How to play Balut

Balut is a Yatzy-style game with five dice, especially popular in Denmark and Southeast Asia. Each player needs a sheet with seven categories, and every category has four boxes. That makes 28 boxes in total, so a game runs for 28 rounds. Two to six players works well.

Before the game starts, each player states out loud how many points they expect to finish with. Write the predictions at the top of the sheet.

On your turn you roll five dice and may reroll any of them, up to two more times. Then you enter the result in an open box. Since every category has four boxes, you will be scoring fours, straights and full houses several times over the course of the game.

All 28 boxes must be filled. If nothing fits, you have to write a zero in an open box.

The sheet has seven categories:

• Fours: the sum of the dice showing four
• Fives: the sum of the fives
• Sixes: the sum of the sixes
• Straight: 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6, the sum of the dice
• Full house: three of a kind plus a pair, the sum of all five
• Choice: the sum of all five dice, any combination
• Balut: five of a kind, worth 20 points plus the sum of the dice

When the sheet is full, the dice totals are converted into points. A common setup:

• Fours: 2 points if the boxes add up to at least 52
• Fives: 2 points at 65 or more
• Sixes: 2 points at 78 or more
• Straight: 4 points if all four boxes hold a straight
• Full house: 3 points if all four boxes hold a full house
• Choice: 2 points at 100 or more
• Balut: 2 points for every balut rolled

Finally the predictions from the start are checked: if you hit your own final score exactly, you earn bonus points. Agree on what a correct prediction is worth before you begin.

The player with the most points wins. If it is a tie, the higher dice total usually decides. Balut is traditionally played for a small stake per point, but works just as well with chips or nothing but bragging rights.

Some groups skip the point conversion entirely and simply play for the highest dice total. That turns Balut into a long, calm relative of Yatzy without the ones, twos and threes. Others award extra points for high grand totals, with thresholds agreed at the table.

If you want a shorter game in the same family, Yahtzee is the natural pick.

The prediction gives the game its edge. Along the way you have to choose between chasing the highest score and steering towards the number you named at the start, and late in the game you will see players deliberately taking zeros to land on their prediction. That balance is what sets Balut apart from the rest of the Yatzy family.