Thanks a Lottery

Turn the golden rule into gold. Help out others for a chance to score big.

Make blocks of cards to score points, or you can add onto others’ blocks to score points for both of you and grab dice. These dice are tickets for the end-of-round lottery where they can score even more points.

Do you have the right dice?

The more you help out others, the more chances you’ll have to hit it big. Most points after 3 rounds wins!

Thanks a Lottery is a rummy-ish game of selfish motiviation for 2–6 players.

How to Play

Score the most points over 3 rounds to win. You’ll score points by:

• Playing blocks of in front of yourself
• Adding to blocks in front of others
• Having the right dice for the end-of-round lottery

You’ll get a new hand of 6 cards to each players to start the round. You’ll also roll all 15 dice to make the round’s dice pool. These dice are tickets for the lottery at the end of the round.

Take turns drawing a card, then trying to score points. To start, all you can do is play a block in front of yourself.

What’s a Block?

A block is 3 or more cards that are either sequential or identical.

Wilds

Use wild cards in place of another card. You can only use 1 wild per block, and you can only play them in your own blocks.

Expanding Your Options

Once you play a block for yourself, future turns give you more options:

• Play a new block in front of yourself
• Add cards to your blocks
• Add cards to someone else’s blocks, taking a die from the dice pool per card added
• Replace a Wild in someone else’s blocks with the real deal, taking that Wild into your hand and taking a die from the dice pool

Which dice do you take from the dice pool? Do you load up on the same dice to go for a windfall, or do you take some of each to spread your chances?

Wrapping the Round

Keep taking turns until someone either:

• Starts their turn with at least 1 die but no cards in their hand, or;
• Can’t draw a card because the central deck is empty, or;
• Takes the last die from the dice pool.

Turns then stop and everyone has the option of re-rolling any of their dice 1 time. From there, it’s time to hold the lottery.

Holding the Lottery

Shake up the 8 tokens in the tin, then draw 3 at random. As you draw tokens, place them on the round’s prize card. All matching dice score the points shown.

But hang on… some of those tokens aren’t dice. The token with a gray x on it means no dice score these points. The token with a red 7 on it means that all dice score these points.

Score the Round

Your score this round goes like this:

• Get 1 point per card in your own blocks
• Get 1 point per die in front of you
• Get all the points your dice won in the lottery
• And lose 1 point per card still in your hand at the end of the round

This is your total for the round.

See Who Wins

If this was Round 1 or Round 2, write down your score and start a new round. Whoever caused the end of the round deals next time.

Otherwise, add up your scores from all 3 rounds, and whoever has the most points wins!