Las Vegas

Designed by: Rüdiger Dorn

In Vegas there are six “casinos” placed in the centre of the table, each with a dice value of one to six. Next to each casino money is placed, of a value of at least $50,000, that might be one money card or a few depending on how they come out of the deck.

Each player has a set of different coloured dice, and on your turn you roll all of them.

Having rolled the dice you must now decide which value to put in a casino. All your fours, for instance, would go in the ‘four’ casino, or all your twos in the ‘two’ casino, and so on. Crucially, once chosen you must put all the dice of that value into the matching casino.

This continues until everyone has placed their dice (some people will be finished sooner than others) and then the casinos are scored.

Having the most dice in the casino gets you the highest-value cash card next to it (often there is only one card anyway), the second-most dice will get the second-highest value card, and sometimes there will be a third and even fourth card to claim.

However cards will also often go unclaimed, as crucially, ties in the amount of dice cancel each other – so it’s possible for a single die to collect a big reward if the other players fighting over the casino have managed to end up with the same amount of dice in that casino.

It’s a fast game to learn and play, and there is a slightly more complex variant available where every player also has a couple of dice purely used to cause trouble and not claim money!

Sam says

Really fun game that also allows for a bit of strategy - go big for the big bucks, or hang back, placing a die at a time to try and sweep in for all the pickings later. I love it.

The guru's verdict

GNG Favourite
  • Take That!

    Take That!

    Things can get quite feisty, as part of the game is balancing the undoing of others' plans whilst furthering your own.

  • Fidget Factor!

    Fidget Factor!

    Vegas is fast-moving.

  • Brain Burn!

    Brain Burn!

    Occasionally there are decisions to be made - as to whether to make sure of a casino you are leading in, or undermine another player somewhere. But it's not chess.

  • Again Again!

    Again Again!

    The randomness is guaranteed by the dice, and it's fast and reasonably silly.