Players
3 or more
Equipment
2 six-sided dice (5 for a couple of these)
Length
As long as it lasts
How to play, step by step
- Pick one game. Do not mix rule sets mid-session. Agree on one and stick with it.
- Agree the drink unit. Define what 'one drink' means — a sip, a count of three, whatever — before the first roll.
- Set the table rule. Dice that leave the table are re-rolled. Cocked dice are re-rolled. Decide once.
- Play clockwise. Every game below passes to the left unless the rules say otherwise.
1. Sevens — the two-minute game
Roll two dice. A total of 7 means you drink. Doubles mean you give out that many drinks. Anything else, pass. That is the entire game and it works with any number of people.
2. Three Man
One player is the Three Man. Any roll containing a 3, or totalling 3, means the Three Man drinks. Roll a 7 and the player to your left drinks; 11 and the player to your right drinks. Doubles let you hand the dice to someone to roll — they drink whatever comes up. Rolling double 3s makes you the new Three Man.
3. Mexico
Two dice, higher die reads as the tens digit. 21 (a 2 and a 1) is Mexico and beats everything. Doubles beat any normal number. Lowest roll of the round drinks. One throw each unless the first player takes two, in which case everyone gets two.
4. Ship, Captain, Crew
The five-dice game in full above — as a drinking game, the lowest cargo drinks and anyone who fails to complete 6-5-4 drinks double.
5. Bunco (drinking edition)
Standard Bunco rounds, but every Bunco makes the rest of the table drink and every zero-point turn costs you one.
6. Beer Die
Teams of two at opposite ends of a table, cups at each corner. Throw a die arcing above head height at the opposite end. Lands on the table and your opponents fail to catch it: they drink. Sink it in a cup: they finish.
7. Chandeliers
A cup of beer in the middle, a cup in front of each player. Bounce a die into someone's cup and they drink. Bounce it into the centre and everyone drinks, then you finish the centre cup and refill it.
8. Snake Eyes
Roll two dice each turn and add to a communal running total. Roll double 1 and the total resets — and you drink one for every point that was on the board. Late-game rolls get genuinely tense.
9. Dice Roulette
Before the round, each player secretly writes a number from 2 to 12 on a slip. Roll two dice; whoever wrote the matching total drinks. Nobody matched, everybody drinks.
Please read this bit
Drinking games escalate fast because the dice, not a person, are making the decisions. Set a hard stop before you start, keep water on the table, and never play with anyone who cannot opt out. If you want the tension without the hangover, play for stakes instead of shots.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best dice drinking game for a large group?
Three Man or Sevens — both scale to any number of players and need no setup beyond two dice.
What dice drinking game can two people play?
Mexico works perfectly head-to-head, and Snake Eyes works with any number including two.
Do you need special dice?
No. Every game here uses standard six-sided dice.
Keep playing
Browse the full dice game rules library and our free dice tools.