By Noyon Rahman · Updated August 2026 · Reviewed for accuracy against the live game
Ludo is one of the most widely played board games on earth, and its appeal has barely changed since Victorian England, when it was patented as a simplified version of the ancient Indian game Pachisi. Four players each command four tokens waiting in a corner yard. Roll a six to bring a token onto the board, then send it on a full circuit of the track before steering it up your own coloured column into the central home. The twist that makes every game different is capture: land exactly on a rival's token and it goes straight back to its yard, costing that player everything it had travelled. It is a game of dice, but not a game of pure luck — knowing when to race ahead and when to sit on a safe square is what separates winners from the rest.
Each player has four tokens in their yard. On your turn you roll a six-sided die. To move a token out of the yard onto your coloured starting square you must roll a 6; rolling a 6 also earns you another roll. Once a token is out, each roll moves it that many squares clockwise around the track. After a full circuit, a token turns off the main track into its own coloured home column and creeps toward the centre. To finish, a token must reach the centre with an exact roll — a 6 will not fit into a space that only needs 3 — and the first player to get all four tokens home wins. Special rules add the drama: rolling three 6s in a row forfeits your turn entirely, and landing on an opponent's token captures it, sending it back to the yard while you take an extra roll. Coloured starting squares and the star-marked squares are safe, so tokens sitting there can never be captured. If you have no legal move, your turn passes automatically.
A token can only leave the yard on a 6 — that is the rule that gives Ludo its early-game tension. If all your tokens are still in the yard and you roll anything but a 6, your turn passes with nothing to do.
Your turn is forfeited and the dice pass to the next player. This standard rule exists to stop anyone steamrolling with a lucky streak, and it means a third consecutive 6 is genuinely bad news rather than a bonus.
The four coloured starting squares and the four star-marked squares around the board are safe, which is why they are worth targeting when you want to park a token safely. Home-column squares are also protected, so a token that has entered its own column can never be captured.
Yes. Your own tokens may stack on the same square, and the board will show them side by side. Stacking makes them safe from a single capture, but it also means one unlucky opponent roll could send more than one token home at once.
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