How to Play Threes

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Threes is a straightforward dice game for two to eight players in which the humble three becomes your best friend. On each turn you roll five dice, set aside any threes (which score nothing), and are left to live with the pip value of everything else. The push-and-pull between re-rolling to shed high numbers and the risk of wasting a turn gives even a ten-minute session a satisfying edge.

The game travels well, needs nothing beyond a cup and five standard dice, and scales neatly from a two-player head-to-head to a rowdy table of eight. It is a firm fixture at kitchen tables, on camping trips, and in school games sessions precisely because the rules fit on a single card and a newcomer is fully up to speed within one practice round.

A little history

Threes belongs to the broad family of dice-shedding and scoring games whose roots stretch back centuries, but its specific origins are unclear. Games of this type, in which one pip value is nominated as wild or worthless for a round, appear in informal parlour game collections from the nineteenth century onward. No single inventor or definitive first publication has been reliably documented, and the game is most accurately described as a piece of traditional folk gaming passed down through families and social groups rather than a codified commercial invention.

Setting up

1. Gather two to eight players around a flat surface.
2. Appoint a scorekeeper, or agree that each player tracks their own running total on a shared score sheet.
3. Decide how many rounds the game will last. Seven rounds is the most common choice for a satisfying game; adjust up or down to suit the time available.
4. Determine who goes first. The player who rolls the highest single die goes first; re-roll any tie.

How to play

1. On your turn, take all five dice and roll them once.
2. Immediately set aside every die showing a three. Those dice are done for this turn and score zero.
3. If no threes appeared, you must keep at least one die from the roll. Choose which die or dice to keep. Kept non-three dice will add their face value to your score for this round, so keep low numbers where possible.
4. Roll the remaining dice again. Once more, set aside any threes that appear.
5. Continue re-rolling until either all five dice have been set aside or you choose to stop. You may stop voluntarily after any roll and accept your current non-three total for the round.
6. Once your turn ends, total the face values of all dice you kept that are not threes. That sum is your score for the round. Threes always count as zero regardless of when they appeared.
7. Record the score on the sheet. Play passes clockwise to the next player, who starts fresh with all five dice.
8. Continue until every player has completed all agreed rounds.

Winning and scoring

After all rounds are complete, each player adds up their round scores. The player with the lowest grand total wins. In the event of a tie, the tied players each play one sudden-death round; the lowest single-round score breaks the tie. If a tie persists, repeat until it is broken.

The fine points

The most common dispute concerns the obligation to keep at least one die when no threes appear. The standard ruling is firm: if your roll produces no threes, you must keep a minimum of one die before re-rolling the rest. You choose which die to keep, so keep the lowest value shown. You cannot simply re-roll all five because you dislike the result. If a player forgets this rule and re-rolls everything, the convention is to accept whatever the illegal re-roll produced as the kept die, then proceed normally.

A second point of contention is whether a player who has set aside some threes must continue rolling or may stop. The standard ruling is that stopping is always voluntary once at least one three has been banked, because the spirit of the game is risk management. Some house rules require a player to keep rolling until all dice are resolved, removing the choice element entirely. Agree on this before play begins. Clarifying it upfront avoids almost every argument the game generates.

How to win more often

• Always keep any threes immediately. They cost you nothing and reduce the number of dice you must manage on subsequent rolls.
• Treat a one or a two as nearly as good as a three when deciding whether to stop. Adding one or two to your total over seven rounds is far less damaging than chasing another three and landing a five or six.
• Track opponents' running totals. If you are already ahead going into the final round, stop early rather than re-rolling and risking a big number.
• Resist the urge to re-roll a four hoping for a three. Statistically you will get a three roughly one time in six; the other five outcomes are neutral or worse. Accept modest numbers and let your opponents take the risks.
• In later rounds, when you already have a comfortable lead, adopt a conservative stop-early approach. In early rounds, slightly more aggressive re-rolling is justified because you have time to recover from a bad result.

Variations

Wild Round

Before each round, one pip value other than three is declared wild for that round only. Dice showing that value also score zero. This increases the luck element and introduces a pleasing variety across a longer session. The nominated wild number rotates through one to six over successive rounds.

High Score Wins

Invert the standard scoring so that threes still count as zero but the player with the highest total across all rounds wins. This shifts strategy completely: you want to keep high numbers and re-roll anything low. The tension of the original game survives because threes remain useless, and a cluster of them on a good roll is now a disaster rather than a gift.

Elimination Threes

Any player whose round score exceeds a fixed threshold, commonly fifteen, is eliminated. The last player still in the game wins. This works well with larger groups and keeps rounds brisk because high scores carry immediate consequences rather than merely accumulating.

Team Threes

Players split into two equal teams. Each player takes a turn as normal, and the team's score for each round is the sum of all its members' individual round scores. The team with the lowest combined total after all rounds wins. This format suits six or eight players and adds a cooperative dimension as teammates encourage cautious play from one another.

Threes: frequently asked questions