Bone · dice game rules
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.
Rules
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.
Balut 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 |
FAQ
- 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.
