Crown and Anchor Dice Game Rules

Crown and Anchor is an old British dice game, long a favourite of sailors in the Royal Navy and the merchant fleet. It uses three special dice and a betting mat, both marked with the same six symbols: a crown, an anchor, and the four card suits, hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades. If you do not own the special dice, ordinary ones work fine: let each number stand for a symbol, say 1 for the crown and 2 for the anchor.

Two to eight players is a good size. One person is the banker and everyone else bets against the bank, with the role passing around the table. You need chips or counters to stake, and you can draw the mat on a sheet of paper with the six symbols on it. The game is traditionally played for money, but chips do the job just as well.

Each round is short and always runs the same way:

1. Players place their stakes on one or more of the six symbols.
2. The banker rolls the three dice, usually from a cup, and shows the result.
3. Every bet is settled: if none of the dice show the symbol you backed, the bank keeps your stake. Otherwise you are paid for each die that matches.

Then a new round begins. Hold off rolling until every stake is down.

When you win, you keep your stake and are paid on top of it, based on how many dice show your symbol:

• One die: the same amount as your stake.
• Two dice: twice your stake.
• Three dice: three times your stake.

Say you put two chips on the anchor and two of the dice come up anchor: you get your two chips back plus four more. If no die shows your symbol, the stake is lost.

Crown and Anchor has no fixed end, so agree in advance how many rounds you will play or when you will stop. The bank holds a small edge over time, so pass the banker's role around often, ideally after every round, to spread that edge out. Whoever has the most chips at the end wins.