have a 58% chance of improving to at least three of a kind by the end of the turn.
• The expected score under perfect play is 254.59 points, a figure computed by Tom Verhoeff of Eindhoven University of Technology and independently confirmed by James Glenn. A perfect player earns the upper bonus about 68% of the time and rolls at least one Yahtzee in about a third of games.
• The maximum possible score is 1,575: 13 Yahtzees in a row, scored via the Joker rule.

Yahtzee Strategy: How to Score 250 and Beyond

1. Protect the Upper Bonus

Treat 63 as a target you track every turn. Three of each number is pace; four 6s or four 5s put you ahead and let you absorb a bad Aces or Twos score later. When choosing between an upper box and a lower box of similar value early in the game, prefer the upper box if it keeps you on pace. The 35-point bonus is the single most valuable “combination” in the game and it is far more achievable than a Yahtzee.

2. High Faces First

When you have a choice of which pair to keep, keep the higher one. Three 6s score 18 in Sixes and 22 or more in Three of a Kind; three 1s score 3 and rarely help anywhere but Aces. The exception is a turn when a low pair is already three of a kind and you are hunting the bonus.

3. Do Not Chase Yahtzee Too Early

A 4.6% shot per turn is a poor primary target. Aim for Four of a Kind and the upper boxes, and let the Yahtzee arrive as a by-product. Most 300-point games contain exactly one Yahtzee; most 200-point games contain a wasted turn spent chasing one.

4. Straights: When to Go and When to Stop

• With 2-3-4-5 or 3-4-5-6 after the first roll you have two turns to hit the open-ended Large Straight (30.6% per roll). Go for it.
• With 1-2-3-4 you have only the 5 to hit (11 out of 36 ways over two rolls of one die — about 31% total). Still worth it if Large Straight is open, because the Small Straight (30) is already banked as a fallback.
• Never break up a completed Small Straight with only one roll left unless Large Straight is your last open box.

5. Use Chance as Insurance, Not a Dump

Chance is the box that turns a disastrous turn into 20 points. Keep it open as long as possible, and when you do use it, try to use it on a roll with a high sum rather than on the first bad turn of the game.

6. Know When to Take a Zero

Scratching Aces (worth an average of just 2.5 points) or Yahtzee late in the game is often the right sacrifice. A zero in Aces costs you almost nothing; putting 8 points in Chance because you panicked costs you the 17-point average of that box. Experts scratch Aces, Twos and Yahtzee far more often than beginners expect.

7. Endgame: Count the Boxes

With three or four boxes left, calculate which single outcome is most likely on the remaining rolls rather than which box is worth the most. If only Large Straight, Yahtzee and Aces remain, roll for the straight: it is five times as likely.

8. Multiplayer Adjustments

Against opponents, adjust your risk to the score. If you are far behind late in the game, take the low-probability, high-value shots (Yahtzee, Large Straight). If you are ahead, play for expected value and protect the bonus.

Common Mistakes

• Filling Three of a Kind with a low sum early. Three 2s and two 1s is 8 points; the box averages over 20 for a good player.
• Rolling all five dice after a first-roll pair of 6s. Hold the pair.
• Forgetting the Joker rule and denying yourself a free 40-point Large Straight on a second Yahtzee.
• Ignoring pace. Two 6s after a bad roll may look like “only 12”, but scoring 12 in Sixes when you are already six points ahead of pace is fine; scoring 12 when you are behind means the bonus is gone.

Popular Variants and Related Games

• Yatzy (Scandinavia). Fifteen boxes including One Pair and Two Pairs; straights are fixed sets (1-5 and 2-6) scoring 15 and 20; Full House scores the dice total; upper bonus is 50 points. Hugely popular in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.
• Maxi Yatzy. Six dice, 20 boxes, and unused rolls carry over to the next turn.
• Triple Yahtzee (Hasbro). Three columns scored at ×1, ×2 and ×3. The same 13 turns become 39 and the maximum possible score explodes.
• Yahtzee Free for All. A 2008 Hasbro variant with a central pool of dice and cards to capture.
• Generala (Latin America). Five dice, ten boxes, a bonus for scoring a combination on the first roll (“servida”).
• Yamb (Balkans). Four scoring columns with strict ordering rules (top-down, bottom-up, free and announced).
• Kismet (1964). Coloured dice add “flushes” to the scoring.
• Yacht. The original twelve-category game with no upper bonus.
• House rules you will meet: Full House scoring the dice total, no Joker rule, “forced Yahtzee” (five of a kind must go in the Yahtzee box if open) and playing with the bonus at 60 instead of 63.

If you like the scorecard structure, try Qwixx for a faster roll-and-write, Dice Poker for the same combinations played head-to-head, and Farkle or Ten Thousand for combination scoring without any scorecard at all.

Glossary

• Hold / Keep: Setting a die aside so it is not re-rolled.
• Scratch: Entering a zero in a box on purpose.
• Pace: Being on track for the upper bonus with three of each face scored so far.
• Joker: A second Yahtzee scored in a lower box as if it were a Full House or straight.
• Yahtzee bonus chip: The physical token worth 100 points in the boxed game.
• Open-ended straight: Four in a row with a possible fifth at either end (2-3-4-5 or 3-4-5-6).

Play Yahtzee Online on Dice.now

The game at the top of this page is a faithful implementation of the Hasbro rules: three rolls per turn, click-to-hold dice, a live preview of what every open box would score, the 35-point upper bonus, the 100-point Yahtzee bonus and the full Joker rule. Rolls use your browser’s cryptographic random number generator so every face is equally likely. Your best score is stored on your device and nothing is sent to our servers. Ready? Roll the dice.