The stop-or-roll game
Story: Your turn is going well. You have some points saved up. Do you keep going for more, or stop before bad luck shows up?
Pig is a simple dice game. On your turn:
- Roll one six-sided die.
- If you roll anything except 1: add that number to your turn bank and choose — roll again, or hold.
- If you roll a 1: your turn bank drops to zero and your turn ends. That’s called a bust.
- When you hold, you add your turn bank to your total score.
- First player to reach 100 points wins.
Play it now
Roll to start your turn!
Try two styles for a few turns:
- be greedy and keep rolling
- be careful and hold early
Watch the bust meter. It helps you feel how often the bad 1 shows up.
The danger hiding in every roll
On any single roll, the chance of rolling a 1 is 16.7%. That’s the same as saying:
- 83.3% of the time you roll something safe (2, 3, 4, 5, or 6).
- 16.7% of the time you bust and lose everything in your bank.
The safe rolls average out to 4 points each (that’s the average of 2+3+4+5+6 = 20, divided by 5).
So every extra roll is a trade:
- maybe gain about 4 more points
- maybe lose the whole turn bank with a 1
A simple rule that helps
Players often use this easy rule:
Hold when your turn bank reaches 20 points.
Why? Because by then the extra reward is not as tempting as the risk.
- Your turn bank grows by about 4 points per roll (on average, when you don’t bust).
- But each roll carries a 16.7% chance of wiping it out.
- At 20 points banked, the risk of rolling again starts to outweigh the expected gain.
Big idea: smart probability is often about balancing “maybe win more” against “maybe lose what I already have.”
Quiz time
You roll a six-sided die. What fraction of the time do you roll a 1 (and bust)?
There is exactly one face showing 1, out of 6 total faces. So the probability is 1/6 = 16.7%. In 6 rolls on average, you'll bust once.
If you don't bust, what is the average number of points you gain from one roll?
The non-bust faces are 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Their average is (2+3+4+5+6)÷5 = 4. So when you don't bust, you gain 4 points on average.
You have 8 points in your turn bank. Should you roll again?
Eight is still a small bank. Many players would try one more roll there and save the bigger caution for later.
According to the famous Pig strategy, at what turn-bank total should you hold?
Hold at 20 points. This rule balances the 16.7% bust risk against the average 4-point gain per roll. Experienced players use this as their standard strategy.