Pig dice game scoring rules
Pig is the simplest gambling-shaped game there is: one die, one decision, repeated. Keep rolling to build your turn total, or stop and bank it.
Roll a one and the whole turn total vanishes. Everything about Pig is deciding when greed stops paying.
Keep score while you read
A turn
- Roll the die. Anything from 2 to 6 adds to your turn total.
- Roll a 1 and your turn total is lost — your banked score is untouched — and play passes on.
- Stop whenever you like: your turn total is added to your score and the die passes on.
- First player to 100 wins.
When to stop
The maths is unusually clean. One face in six loses everything you have built this turn, and the other five average 4 points, so rolling stops paying once your turn total passes about 20. "Hold at 20" is the standard rule of thumb and beats rolling on instinct over a long game.
Late in the game the advice inverts: if your opponent is about to win, banking a safe 15 is worthless and you should keep rolling.
Variants worth knowing
- Two dice: a single 1 loses the turn total, and double 1 wipes your whole score.
- Big Pig: doubles score double, and double 1 is worth 25.
- Skunk: play to a fixed number of rounds rather than to 100, highest total winning.
Frequently asked questions
100 points is standard. Shorter games to 50 work well with more players, since every extra player means a longer wait between turns.
Around 20 points in the turn. Below that the expected gain from another roll outweighs the one-in-six chance of losing everything; above it, it does not. Ignore this near the end of a game, when you need to catch up.
No — only the points accumulated in the current turn. Your banked score is safe. That is what makes banking meaningful.