How to Play Zilch

Last Updated on April 9, 2025 by The Official Game Rules Team

Zilch is a classic non-gambling dice game, similar to Farkle, but with fewer scoring rules and a point limit of 5000. It’s a fun and straightforward game that keeps players on their toes. Another enjoyable variation of this game is Spicy Farkle.

A felt dice cup with 6 white dice laid out in front of it to play zilch dice game

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Equipment

Six (6) six-sided dice
Paper and a pencil

How to Play

Each player takes a turn consisting of one or more rolls of the dice. On a player’s turn:

Roll all six dice.
Identify and “freeze” (set aside) one or more scoring dice (see Scoring below) and add the score to the player’s total for the turn.
If no scoring dice are rolled (a “zilch”), the turn is over, and the player scores 0 for that turn. The dice are then passed to the next player.
If desired, the player may continue rolling the remaining (unfrozen) dice in an attempt to increase their score for the turn. However, they must freeze some combination of scoring dice on each roll. If no scoring dice are rolled, it results in a zilch, and the player scores 0 for the turn.
If the player freezes all six dice, they have the option to “turn the corner” and roll all six dice again to continue adding to their score. If a zilch occurs after turning the corner, the player loses all points accrued during the turn, including those before and after the corner was turned.
If the player chooses not to roll again and has not zilched, they add the score for the turn to their total and pass the dice to the next player.

Scoring

Score sheet showing the possible dice roll and their scores for the zilch dice game

About Scoring Combinations

Players may not “stack” dice to create new combinations. For example, if a player rolls a ⚀, freezes it, and then rolls two more ⚀s on a subsequent turn, they cannot combine all three ⚀s to make ⚀⚀⚀ (worth 1000 points). Instead, the first ⚀ is worth 100, and the next two ⚀s are each worth 100, totaling 300 points.

Winning

The game continues until one player reaches 5000 points or more. When this happens, every other player gets one final turn to try to beat the high score. After the last player’s turn, the player with the highest score is declared the winner.