Poker Dice is poker in its simplest form: no cards, no betting rounds, just five dice and a bit of luck. You roll three times, hold the good dice, and build the strongest poker hand you can. It plays lightning fast and takes a minute to explain.
On this page
What do you need?
Poker Dice keeps the equipment wonderfully simple:
- Five dice — regular six-sided dice (1 through 6) work just fine. No dice at home? Just roll with the online dice roller and set it to five dice.
- A dice cup (optional) — nice for a fair, random shake, but rolling from your hand is fine too.
- Pen and paper — handy for tracking points or wins across multiple rounds.
- Two or more players — you take turns; the highest hand takes the round.
Tip: there are also special poker dice with card symbols instead of pips. You can read more about them under the variants below — for the basic rules it makes no difference.
Objective of the game
The objective is simple: roll the best possible poker hand with your five dice. You probably know hands like five of a kind, full house, and straight from regular card poker — here you make them with pips instead of cards. Everyone rolls in turn, and the player with the highest hand wins the round. Want to make a match of it? Play an agreed number of rounds and keep track of the wins.
How a turn works
A turn works exactly like in Yahtzee: you may roll up to three times.
- First roll: roll all five dice at once.
- Second roll: set aside the dice you want to keep and reroll the rest. You may also reroll everything, or nothing at all.
- Third roll: reroll some of the dice one more time — or all of them, or none.
Whatever is on the table after your third roll is your hand. If you're happy sooner, you may of course stop and let your roll stand. Then it's the next player's turn. Once every player has rolled, you compare hands and the highest hand wins the round.
The ranking of the hands
This is the heart of the game: which hand beats which? The ranking runs from five of a kind (the strongest and rarest) down to the highest single die (when nobody has anything).
| Hand | Example | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Five of a kind | 4-4-4-4-4 | 1 — highest |
| Four of a kind | 6-6-6-6-2 | 2 |
| Full house | 3-3-3-5-5 | 3 |
| Straight | 1-2-3-4-5 | 4 |
| Three of a kind | 2-2-2-6-1 | 5 |
| Two pair | 5-5-3-3-1 | 6 |
| One pair | 4-4-6-2-1 | 7 |
| High die | 6-4-3-2-1 | 8 — lowest |
Note: in some house rules the straight ranks above the full house, because a straight with five dice is rarer than a full house. Agree before playing which order you'll use.
A quick look at the special cases:
- Straight is five consecutive numbers. With six faces on a die that can only be 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6; the order they land in doesn't matter.
- High die only comes into play when nobody has a real hand. Then the player with the highest single die wins.
Who wins on a tie?
If two players roll the same type of hand, the height of the numbers decides. Five sixes beat five ones, and a pair of sixes is worth more than a pair of twos. With two pair you look at the highest pair first; if that's equal, at the second pair, and finally at the odd die. If the hands are still exactly equal after that, the round is shared — or the tied players roll a quick deciding roll.
Good to know: the exact odds of rolling five of a kind in a single roll are tiny — about 1 in 1,296. That's exactly why you get three rolls and may hold dice. Read more about the odds behind a die on our page about dice probability.
Variants and poker dice sets
Poker Dice has plenty of house rules. A few popular variants:
- Playing for points over multiple rounds. Give every hand a fixed point value (for example five of a kind = 50, four of a kind = 40, and so on) and play an agreed number of rounds. Whoever has the highest total at the end wins.
- "Chicago"-style variants. Here each round you work toward a predetermined hand or chase a target hand, instead of purely going for the highest roll.
- Poker dice sets. There are special dice with card symbols on the faces: 9, 10, J (jack), Q (queen), K (king), and A (ace) instead of the pips 1 through 6. The rules and the ranking are identical; you just read "five aces" instead of "five sixes". The ace is highest, the nine lowest, and a straight is, for example, 9-10-J-Q-K or 10-J-Q-K-A.
Poker Dice is clearly related to Yahtzee — five dice, three rolls — but without the score sheet: here the highest hand simply wins. If you love bluffing and betting on what the other player has, Mia is a logical next step.
Frequently asked questions about Poker Dice
How many dice do you use for Poker Dice?
Poker Dice is played with five dice. With those five dice you try to make the highest possible poker hand, just like you build a five-card hand in card poker.
What is the highest hand in Poker Dice?
The highest hand is five of a kind: all five dice show the same number, for example 4-4-4-4-4. Below that come four of a kind, full house, and the straight.
How many times may you roll per turn?
You may roll up to three times per turn. On the first roll you throw all five dice; after that you may reroll a selection of your choice twice more. Whatever is on the table after the third roll is your hand.
What is the difference between Poker Dice and Yahtzee?
Both games use five dice and up to three rolls per turn, but in Poker Dice the highest poker hand simply wins each round. Yahtzee uses a fixed score sheet with thirteen boxes and adds up your points over thirteen turns.
Can you play Poker Dice with an online dice roller?
Yes. The online dice roller has a Poker Dice preset with five dice. After your first roll, tap the dice you want to hold and reroll the rest. With the free Android app you play with the dice big on your TV.