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Review #10: Wits & Wagers

# of Players: 3-7
Playtime: 0-30 Minutes
Core Mechanic: Trivia
Theme: Betting
Type: Party
Weight: Light
Year: 2005

Rating: 7*

Probably one of the most popular or at least well-recognized trivia games out there is Trivial Pursuit. I think Trivial Pursuit is easy enough to learn and play but no fun at all unless you're on team or know a lot of trivia. Wits & Wagers twists this formula by allowing players to not only score points for knowing the answers to the questions, but also for knowing who knows the answers. This transforms the game from a trivia game into a betting one, or from bland into absolute fun.


The game is played over seven rounds. Each round, a question will be asked that has an answer in a numerical form, such as "how tall...", "how many..." or "what year...", etc. Each player or team will write down their answer on their answer card and then all these cards will be collected and sorted from highest to lowest. The middle guess gets placed on the middle payout slots (either 2:1 or 3:1 depending on the number of guesses) and the other guesses get places on the slots on either side. Players then have 30 seconds to place a bet on which answer they think is the closest without going over or bet that the answer is smallest than the smallest guess. Once the correct answer is revealed, the players or teams are paid out in poker chips if they have won their bet and the player or team who wrote the winning answer gets three bonus chips.


At the start of the game, each player starts with two wager chips which cannot be lost. As players start gathering poker chips from previous wins or correct answers, they are also able to wager the chips as well. Naturally, the later rounds will have much larger stakes as players are willing to bet more to win the game. After the seven rounds are up, the player or team with the most chips wins! So even if you don't know the right answer, you're able to take an educated guess and still be correct as long as you're closest without going over. And if you don't know the answer but think you know who would, you can bet that their solution is right and perhaps even gain more chips this way than by actually knowing the answer. Finally, even if you don't know the answer and don't know who would, you could always just go with the flow and see which answer gets the most chips placed on it and hope others are right!


This is the perfect party game - able to draw in those familiar with the concept of answering questions like the popular Trivial Pursuit but light because the game doesn't depend on actually needing to know the answers. This game is perfect for the Gateway collection and I think that it should be in the Essential and Collector collections as well. This isn't heavy by any degree, but if you are looking for a fun and quick party game this fits the bill. This is the first party game I have reviewed and, similar to the travel collection I think there might be enough games for a party collection.

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