Las Vegas
2-5
8+
30
Try your luck in the glitzy world of gambling in Las Vegas! With different amounts to be won in each of six great casinos, decide where to place our dice in every round and outwit your competitors by maximizing your gains. But be sure to keep your wits about you in the battle over the big bucks! An interactive dice game with easy rules and an interesting game variation.
User Reviews (3)
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At first I was very skeptical about this game mainly because it is as “dicey” as it gets. There are tons of games out there based on dice rolling and RNG. There are some really good ones and some that are just super repetitive. And before actually playing Las Vegas, I was concerned that it would be no different than playing the **** games at the Casinos.
It is so much more than that. Gambling is based more on like and probability than strategy. In Las Vegas, they’ve actually included strategy within a luck based dice rolling game.
I’ll break it down for you in 3 parts: Strategy, Luck and Competition.
Luck – this is obviously based on whatever numbers you end up rolling.
Strategy – what you do with your dice on your very first roll could determine the outcome for you for the rest of the round. You can commit to securing your “bid” on a casino with the biggest payout OR you can try spreading out your winnings by bidding on more casinos. Both have their advantages and disadvantages depending on other players rolls. Every single roll after that will create new strategies.
Competition – this is where it gets fun. As all the other continue to place their dice, you will start noticing that you are strong in securing your winnings or weak. And then you will have to decide if you want to fight for what you committed with or give it up and try bidding on another casino so you can at least go home with something. BUT someone else’s roll can get you back in the game. So this is where it gets very fun and your group will be cheering just like onlookers at a lucky roller at a ***** table.
With a new group, once you you have played the first out of the 4 rounds, they will be sucked in. Make no mistake about it, this game is ultimately about winning money and that is a theme that everyone can relate to because everyone deep down inside wants as much as they can get. The rules are very simple, the components consist of a fake money, some cardboard pieces and dice, lots of dice and that is all you need for a very intense and fun night of rolling dice.
Oh by the way, you must get the expansion, Las Vegas Boulevard if you can find it. It has no North American distribution but if you can get your hands of it, it really changes up the game a bit and makes it more competitive. It has several modules which you can pick and choose depending on how complex and how much randomness you want your game to be but you don’t have to add in all the modules or it will make the game too long.
Anyways, if you are a fan of dice rolling games, this is a must have!!
Quick Summary
Las Vegas is a quick and light Area Control game that has heavy elements of luck, risk and confrontation. Players attempt to gamble over control of Las Vegas casinos to attempt and gain the most money from those casinos.
Primary Mechanics
– Area Control– Casinos are placed with cards that represent an amount of money that can be won at that casino. Each casino will have a minimum of $50,000.
Players take turns rolling their dice and placing all of that one type of dice on to the corresponding casino. After everyone has placed their dice, whoever has the most dice gets the highest valued card at that casino. If there is a 2nd or 3rd place, they will get the 2nd or 3rd highest valued card, respectfully.
But ties is where the game really sets itself apart from other filler or area control games. All ties get canceled out. If green has 1 dice, blue has 4 and red has 4, green wins.
– Official “Ghost Dice” Variant – This is a clever variant to add either a dummy player or just to spice up the game. Players split the dice of a color equally among the players and roll them. The dice is placed along with other dice that match the number that the player places. These dice can be used to try and block other players, used to try and tie another player, or if you aren’t careful, can screw you up as well.
Balance & Difficulty
This game is so quick and simple to teach, by the time you’ve finished reading this review, I could have taught it to you, your friends and your family.
In regards to balance, it is a vegas themed game, so there’s a lot of luck involved. Sometimes you just need to roll a six, and it won’t happen, meanwhile other players will have rolls with astronomical probability. But the luck is all even, and part of the tactical nature of the game involves mitigating that luck.
Theme
The theme is Las Vegas, and thats what it feels like. I can’t tell of players are suppose to be gambling investors or just high risk gamblers, but it still works well.
Components
– Casino Boards – These are large cardboard pieces in a similar shape to the Las Vegas sign. They can be arranged on the table in many ways which helps with the game’s portability.
– Dice – There are an absolute ton of dice with this game. It comes with enough for 5 players. They are all standard plastic dice of average quality with filleted corners and edges. The dice aren’t made for rolling across the table, just rolling in your hands and setting them down on the table.
– Cards – The cards in the game come in a good thick card stock. Scuffing may happen, but it won’t be a significant issue of imbalance. The cards are sort of designed to look like American money with the portrait of George Washington, but you can tell it’s a european take with their use of a dot instead of a comma.
– Insert – It has a nice plastic extrusion insert that fits most of the components nicely, but it only has 3 slots for 5 colors of dice. A very odd decision. Either way, I’d recommend bagging the dice up separately and then everything works fine.
– Rulebook – Rulebook is short and sweet, much like the game.
Art
The art is really trying to give the Las Vegas vibe, and it works. I wouldn’t say it’s fantastic art work, but it’s a lot of art about the lights, show, and glamor of Las Vegas. The art on the money cards is a bit underwhelming, as I would have liked a little more design variety other than color and numbers.
Replay Value
For a filler, this has had great replay value. In game nights at home or at the game store, this usually gets pulled out. However, after about 3 consecutive rounds, you’ll usually feel “done” with the game. Like many filler games, it suffers from the risk of being overplayed. But busting it out for three rounds at the beginning of a game night is a great way to waste time as people show up. Three rounds can easily be played in 15-20 minutes, as long as people don’t try and think too much about it.
Who May Be Interested in it?
Someone looking for an easy and combative filler should look into this one. It’s also a game that seems to do quite well with families. So if gamers are trying to bridge that “party game” gap, this can be a really good addition. Social gamers, party gamers, and casual gamers should all give this a look. Avid gamers should consider adding this to their collection as well.
Who Should Avoid it?
Power gamers that don’t want to spend their time with fillers should avoid this one. Gamers who hate high influences of luck should avoid this one too. It isn’t swingy luck, but it’s very random – as with any dice based game. Strategy gamers won’t find much strategy here. It has some elements of strategy, but it’s mostly a tactical game to adjust things turn-by-turn.
Final Conclusion
I’m not particularly fond of games with a lot of random aspects. But that only really gets to be a problem with things depend on a particular roll or have huge power swings. This game does random, but it does random well, and it doesn’t take too long to play, so it isn’t like a long term investment that turns sour. This is a game I’ve enjoyed playing. I don’t care for direct conflict in games, but this game has it in spades, and it makes me laugh.
About my reviews.
The purpose isn’t to teach you how to play the game. This review isn’t to reinforce any type of confirmation bias. I try to judge the game as it is designed. (No house rules, variants and expansions are reviewed separately). While I may apply a numeric rating, it would be my desire you ignore that number while reading my reviews. What I want to do is highlight notable aspects of the game and critique the game to help you decide if you think it may be something that interests you. I don’t believe it is good for people to make uninformed purchases. Thanks for your time.
When I saw this game I was not very impressed, and had it not been for the fact that I played it I would probably have stayed away from it. I’m not that keen on dice rolling, and the casino boards are pretty plain in their appearance. However, as soon as I tried it out I was hooked. This is a GREAT little filler game mixing luck and strategy.
In essence it’s an area control game where the game board consist of six famous casinos, each representing the possible results of a die. You roll your dice, group all yor different results together and move all dice of a certain result to the corresponding casino. This goes on until no player have any dice left, and then you see who is dominant in the different casinos. Simple enough, huh?
Well, three things stir things up a bit.
1. REWARD
Before each round you prep the casinos with reward bills (worth 10K – 90K), and you keep adding bills to the casino until it reaches a collected value of at least 50K. So some casinos are worth more than others, and some casinos will have just one bill while others have rewards for more than one player.
2. NO TIES!
Before payout you remove all players that have the SAME number of dice as anyone else. So if there are 3 black dice, 3 red dice and just 1 yellow die, yellow will win. This rule is ALWAYS in effect, even if there are two 40K bills as reward. This also means that sometimes it is BAD for you to add dice to a casino, which adds some interesting choice to the game.
3. COMMUNITY DICE!
The game allows each player to get two dice that actually belongs to the house, and these are placed along with your own dice (if you place all your threes, that means both your own threes as well as any community die you may have rolled with a three). Players can as a collective use this to punish each other.
The game is played over four turns, the player that managed to accumulate the most money being the winner.
Obviously luck is a big factor, but it’s possible to make more clever moves then you may think at first. All in all you can finish a game in under 30 minutes, of course depending on the number of players and how fast each player make up their minds… But give it a try, it’s a great gateway game as well.