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Las Vegas was first released in 2012. It has somewhat of a cult following due to its chaotic, accessible, large group-friendly game play. There have been some great expansions released for the game that add a lot of wonderful additions to the game. And now, we have the ultimate edition, Las Vegas Royale! This combines everything so far made for this game and a few handy extras in one shiny new box.
Going to Vegas IRL is all about having fun, chancing your luck, and the possibility of winning big. Las Vegas Royale replicates this in cardboard and Dice form in a perfect and beautiful way. The game is so simple. But playing it will bring so much excitement to your table, you will be going back for more and more. Las Vegas Royale is Las Vegas the city in a box. It has everything you want and removes the potential debt, hangover, and unexplained tattoos.
Place Your Bets
Learning and teaching Las Vegas Royale is very easy. Getting good at it, well that is down to the dice! To set up, you will lay out the six-part dice ring and place the dice arena in the centre. If you are using the expansions, choose three tiles at random and place them by Casinos one, two, and three. Give each player all the dice in their chosen colour, and finally, shuffle the money cards, and deal out six pairs of cards. Place each pair in ascending order from casino one up top casino six.
Then, starting with the oldest player, each person will roll all of their dice into the arena. They must pick one of their rolled numbers and take all the dice that have that number showing and place them into the corresponding casino. Each player will do this in turn until all players have placed all of their dice. Then, the person with the most dice in each casino will take the highest value card as their prize. The person with the second most dice there will take the second card. All other players with dice there will leave with nothing. Lady luck did not smile down on you today. If any players have an equal number of dice in one casino, then all of their dice are removed and they win nothing. So, a casino where one player has one dice, and three players all have two dice, would mean the player with the one single dice would win the top prize!
Each person will be given two poker chips, and you gain an additional one each round. If you ever roll dice and do not have anything that you like, you can play one of your chips to sit out that turn, and take all your dice back ready for the next round. This will continue for three rounds, and the person with the most money at the end of the final round will win.
When placing dice, you are looking to find the casino with the most money, but where other players have not already dominated with a large quantity of dice, and of course where you have rolled a good number of dice yourself. What a good number is up to you. You may want to place lots of single dice out, covering as many casinos as you can. Covering as much ground as possible and looking to pick up multiple prizes. Or, you may want to group your dice in as large a group as possible. Aiming to dominate the higher value casinos.
Keep Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’
So far, so Vegas. But in this box, you also have all you need to play Las Vegas Royale too. It’s very much the same, but with extra cheese. Royale adds extra tiles to three casinos, from a selection of eight double-sided tiles. All with their own unique rule set. This brings a lot of variability and longevity to the game, without too much additional complexity. I very rarely play the game without these tiles added in. Even with players new to the game.
The game works very much in the same way as the basic game, but whenever anyone chooses to place dice onto a casino with one of the tiles present, you activate that tile and something extra will occur. This could be the opportunity to play higher or lower on the roll of two dice to try and win increasingly higher valued prizes on the Fifty Fifty tile. Or perhaps the opportunity to win an extra $100,000 prize for being the first to place five dice onto the High Five tile.
Bad Luck is a tricky one as it forces each player with the lowest amount of dice in this casino to lose $50,000. Knockout? Is also a tricky one to navigate as whenever you activate this, all other players must place an unused dice onto this tile, removing any dice they had previously placed there (if any). It forces players to lose dice, and potentially end their turn early.
Block It! brings a clever additional rule, where nine blank grey dice are laid out into two groups of two, one group of three, and two singles. Whenever you activate this tile, you can take one of the groups and then place those dice into any other casino. They then act as an extra dummy player, potentially knocking out another player’s dice if they have the same number as dice there.
Nice Dice and My Choice are my two personal favourites though. My Choice allows you to throw two additional black dice and then chose one of the two results. A roll of one will gain you an extra chip. A two will get you two chips. Three will gain your $30,000. Four will allow you to activate any other tile as if you had just placed a dice there. A five will allow you to rotate one of your remaining dice to show any number and then place that dice into the corresponding casino. And a roll of six will allow you to place one of your remaining dice onto the space on this tile. Then during payout, if your dice is still there, as another player could kick it out with their own roll of six, you will gain an additional $60,000 from the bank.
Nice Dice allows you to place a spare unrolled dice into one of six spaces on this tile. During payout, any dice remaining here, as again they can get kicked out by other players, will pay out chips or money, up to the value of $60,000.
The game suggests you use three of these tiles, placed on Casinos one to three, but you could of course use fewer or more. Even up to six with one tile on each casino. It is entirely up to you.
Final Bets Please
Las Vegas Royale has the perfect synergy of luck and choice. You will be forever pondering where you place your dice, trying to second guess what other players may do, and trying to assert your dominance on certain casino’s. But as with most dice games, a lot of what happens in this game will come down to what you roll. But, with the expansion tiles, and the ‘Biggy,’ (a larger dice each player has access too which counts as two dice when placed) there is some strategy here. You can play this game in many different ways and deploy different strategies to try and win. But in most game’s I have played, there is usually at least one moment where one player has a turn that could decide victory or defeat on the base of one final roll.
I think that this, right here will decide if this game is for you or not. If this sounds unfair, annoying, or just simply too luck-based for you, then I don’t think you will enjoy this game. But if you like the idea of a game that does rely on some decision making, that does need some strategy and good choices, but will also have moments that are decided purely on the roll of a few dice, then you could be into a real winner with Las Vegas Royale.
Screams of delight or frustration come with every game of Las Vegas Royale. But my group and family have come back to this game time after time. It never fails to deliver talked-about moments each time it hits the table. Games are quick and can be over in 20 minutes on some occasions. So, if you did get unlucky, you can always rack em’ up and throw down again. But even in those moments of frustration and defeat, there will be stories to tell. Epic dice throws to recount. Tales of victory to cherish.
