Play Farkle Online

What Is Farkle?

Farkle is a push-your-luck dice game for two or more players. Each turn you roll six dice, set aside dice that score, and then face the only decision that matters: bank the points you have accumulated, or roll the remaining dice to add more. Roll a combination with no scoring dice and you have farkled: the whole running total for that turn evaporates and play passes to the next player. First to 10,000 wins.

That single decision, repeated dozens of times, gives Farkle a completely different feel from a scorecard game like Yahtzee. There is no card to fill, no category to protect, just an escalating bet against the dice. It is also more textured than Pig, the simplest push-your-luck game, because the odds change with every die you set aside, and the big combinations (straights, three pairs, six of a kind) reward you for rolling all six dice at once.

If you enjoy the tension here you will find it again in Zombie Dice, which swaps points for brains and shotgun blasts, and in Ten Thousand, Farkle’s folk-game ancestor with its own scoring table and a 500-point entry rule.

A Short History of Farkle

Farkle belongs to a family of six-dice folk games that has been played under many names, among them Ten Thousand, Dix Mille, Greed, Zilch, Zonk, Squelch and Hot Dice. Nobody owns the underlying game and nobody knows exactly where it came from. Popular accounts say it reached North America on French ships in the 1600s, and one story claims that dice and instructions from the 1700s were found at Fort de Chartres in Illinois, but these origin stories circulate without documentary evidence and are best treated as folklore. The same goes for the tale of a medieval nobleman called Sir Albert Farkle, which is almost certainly a joke that outgrew its source.

What can be verified is the commercial history. A pocket-sized version called Pocket Farkel has been sold since 1996 by Legendary Games Inc. The boxed edition most people know today, with its shaker cup, six dice and score pad, is published by PlayMonster of Beloit, Wisconsin. PlayMonster was founded in 1985 as Patch Products by Fran and Bryce Patch and took its current name in 2016; older copies of the game still carry the Patch Products logo. PlayMonster markets Farkle as “The Classic Dice-Rolling, Risk-Taking Game,” recommends it for ages 8 and up, and lists a typical game at about 30 minutes. The scoring table on this page is taken from the official rules sheet packed in that box.

Farkle Rules

Equipment

• Six six-sided dice
• A shaker cup (optional)
• Pencil and paper, or the score pad from the box, to record banked points

Object

Be the player with the highest score once someone has reached 10,000 points and every other player has taken one final turn.

How a Turn Works

1. Roll all six dice.
2. Set aside at least one scoring die or combination. You must remove something after every roll. You may set aside more than one scoring group, but you cannot set aside dice that do not score.
3. Decide: bank or roll? Add what you set aside to your running total for the turn. Then either stop and bank the running total to your score, or pick up the dice you did not set aside and roll them again.
4. Repeat. Each further roll must again produce at least one scoring die you set aside. Combinations only count within a single roll: a 5 set aside on your first roll and two 5s on your second do not merge into three 5s.
5. Farkle. If any roll shows no scoring dice, your turn ends immediately and the running total is lost. Points you banked on earlier turns are always safe.
6. Hot dice. If all six dice have been set aside, pick them all up and roll again, still adding to the same running total. You may do this as many times as it happens.
7. Entry threshold (official boxed rule). A player’s first banked score must be a running total of 500 or more. Our online game does not enforce this; see the last section for why.

Ending the Game

When a player banks and their total reaches 10,000 or more, every other player gets exactly one more turn to beat that total. The highest score after those turns wins. If the final-turn player only ties, the player who reached 10,000 first keeps the win, since the rules say the others get a turn to beat the total.

Scoring Table

This is the official PlayMonster table, and the one the Dice.now game uses. Combinations must appear in a single roll.

Everything else, including 2s, 3s, 4s and 6s that are not part of a three of a kind, is worth nothing.

How to Score: Worked Examples

• 1 – 5 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 6. Look twice: that is a straight, 1,500 points using all six dice, and it gives you hot dice. A beginner who grabs the 1 and the 5 for 150 has thrown away 1,350.
• 1 – 1 – 5 – 2 – 3 – 6. Set aside both 1s (200) and roll four dice, or set aside 1-1-5 (250) and roll three. The extra 50 costs you a die; the math below says keep the 5 in play and roll four.
• 4 – 4 – 4 – 5 – 2 – 2. Three 4s (400) plus the 5 (50) makes 450 with two dice left. Most players bank here. Notice the pair of 2s does not score.
• 2 – 2 – 4 – 4 – 6 – 6. Three pairs, 1,500. Without the three-pairs rule this exact roll would be a Farkle, which is why the rule matters so much on six-dice throws.
• 2 – 3 – 4 – 6 – 6 – 2 (six dice). No 1, no 5, no three of a kind, and two pairs are not three pairs. This is a Farkle on the very first roll, which happens about once in every 43 turns.
• Turn total 650 with one die left. You roll a single die: a 1 or a 5 scores (1 in 3), anything else farkles (2 in 3). Rolling risks 650 to gain an average of 25 points plus the chance at hot dice. Bank.

The Odds Every Farkle Player Should Know

Farkle strategy is really the arithmetic of one question: what is one more roll worth, and what does it risk? The numbers below were computed by enumerating every possible roll under the scoring table above.

Probability of farkling

“Average points from the roll” is the expected value of the best scoring selection from that roll, counting farkles as zero. With six dice you will roll a 1 about 66.5% of the time, a 1 or a 5 about 91% of the time, and at least three of a kind about 36.7% of the time.

Rarer six-dice combinations

The break-even point

If your running total is T and you roll n dice, the expected change to your turn is roughly (average points from the roll) minus (chance of Farkle × T). Setting that to zero gives the running total at which one more roll stops paying:

• 1 die: 25 ÷ 0.667 ≈ 37 points
• 2 dice: 50 ÷ 0.444 ≈ 113 points
• 3 dice: 84 ÷ 0.278 ≈ 301 points
• 4 dice: 133 ÷ 0.157 ≈ 843 points
• 5 dice: 203 ÷ 0.077 ≈ 2,630 points
• 6 dice: 389 ÷ 0.023 ≈ 16,800 points

These are single-roll figures. They ignore the value of the rolls that follow and the chance of hot dice, so they slightly understate the case for rolling. But the shape is what matters: with three dice, 300 is the tipping point, which is exactly where experienced players and the computer opponent on this page start banking.

Farkle Strategy

1. Bank at 300 with three dice, 800 with four

Memorize the break-even table. With three dice left and 300 or more on the table, one more roll loses money on average. With four dice the line is around 800 to 850; with five dice you need well over 2,000 before rolling becomes a mistake. With one or two dice left, bank almost anything above 100.

2. Always roll hot dice

A six-dice roll farkles 2.31% of the time and averages about 389 points. Even with 3,000 on the line, the expected loss from a Farkle is only about 69 points against an expected gain of 389. Unless banking wins the game outright, pick the dice back up.

3. Do not set aside single 5s early

A lone 5 is worth 50 points, but it costs you a die. Keeping the 5 in play and rolling five dice instead of four is worth more than 50 points in expectation (203 versus 133 on the next roll alone, with a lower Farkle risk). The same logic applies, more weakly, to a single 1 when you hold five other dice. Set aside the minimum that keeps the maximum number of dice rolling, unless you are about to bank.

4. Count what a Farkle actually costs

Points on the table are not yet yours, and a Farkle costs you only the running total, not your banked score. That is why the correct decision depends on T, not on how the turn “feels.” A 150-point turn with three dice left is a free roll; a 600-point turn with the same three dice is a 28% chance of losing 600.

5. Play the score, not just the dice

Late in the game the goal changes from maximizing points to maximizing win probability. If your opponent is at 8,500 and you are at 5,000, banking 300 a turn will not save you: push past the break-even totals because a Farkle costs you little when you are losing anyway. If you are the one ahead, tighten up and bank early; make your opponent take the risks.

6. Your final turn is different

When an opponent reaches 10,000, your last turn has exactly one goal: finish above their total. Nothing short of that has any value, so keep rolling until you get there or farkle. Likewise, if you are the leader nearing 10,000, remember that crossing the line hands your opponent a last turn with nothing to lose. Bank a total that will be hard to beat rather than a minimal one.

7. Learn the six-dice shapes

Before touching any die on a six-dice roll, check for a straight, three pairs, two triplets and four plus a pair. They are worth 1,500 to 2,500 and give you hot dice, and together they show up on about 7% of six-dice rolls. Missing one is the most expensive mistake in the game.

Common Mistakes

• Taking every scoring die reflexively. Fifty points for a 5 is rarely worth a die when you intend to keep rolling.
• Rolling one die with a big total. Two out of three single-die rolls farkle. With 400 or more on the table this is a clear error unless you are on a must-win final turn.
• Misreading the table. In the official game three 1s are 300, not 1,000, and a four of a kind is a flat 1,000 regardless of face. If you learned a different version, re-read the table before you start.
• Combining dice across rolls. Only the dice on the table in one throw form a combination.
• Forgetting the final-turn rule. Reaching 10,000 does not end the game; the other player still gets a turn.

Variants and House Rules

Farkle’s scoring has never been standardized outside the boxed game, so expect to meet these:

• Three 1s = 1,000. The most common folk value, used in Ten Thousand, Greed and Dix Mille.
• Doubling four, five and six of a kind. Instead of flat 1,000 / 2,000 / 3,000, each extra matching die doubles the triple (three 4s = 400, four 4s = 800, five 4s = 1,600).
• Three pairs at 500, 600, 750 or 2,000, and straights anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000.
• Entry threshold. The official 500 points to get on the score pad; some groups use 350 or 1,000, and others none at all.
• Three-Farkle penalty. Lose 500 or 1,000 points after three Farkles in a row.

Related games worth trying: Zombie Dice is push-your-luck with custom dice and three strikes; Pig strips the decision down to one die; King of Tokyo wraps a Yahtzee-style re-roll around monster combat; and Yahtzee itself is the structured, scorecard-driven cousin.

Glossary

• Farkle: A roll with no scoring dice, and the loss of the turn’s running total. Also used as a verb.
• Running total / turn total: Points set aside so far this turn; not safe until banked.
• Bank: End your turn and add the running total to your score.
• Hot dice: All six dice set aside as scoring dice, earning a fresh roll of all six.
• Set aside: Remove scoring dice from play for the rest of the turn.
• Entry threshold: The minimum first-turn total (officially 500) required before scores are recorded.
• Final turn: The single turn each other player gets after someone reaches 10,000.
• Dead dice: Dice that do not score, such as a lone 3 or a pair of 6s.

Play Farkle Online on Dice.now

The game at the top of this page is a two-player Farkle match against the computer, using the official PlayMonster scoring table exactly as printed above: 1s and 5s, three of a kind at face × 100 (three 1s = 300), flat 1,000 / 2,000 / 3,000 for four, five and six of a kind, and 1,500 for a straight, three pairs or four of a kind with a pair, with two triplets at 2,500.

Tap or click dice to set them aside. The message line shows what your selection is worth and what your turn total would be; the game refuses selections that include a non-scoring die, and a Select best button picks the highest-scoring set-aside for you. Then choose Roll (the button tells you how many dice you will throw) or Bank. If every die is set aside, the roll button turns into a hot-dice roll of all six. A roll with no scoring dice is flagged in red as a Farkle, and the running total is cleared.

Two rule decisions are ours: we do not enforce the 500-point entry threshold from the boxed rules, to keep the game fast (play Ten Thousand if you want it), and on a tied final turn the player who reached 10,000 first wins.

The computer opponent plays every roll in the open, with its rolls, set-asides and decisions written to the game log. It chooses which dice to keep by weighing points against the Farkle risk of the dice it would have left, so it will keep a single 1 and roll five dice rather than grab a 5 as well. It banks at 300 or more with three or fewer dice left, at 1,000 with four and at 2,500 with five, always rolls hot dice, raises its banking bar to 600 when it is 2,000 or more behind and you are past 7,000, and on its final turn rolls until it has beaten your total or farkled.

Rolls use your browser’s cryptographic random number generator. Your best final score and your win-loss record are stored on your device and never sent anywhere. Ready to risk it? Roll the dice.