How to Play Ludo: Rules, Setup & Winning Strategy

The Ludo board is a 15×15 grid shaped like a cross. Four colored home bases — red, blue, green and yellow — sit in the corners, and a shared track of 52 squares loops around the outside. In the middle sits the home triangle, the finishing point for every token.

• Each player chooses a color and places all four tokens in the matching base.
• Every color owns a starting square, marked in its own color, where tokens enter the track.
• A colored home column runs from the outer track into the center — only tokens of that color may travel it.
• Players roll one six-sided die; the highest roll goes first, then play continues clockwise.

1. Roll a 6 to start. A token can only leave the base on a roll of 6, moving onto its colored starting square.
2. Move clockwise. Move one token forward exactly the number of pips shown. You may only move one token per roll.
3. Extra rolls. Rolling a 6 grants another roll. Capturing an opponent also grants another roll.
4. Three sixes. In most house rules, rolling three 6s in a row forfeits the turn — a useful check on runaway luck.
5. No legal move. If no token can legally move, the turn passes to the next player.
6. Exact count home. A token must reach the center by an exact roll; an overshoot is not allowed and the move is skipped.
7. Winning. The first player to bring all four tokens into the center home triangle wins the game.

Landing exactly on a square occupied by a single opponent token captures it: that token returns to its base and must roll a 6 all over again to re-enter. Capturing is the single biggest swing in Ludo, and it also earns you a bonus roll.

Safe squares are the exception. Squares marked with a star, along with each color's starting square, protect whatever rests on them — an opponent may share the square but cannot send your token home. Planning your stops around the star squares is the core of defensive Ludo.

• Get tokens out early. With more tokens on the track you have more choices each roll, and fewer wasted turns.
• Spread, don't stack. Running all four tokens in a tight clump makes them easy prey for a single well-timed roll.
• Hop between stars. Count ahead so that risky moves finish on a safe square rather than in an opponent's strike range.
• Know the danger zone. Any token within six squares ahead of an opponent can be captured next turn. Move it, or accept the risk deliberately.
• Prioritise the capture. Sending an opponent's advanced token back to base costs them an entire lap and gives you a free roll — it is almost always worth more than a small advance.
• Block the entrance. Parking a token near an opponent's starting square pressures every piece they try to bring out.
• Finish deliberately. Don't rush every token into the home column at once; a token still on the track can defend, threaten, and absorb awkward rolls.

• Always moving the furthest token, ignoring easy captures behind it.
• Leaving a token parked exactly six squares in front of an opponent.
• Bringing out a fourth token when a capture was available instead.
• Forgetting that the home column needs an exact count, then stalling for turns.
• Treating every 6 as an entry roll when advancing a threatened token matters more.

Ludo descends from Pachisi, played in India as early as the 6th century. Mughal emperors — Akbar the Great most famously — are said to have played it on life-sized courtyard boards using people as pieces. The modern version was patented in England in 1896, swapping cowrie shells for a six-sided die and giving the game the name Ludo, Latin for "I play".