How to Play Liar’s Dice: Rules & Free Online Game

Object of the game

You only know your own dice, but every bid is about all the dice on the table. So you have to estimate how many dice of a face are under all the cups together – and spot when someone is bluffing.

Misjudge a bid or call “Liar!” when it was true, and you lose a die. Lose your last one and you’re out. The last player with dice wins.

What you need

Each player gets five ordinary dice and a cup you can’t see through. So there are 10 dice in play at the start with two players, 20 with four and 30 with six.

At Tavern Jack you don’t need any of that: dice and cups are built in, and the dice are rolled on the server. The table always shows how many dice are still in play and how many each player has left.

Rolling: hidden, every round

At the start of every round, everyone still in the game rolls all their dice hidden under their cup. Only you see your own dice; everyone else’s stay hidden until the reveal – from the Homies, too.

The first round of a game is opened by a different player each game, in turn. After that, whoever lost the last die always opens – or, if that knocked them out, the next player clockwise.

Bidding: how many and which face

A bid names a number and a face, such as “four fives”. It means: under all the cups together – yours included – there are at least four dice showing a five. Ones count too (see wild ones).

The player who opens the round can bid anything: at least one die, on any face from 2 to 6. Then it’s the next player’s turn, clockwise. They have to raise the bid or call “Liar!” – there’s no passing. Raising means:

• More dice, on any face: after “four fives” you can bid “five twos” or “seven threes”, for example.
• The same number of dice on a higher face: after “four fives”, “four sixes” is fine, but “four threes” isn’t.
• Never more dice than are in play: with ten dice left, “ten sixes” can’t be beaten – all that’s left is to call “Liar!”.

Ones are wild

Ones count as every face. When the bid is on fives, all fives and all ones count; when it’s on threes, all threes and all ones. That’s why you only bid on 2 to 6 – you can’t bid on ones themselves.

Example: your cup hides 1, 3, 3, 5 and 6. For a bid on threes that’s three matching dice, for fives two, for sixes two, and for twos or fours one each – the one counts everywhere.

Calling “Liar!”

Instead of raising, you can call “Liar!” if you don’t believe the last bid. Only the player whose turn it is can call – that is, the next player after the last bidder. Everyone else has to wait for their turn. A call always challenges the most recent bid.

The player opening a round can’t call yet, because there’s no bid. As soon as someone calls “Liar!”, the bidding is over and everyone reveals.

The reveal: who loses a die?

Everyone lifts their cup. You count every die showing the bid face plus every one – across all players.

If there are at least as many as the bid, it holds and the caller loses a die – even when there are exactly as many. If there are fewer, the bidder loses a die.

Example with three players: Ben bids “six fours” and Cem calls “Liar!”. Anna has 1, 2, 4, 4, 6, Ben 3, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Cem 1, 2, 2, 5, 6. Anna’s one and her two fours count, plus Ben’s four and Cem’s one – five in total. That’s fewer than six, so Ben loses a die. With six or more, Cem would have lost one.

After the reveal, everyone sees what was under each cup and who loses. “Next round” carries on – anyone at the table can press it. Then everyone rolls again, the loser with one die fewer, and the loser opens the new round (if they’re out, the next player clockwise).

End of the game: last one with dice wins

Lose your last die and you’re out – you can keep watching the others. The last player with dice wins the game; there are no ties.

Since every round costs exactly one die, it’s easy to tell how long a game lasts: 5 to 9 rounds with two players, 15 to 19 with four and 25 to 29 with six – depending on how many dice the winner has left.

Play Liar’s Dice online with friends or Homies

At Tavern Jack you play Liar’s Dice for free in your browser – on your phone or your computer, no sign-up and no app. Create a room, send the link to your friends, and off you go.

Short of players? Homies can fill the empty seats if you like: our bar’s regulars, computer opponents in three levels – Easy, Normal and Hard. You can also play entirely on your own against them. Like you, they only know their own dice and the bids on the table.

When several people play together, a turn timer makes sure nobody waits forever. If someone stops playing or leaves the game, a Homie takes over their seat. New to Liar’s Dice? A short practice round walks you through bidding, wild ones and calling “Liar!”.

Origins, variants and house rules

Liar’s Dice comes from South America, where it’s called Dudo – Spanish for “I doubt” – and in many places also Cacho. It became famous worldwide thanks to a scene in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (2006), in which Will Turner plays Davy Jones aboard the Flying Dutchman. It has been sold under many names, Perudo among them, and one board-game edition even won Germany’s Spiel des Jahres award in 1993.

Rules vary from table to table. Common variants – and what applies at Tavern Jack:

• Spot on (calza): if you think there are exactly as many dice as the bid, you call “spot on”. If you’re right, you usually get a die back; if not, you lose one. Here: not used – if there are exactly as many as the bid, it holds and the caller loses.
• Ones not wild: only the bid face counts, and you can bid on ones too. Here: ones are always wild, and bids go on 2 to 6.
• Bidding on ones: in Dudo you may switch to ones and roughly halve the number of dice; switching back means more than doubling it. Here: no bids on ones.
• Palifico: when a player is down to one die, a special round follows – ones aren’t wild, and often the face can’t be changed. Here: no special round; the same rules apply with one die.
• Losing several dice: in some editions the loser gives up as many dice as the bid was off by. Here: always exactly one.
• Not to be confused with poker dice, where each player rolls for poker hands on their own, or with Liar’s Poker, which is played with the serial numbers on banknotes.