Dice Game Glossary: 80+ Dice Game Terms Explained

Dice games borrow words from casinos, sailors, poker tables and board game designers, and the same idea often has three names. This glossary defines more than 80 terms alphabetically and links each one to the game on Dice.now where you will meet it. For the mathematics behind terms like expected value and house edge, see dice probability explained.

A

Ace — A die showing a single pip, the 1. In Liar’s Dice aces are usually wild; in Dice Poker the Ace face is the highest rank.

Active player — In Qwixx, the player who rolled the dice this turn. Only the active player may use the colored dice, and only the active player takes a penalty for marking nothing.

Adventure — In Elder Sign, a card with one or more task rows that investigators try to complete with dice, earning a reward or suffering a penalty.

Ante — A stake each player puts into the pot before a round, common in money games of Ship, Captain and Crew and Craps played at home.

B

Baby Bunco (Mini Bunco) — In Bunco, three of a kind of any number other than the round’s target. Worth 5 points, versus 21 for a true Bunco.

Bank — To end your turn voluntarily and add your turn total to your score. The central decision in Farkle, Ten Thousand, Zombie Dice and Pig, where it is usually called holding.

Bid — In Liar’s Dice, a claim that at least a certain number of dice around the table show a certain face, for example “four 5s.” Each bid must raise the previous one.

Bluff — A bid you do not believe in Liar’s Dice, made to push the next player into an impossible position. Also the name of Richard Borg’s 1993 Spiel des Jahres-winning version of the game.

Bonus (upper section) — In Yahtzee, the 35 points awarded for scoring 63 or more in the six upper boxes, which is three of each face.

Brain — The scoring face in Zombie Dice. Set brains aside; they count only if you stop before taking three shotgun blasts.

Break-even point — The turn total at which one more roll has zero expected value. It is 20 in Pig and about 300 with three dice in Farkle.

Bunco — In Bunco, three dice all showing the current target number, worth 21 points and usually ending the round.

Bust — A roll or hand with nothing of value. In Dice Poker a hand with no pair or straight; in Ten Thousand a roll with no scoring dice.

C

Calza (spot-on) — In Perudo-style Liar’s Dice, a claim that the current bid is exactly right, neither high nor low. A correct calza usually restores a lost die.

Captain — In Ship, Captain and Crew, the 5, which can only be set aside after the Ship (6) has been secured.

Cargo — The two dice left after Ship, Captain and Crew are banked in Ship, Captain and Crew. Their sum, 2 to 12, is your score.

Center pot — In Left Center Right, the pile of chips in the middle of the table. Chips sent there never return to play; the last player holding chips wins them.

Chance — The catch-all box in Yahtzee, which scores the total of all five dice with no pattern required. Historically, also the second number set in the medieval game of Hazard.

Chip — A token of value. In Left Center Right every player starts with three; in Craps chips are the betting currency.

Claim — In Roll For It, matching every die face printed on a card with your own dice, which scores the card and returns those dice to your hand.

Come-out roll — The first roll of a Craps hand, made with the puck showing OFF. A 7 or 11 wins, a 2, 3 or 12 loses, and anything else sets the point.

Committed dice — In Roll For It, dice placed on a card and left there until the card is claimed or you take them all back.

Crew — The 4 in Ship, Captain and Crew, which may only be set aside once you have both the Ship and the Captain.

Cross — A mark made in a numbered box on a Qwixx score sheet. Crosses in a row score on a triangular scale: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15 and so on.

Cup — The container dice are shaken in. In Liar’s Dice it hides your dice; in Zombie Dice it holds the undrawn dice, from which you draw three at a time.

D

Dead dice — Dice in a Farkle or Ten Thousand roll that do not score, such as a lone 3 or a pair of 6s, and must be re-rolled.

Don’t Pass — The Craps bet against the shooter, introduced around 1907. It wins on a come-out 2 or 3, pushes on 12, and wins when a 7 arrives before the point.

Doom track — In Elder Sign, the Ancient One’s progress toward waking. When it fills, the investigators lose.

Doubles — Two dice showing the same face. Doubles occur 6 times in 36 rolls; in Craps a 4, 6, 8 or 10 made with doubles is a hardway.

Draw — Rolling for one more die to complete a hand. In Dice Poker, an open-ended straight draw (2-3-4-5) can be finished by a 1 or a 6.

Dudo — Spanish for “I doubt,” the South American name of Liar’s Dice and the word used to challenge a bid.

E

Energy — The lightning-bolt face in King of Tokyo, collected as cubes and spent on power cards.

Entry threshold — The minimum first-turn total, officially 500 points, that a player must bank before their score is recorded in Farkle and Ten Thousand.

Expected value — The long-run average result of a decision. A single die has an expected value of 3.5; the concept is explained with worked examples in dice probability.

F

Face — One side of a die, or the value it shows. Custom dice in Zombie Dice, King of Tokyo and Roll For It print symbols on their faces instead of pips.

Farkle — A roll with no scoring dice in Farkle, which ends your turn and forfeits the running total. Used as a noun and a verb: “I farkled.”

Final round — The extra turns other players receive after someone reaches the winning score, so everyone has had the same number of turns. Used in Ten Thousand and Zombie Dice.

Focus — In Elder Sign, setting one die aside so it is not re-rolled, at the cost of that die’s value for the current attempt.

Footsteps (runner) — A Zombie Dice face meaning the victim escaped. The die is picked up and re-rolled with your next throw.

Four of a kind — Four dice showing the same face. Scores the total of all five dice in Yahtzee, beats a full house in Dice Poker, and occurs in 150 of 7,776 five-dice rolls.

Free dice — In Roll For It, the dice still in your hand that you roll on your turn, as opposed to committed dice.

Full house — Three of a kind plus a pair. Worth a fixed 25 points in Yahtzee, and rolled in 300 of 7,776 five-dice throws (3.86%).

G

Ghost player — In Bunco, a stand-in for an absent player, whose dice are rolled by a neighbor.

Golf — A multi-round variant of Shut the Box in which players total their open tiles across several rounds and the lowest total wins.

H

Hammer — In Ship, Captain and Crew, the last player to roll in a round, who knows exactly what score is needed to win.

Hardway — A Craps bet that a 4, 6, 8 or 10 will be rolled as doubles (2-2, 3-3, 4-4 or 5-5) before it is rolled the easy way or a 7 appears.

Head table — In party Bunco, the table whose players ring the bell to start and end each round.

Hold — To set a die aside so it is not re-rolled, as in Yahtzee and Dice Poker; or, in Pig, to stop rolling and bank your turn total.

Hot dice — In Farkle and Ten Thousand, setting aside all six dice as scoring dice in one turn, which earns a fresh roll of all six with your total intact.

House edge — The casino’s average profit as a percentage of each bet. The Craps Pass Line has a house edge of 1.41%, one of the lowest in the casino.

I

Inside straight draw — Four dice in Dice Poker where only one value completes the straight, such as 1-2-3-4 needing a 5.

Investigation — The numbered faces on Elder Sign dice, whose values add together to meet a task’s investigation requirement.

J

Jeopardy game — The general name for dice games in which points accumulate during a turn and can be lost by a bad roll. Pig, Farkle and Zombie Dice are all jeopardy games.

Joker rule — In Yahtzee, the rule that a second Yahtzee, once the Yahtzee box is filled, may be scored in a lower box as if it were a full house or straight when the matching upper box is already used.

K

Kicker — In Dice Poker, a die that is not part of the scoring combination, used to break ties between equal hands.

L

Large straight — Five dice in sequence, 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6. Worth 40 points in Yahtzee and rolled 240 times in 7,776 throws.

Lock — The symbol at the end of each Qwixx row. Crossing it, which requires at least five crosses in the row, closes that color for every player and removes the matching die.

Loaded dice — Dice weighted or shaved to favor certain faces. The reason Craps added the Don’t Pass bet: once players could bet against the shooter, loading the dice stopped paying.

M

Main — In Hazard, the ancestor of Craps, the number from 5 to 9 the caster named before throwing. Fixing the main at 7 produced modern craps; see the history of dice.

Midnight — A cargo of 6-6 (12 points) in Ship, Captain and Crew; also, in Elder Sign, the clock event that advances doom.

N

Natural — In Craps, a come-out roll of 7 or 11, which wins immediately for the Pass Line.

O

Odds bet (free odds) — A Craps bet placed behind a Pass or Don’t Pass wager after a point is set, paid at true odds with no house edge.

On the board — In Ten Thousand, having met the entry threshold so that later scores count.

One-die rule — In Shut the Box, the option to throw a single die once the high tiles (7, 8 and 9) are shut.

Open-ended straight draw — Four dice in sequence with a completing value at either end, such as 2-3-4-5, in Dice Poker and Yahtzee.

P

Pace — In Yahtzee, being on track for the upper bonus by averaging three of each face scored so far.

Palifico — In Perudo-style Liar’s Dice, a special round triggered when a player is down to one die: 1s are not wild and the bid face cannot change.

Pass Line — The basic Craps bet that the shooter will win: a natural on the come-out, or the point before a 7.

Penalty box — One of four boxes on a Qwixx sheet, each worth minus 5 points, marked when the active player crosses nothing. Four penalties end the game.

Pig (verb) — To roll a 1 in Pig and lose your turn total. Often “pigging out.”

Pip — One of the dots on a standard die face. A 6 has six pips; opposite faces of a modern die add to 7.

Place bet — A Craps bet that a specific number (4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10) will roll before a 7.

Point — The number set by a Craps come-out roll of 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10. The shooter then tries to roll it again before a 7.

Poker dice — Dice printed with Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten and Nine instead of pips, used in Dice Poker and sometimes in Liar’s Dice.

Puck — The marker on a Craps table showing OFF during the come-out or ON with the point number.

Push your luck — A game structure in which each extra roll adds to a total you can lose. Farkle, Zombie Dice, Pig and Ten Thousand are the classic examples; the best dice games roundup compares them.

Q

Quantity ceiling — In Liar’s Dice, the total number of dice in play, the highest quantity anyone can legally bid.

R

Roll-and-write — A game in which players share dice and record results on private sheets. Qwixx is the best-known example; see the Qwixx score sheet guide.

Running total (turn total) — Points accumulated in the current turn and not yet banked. Used in Farkle, Ten Thousand and Pig.

S

Scratch — In Yahtzee, entering a zero in a box on purpose because no better option exists, usually in Ones, Yahtzee or Chance.

Set aside — To remove scoring dice from play for the rest of the turn, as in Farkle and Ship, Captain and Crew.

Seven-out — Rolling a 7 in Craps while a point is on, which ends the hand and loses Pass Line bets.

Ship — The 6 in Ship, Captain and Crew, the first die that must be set aside.

Shooter — The player rolling the dice in Craps. The dice pass to the next player after a seven-out.

Shotgun blast — A damage face in Zombie Dice. Three in one turn end the turn with no brains scored.

Shut — In Shut the Box, to flip a tile face down. Shutting all nine tiles is “shutting the box” and scores a perfect zero.

Skipping — In Qwixx, crossing a number to the right of unmarked numbers, which can then never be crossed.

Small straight — Four dice in sequence (1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5 or 3-4-5-6). Worth 30 points in Yahtzee. Four or more in a row appears in 1,200 of 7,776 rolls.

Smash (claw) — The attack face in King of Tokyo. Damage passes across the Tokyo line: monsters outside hit the one inside, and vice versa.

Stand — In Dice Poker, ending your turn before using all three rolls because your hand is good enough.

T

Take back — In Roll For It, the option to retrieve all your committed dice at once instead of rolling.

Target — The number players are trying to roll in the current round of Bunco; also the winning score in Roll For It, normally 40.

Task row — In Elder Sign, a set of symbols that must all be matched by dice in a single roll.

Three of a kind — Three dice showing the same face. Scores the total of all dice in Yahtzee, and is the lowest combination that scores without a 1 or 5 in Farkle.

Three pairs — A six-dice roll of three different pairs, worth a fixed bonus in Farkle and many Ten Thousand tables. It appears in 3.86% of six-dice rolls.

Tokyo City / Tokyo Bay — The central spaces in King of Tokyo. The monster inside earns points each turn but cannot heal.

Traveler — In Bunco, the fuzzy die passed to whoever rolled the most recent Bunco, worth a prize at the end.

Triangular scoring — The Qwixx scale in which each additional cross in a row is worth one point more than the last: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55, 66, 78.

U

Upper section — The Ones through Sixes boxes in Yahtzee, which score the total of matching dice and trigger the 35-point bonus at 63.

V

Venus throw — In Roman knucklebone dice, the best result, with each of the four tali showing a different side. See the history of dice.

Victory points (VP) — The score in King of Tokyo; the first monster to 20 wins, unless it is the last one standing first.

W

Wild — A face that counts as any other. The 1 is wild in most Liar’s Dice games, and the LCR Wild edition of Left Center Right adds a wild face that takes chips from opponents.

Y

Yacht — The 1930s public-domain ancestor of Yahtzee, with twelve categories and no upper bonus. The Yahtzee vs Yatzy comparison shows how its descendants differ.

Yahtzee — Five of a kind, worth 50 points in the Yahtzee box on the Yahtzee scorecard. Odds in a single roll: 6 in 7,776.

Yahtzee bonus — The 100 points awarded for each additional Yahtzee after the Yahtzee box has been filled with 50. See the Yahtzee score sheet guide.

Yield — In King of Tokyo, leaving Tokyo after being attacked, which lets the attacker move in.

Z

Zilch (zonk) — Folk names for a roll with no scoring dice, and for the game itself, in the Ten Thousand family; the same event a Farkle player calls a farkle.

Zombie Dice — The 2010 push-your-luck game in which the dice are your victims. See Zombie Dice, and for the odds behind every roll-or-stop decision, dice probability explained.