Rules & scoring

Last updated: 16/10/2026

1. What this game is

Bau Cua Tom Ca is a familiar folk game played during the New Year holidays in Vietnam. Grown-ups sit around a tray, one person shakes three dice in a bowl, and everyone lays coins on the squares bearing animal pictures. When the dice are revealed, whoever picked an animal that shows up is rewarded.

The version on this site keeps those rules, but swaps coins for virtual points so everyone plays for fun — nobody loses real money and nobody receives real money.

2. The six symbols

3. How to play on this site

1. Pick the point level on the bottom chip row: 10, 20, 50, 100, ×2, ×4, ×8 — or ALL to put all your current points on one square.
2. Tap one or more squares on the board to pick the animals you believe in.
3. Wait for the dice bowl to shake. The dice go through 4 stages: the previous round faintly → cleared → question mark → the real result.
4. The server reveals the result and scores it for everyone at the same time.

Each round lasts a few tens of seconds. You can add more squares while the clock is still running; once the squares close, the table waits for the next round. Everyone's points in the room are added up and fade in on each square, so you can see which animal the room is leaning toward.

4. How scoring works

Suppose you pick B points on one animal, and that animal appears k times in the three dice (k = 0, 1, 2 or 3):

In other words: you are paid back exactly the points you picked, plus k × B bonus points. If the animal does not appear, you lose the points picked on that square. Each square you pick is counted separately, then added up into the round's result.

Examples

• You pick 100 points on Rooster. The dice show 🐓 🐓 🦀 → Rooster appears 2 times → you get back 100 + 200 = 300 points.
• You pick 100 on Rooster and 50 on Fish. The dice show 🐟 🦀 🦌 → Rooster 0 times (lose 100), Fish 1 time (get back 50 + 50 = 100) → this round you are −50 points.

5. Starting points and first-round refund

• Starting points: a new player is given some points to begin with, with no top-up at all.
• First-round refund: in the first round where you pick a square and miss, the site refunds part of the points lost (up to 200 points) — so your first round does not drain too fast. Each person gets one refund.
• Game point fund: the number shown on the left ear of the board. The fund is always kept at a floor level, regardless of whether your picks match or miss.

6. Odds — just for fun

Three dice, six faces each, so there are 6 × 6 × 6 = 216 possible results. For any one animal, the number of results by how many times it appears is:

From the table you can also see: for every 100 points picked, you get back on average about 92 points. That small gap is the cost of running the server — and also why no strategy turns this game of chance into a sure thing.

7. A few ways to play for fun

• Pick one square: points swing very hard — about 42% of rounds you get a bonus, but when it lands it is quite rich.
• Pick several squares: less volatile. Pick 4 squares and almost every round has a matching square, but the bonus is thinner too.
• Do not trust "patterns": each round is three independent dice. The previous round's result does not affect the next one — the history is only for fun.

8. Frequently asked questions