How to play Twenty-Six

Twenty-Six is a banking game for 2 to 8 players. You need ten dice, a cup to roll from, something to keep count with and a pile of chips. The game was traditionally played for stakes in American taverns, but at home it works just as well with chips or points of no value.

Pick one player to run the bank. The others play against the bank in turn, and each player puts up a stake before the rolling starts.

On your turn you first pick a number from 1 to 6. That is your point number for the whole turn. You then roll all ten dice, thirteen times in a row.

After every roll you count how many dice show your point number and add that to your running total. Let one of the other players keep the tally so nobody loses count. After thirteen rolls you have a final score, and that score settles the bet against the bank.

Payout sheets varied from place to place, but this one is considered the standard:

• 10 hits or fewer: ten times the stake
• Exactly 13 hits: five times the stake
• 26 hits: four times the stake
• 27 hits: five times the stake
• 28 hits: six times the stake
• 29 hits: eight times the stake
• 30 hits or more: ten times the stake

Every other score loses, and the bank keeps the stake.

Give every player the same number of turns, and swap who runs the bank along the way. When you decide to stop, the player holding the most chips wins. The payout table is set up so the bank profits over time, so nobody should keep the role all evening.

In the variant called Fourteens you do not pick your number until after the first roll. If that roll contains three of a kind or better, that value becomes your point number. If not, you choose freely and start with three hits regardless. You then have four rolls left, aiming for a total of fourteen hits.

If you like banking games where you fight your way past a threshold, try Qualify with five dice, or the classic casino game Craps.

Thirteen rolls of ten dice means 130 dice in total, and each value turns up on about a sixth of them. A typical score therefore lands around 21 or 22 hits. That is exactly why the sheet pays out on both very high and very low scores: both are rare, while the middle, where most turns end up, loses.

Twenty-Six was a fixture in taverns across the American Midwest from the 1930s to the 1950s, not least in Chicago. Many bars had a small table by the counter where an employee ran the game, and winnings were often paid out in goods from the bar rather than cash. Stricter gambling laws eventually ended the tradition, but the game lives on as a parlour game.