What is Bunco?

Question

My mother used to play it 50 years ago and I always thought it was a card game but I guess I was wrong...can 2 people play it or does it have to be more?

Answer 1

Bunco is a parlour game played in teams with three dice. A winning throw in Bunco is to throw three of a kind of a specified number.

According to the World Bunco Association, Bunco began as a progressive dice game in England, later being imported to the American West as a gambling activity. It was not until after the Civil War that it evolved to a popular parlor game. The Association states that during Prohibition, Bunco as a gambling game was re-popularized and the term "Bunco-Squad" was born, referring to law-enforcement groups that busted up Bunco Gaming. Bunco as a family game saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s.

In recent years, the game has seen a resurgence in popularity in America, particularly with affluent suburban women. As it is played today, Bunco is a social dice game involving luck, some skill, scoring and a complex set of rules. Women who are part of a Bunco Club take turns as the Bunco Hostess, providing snacks, refreshements and the tables to set up the games. The Hostess may also provide a door prize. Small amounts of money can be involved as well. The object of the game is to accumulate points and to roll certain combinations. The winners get prizes provided by the Hostess or pooled from the Club resources. Prizes frequently center on themes associated with the game such as fancy dice, dice embedded in soap, t-shirts featuring illustrations of dice, etc.

Answer 2

Bunco is a game of dice, and chance. I played it once with a group of people. The object is to role a certain pair of numbers on the dice, for example two 2's or three 3's. You take turns rolling the dice, and if you get the target double, you are the potential winner. We played with a prize, and the potential winner took possesion of the prize until someone else rolled a double, or until time ran out, in which case, they became the winner. Every so often, we changed the number we were targeting, and at the end, we had a round where all doubles were winners.
To answer your second question, I do not think Bunco would be a very good game for 2 people, or at least it would not be very fun.

Answer 3

It's a dice game, yes... you can play it with two people, but that would be boring, more the merrier. You can pick up a cheap bunco game set at walgreens.