Kid Stuff: Yahtzee
Like most popular games, Yahtzee is a combination of skill and luck. More than 50 million games are still sold around the world each year. Uploaded by ny-image0.etsy.com.
You roll those five dice, hoping that five of a kind will appear during three rolls. That’s a “Yahtzee” – the highest scoring play in a game that’s as popular now as it was when first introduced back in 1956.
The story is that a Canadian couple adapted the game from a couple of other dice games, and played it on their yacht with friends. They brought the idea to a man named Edwin Lowe, who bought the rights in exchange for 1000 copies of the game. Lowe owned the company that made the game until 1973, when it was sold to Milton Bradley. The game is now marketed by Hasbro (as it appears all toys are).
Uploaded by communitybydesign.blogspot.com.
The rules of the game are somewhat similar to poker, in that players try to get full houses, small and large straights, and four and five of a kind. The original marketing slogan was, “The game that makes you think while having fun.”
Hasbro says that 50 million Yahtzee games are sold worldwide each year. That’s pretty amazing. The game was included in the Toy Industry of America’s Century of Toys list.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6J0R6WbBIY]