Roll again, or keep what you have?
Pig
A dice game with one rule and one decision. Keep rolling to build a total, but a single one wipes the turn out. The best introduction to risk a classroom can run in five minutes.
- Players
- 2 or more
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Ages
- 7 and up
What you need
- One die
How to play
- Roll and add. On your turn, roll the die and add it to a running total for that turn.
- Decide each time. After each roll you choose: roll again and add more, or stop and bank the turn total into your score.
- Mind the one. If you roll a 1, your turn ends immediately and you bank nothing at all. Everything built up that turn is lost.
- Play to a hundred. Play passes round. The first player to bank 100 points wins.
The maths in it
It is the cleanest example of expected value a child will meet. A rolls gains about 4 on average but risks everything banked this turn, so the right moment to stop depends on how much is at stake — and children work that out by feel long before they can write it down. Keeping a tally of turn scores turns it into a data-handling lesson too.
Making it fit the child
Easier: Play to 50. Let a younger child use counters to build the turn total so the risk is physical and visible.
Harder: Ask the class to find the stopping rule — most settle near 'stop at 20', which is close to optimal. Then play two dice, where rolling a one on either die loses the turn and rolling two ones wipes your whole score.