How to play Balut: rules & scoring
Filipino Yahtzee
Balut is a dice game popular in the Philippines and Denmark. It looks like Yahtzee with fewer categories, so every choice weighs more and the game gets more strategic.
- Players
- 2 to 8
- Length
- ≈ 40 min
- Difficulty
- Strategic
- What you need
- 5 standard 6-sided dice.
How to play
Filipino Yahtzee variant. Played in 7 rounds. Each round, roll 5 dice (3 rolls max, keeping dice between rolls) and choose a category.
Categories
- Fours (total of 4s), Fives (total of 5s), Sixes (total of 6s) → like Yahtzee upper section but only 4, 5 and 6.
- Straight (1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6) → 20 points.
- Full house (3+2) → 25 points.
- Four of a kind → 30 points.
- Balut (5 matching) → 40 points.
Winning
Highest total after 7 rounds wins. More strategic than Yahtzee with fewer categories.
| Category | Points |
|---|---|
| Fours | Total of 4s |
| Fives | Total of 5s |
| Sixes | Total of 6s |
| Straight (1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6) | 20 |
| Full house (3 + 2) | 25 |
| Four of a kind | 30 |
| Balut (5 of a kind) | 40 |
What is a Balut?
Five of a kind, the strongest roll in the game: 40 points.
How is Balut different from Yahtzee?
Balut has only 7 categories, with no Aces, Twos, Threes or Chance. Fewer fallback boxes means every decision counts more.
How many rounds is a game of Balut?
In Bone, a game fills the 7 categories once. The traditional Danish version fills each category four times, for 28 rounds.
Let Bone keep score
You roll real dice, Bone keeps the sheet: totals, bonuses and rankings for up to 8 players on one phone. Free, no ads, no account, in English and French.
Yahtzee, Pass the Pigs, Zombie Dice, Tenzi and the other game names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners. Bone is not affiliated with any of them; these pages describe the rules to help you play.