The shot roulette rules take two minutes to explain, and the game then carries the whole evening. Here they are in full: six variants, honest measures and the house rules that stop the night tipping over. No roulette bowl in the cupboard? You still play – a spinning disc or a dice is enough, which is what makes it one of the few games with shots that never needs a second explanation.
Last updated: 25 September 2026
What is shot roulette?
A party game for adults, sold in the shops as shot glass roulette, that borrows the random mechanic from roulette: instead of betting on numbers, one spin decides who is up next and what happens. Retail sets come with a small bowl, two balls and sixteen numbered glasses; it works just as well with a spinning disc, a dice or a bottle.
💡 By the way: if there is no roulette bowl in your cupboard – our Miniski Roulette spins a ski instead of a ball, and the tip points at the person and at the field at the same time.
Shot roulette rules in five steps
The basic game needs no explanation longer than a minute. This is how one round works with a classic set:
- Set up. The bowl goes in the middle of the table, the numbered glasses around it, alternating red and black. Everyone sits so that every hand can reach.
- Pour. Every glass gets filled – not to the brim, but to a shot measure. What goes in is something the group agrees on beforehand.
- Spin. Taking turns, one person spins the bowl and drops in the ball. Wherever it comes to rest counts.
- Settle the hit. Each glass carries two numbers, so together the sixteen glasses cover the whole number field. The number that comes up points at a glass. Either the person who spun drinks, or the person the glass belongs to – decide that in advance, otherwise you will be arguing about it on the first hit.
- Top up and stop. Empty glasses get refilled so the next spin works. And the group agrees beforehand how many rounds make an evening.
Everything else is a variant, and most of them change one single rule.
What you need: glasses, measures, wheel
The retail standard is a bowl with sixteen glasses, eight red and eight black, roughly thirty centimetres across. It works with eight glasses too, and it works with no bowl at all: with our Miniski Roulette the ski does the spinning and the glasses come out of your own cupboard.
On the measure that no seller ever prints: in a UK bar a single is 25 ml and a double 50 ml, and some places pour 35 and 70 ml instead – but that is about what a bar serves, not about what a glass holds. At home nobody measures anything: the glasses that come with the shot glass roulette sets usually hold 2 cl (20 ml), our ski boot glass is calibrated to 4 cl (40 ml). Sixteen glasses at 2 cl is 320 millilitres, at 4 cl it is already 640 – across four people that comes to eight or sixteen centilitres each before anyone has topped up. Pour bigger and you shorten the evening; that is not a moral point, it is maths. Plan for a handful of rounds instead, and fill some of the glasses with water or with something alcohol-free.
If you are buying glasses anyway: real glass stands steadier than thin plastic, and glasses with a binding get used again after the game instead of disappearing into a cupboard. What matters when you fit the binding is in our guide to shot ski bindings.
Six ways to play
The variants differ in who drinks, how much chance is involved and whether anyone wins at the end.
1. Everyone has their own glass
Each person is given fixed numbers. If the ball lands on one of them, it is clear who is up. This is the fairest variant and the best one for bigger groups, because nobody has to work anything out.
2. Whoever spins, drinks
The ball only decides the glass; the person who spun is the one who drinks. A quick way in, because nothing has to be assigned – but someone on a bad run comes up several times over. That is exactly why the pass rule belongs here, see below.
3. Red against black
Two teams, two colours – in the shops that means red against black. If it hits your own colour, the glass stays where it is; if it hits the other one, it gets cleared. Many sets also have a green zero as a joker: hit it and you get to decide who drinks. The disc on our Miniski Roulette is already split into two colour halves – green fields on one side, red on the other, so it is red against green rather than red against black. That gives you the team variant without rebuilding anything.
4. Mix and match
Not every glass holds the same thing. A few glasses get something unusual – juice, pickle brine, cold tea – and nobody knows which ones. That takes the pace out, because the tension comes from the mixture and not from the amount.
5. The field wheel
Instead of numbers, the disc carries fields with instructions. The spin then tells you not only who is up, but what happens. This variant is the heart of this article and comes up in detail below.
6. No wheel at all
No bowl, no disc, still roulette: six glasses, one dice, three of them filled with water. The number you roll is the glass. Or you spin a bottle in the middle of the table. If you would rather build something yourself, there are instructions over at the DIY drinking games.
The field wheel: why eight fields beat 36 numbers
A bowl with 36 numbers plus a zero only tells you whether you have been hit. A disc with fields tells you what happens – and that is exactly what decides whether a game is boring after three rounds or carries the evening.
In our version the Miniski with binding and shot glass sits on a turning base in the middle of the disc. One tap is enough, and as it slows the ski tip points at a person and at a field at the same time. One spin answers both questions that otherwise need a bowl and a ball. The ski spins out, eight heads follow the tip, and one person knows two seconds early that they are the one – those two seconds of silence are what somebody always catches on camera afterwards.
The printed disc carries eight fields, and they are printed in German and English, so the shot roulette wheel already speaks your language: TRINKEN – DRINK, WAHRHEIT – TRUTH, PFLICHT – DARE, JA – YES, NEIN – NO, GEWONNEN – WINNER, VERLOREN – LOSER and WEITER – NEXT. That last field is the most important one. Anyone who does not want to spins on, and nobody asks why. That is not a concession; it is printed on the game.
What exactly happens on WAHRHEIT – TRUTH and PFLICHT – DARE is something you settle as a group beforehand, and you keep it short; there is material for that over at the drinking game questions. The blank disc stays unprinted: your own house rules go on there – karaoke, yodelling, washing-up duty. Three fields of your own are plenty, more gets confusing.
The eight-field round
- The ski stands on the turning base in the middle of the disc, everyone sits in a circle. One person taps it.
- Wherever the tip stops counts twice over: it points at a person and at a field.
- TRINKEN – DRINK – the person it lands on takes their shot, and an alcohol-free one counts the same. WAHRHEIT – TRUTH or PFLICHT – DARE – here what the group agreed beforehand applies, for a minute at most. JA – YES or NEIN – NO – whoever is hit hands an open decision over to the disc. GEWONNEN – WINNER or VERLOREN – LOSER – settles a duel that is already running. WEITER – NEXT – pass with no explanation, the next person spins.
- House rule "NEXT always counts": everyone may take WEITER – NEXT once per round of their own accord, even when the tip is pointing at something else.
- Agree beforehand how many rounds it takes to finish. Skip that and you stop halfway through, and it feels like the evening was cut off.
Playing it alcohol-free
One field says DRINK; what goes in is up to each person, and an alcohol-free row carries a whole round just as far. The only thing that matters is that it does not look like a consolation prize: same glasses, same fields, same order, same pace.
It works best when the alcohol-free glasses are meant as seriously as the others – a cold, strong brew or a sharp, sour shot tastes of something, tap water tastes of a break. Eight recipes for that are over at the non-alcoholic shots.
House rules that save the night
Shot roulette rarely tips over because of the game; it tips over because nothing was agreed. Four rules are enough:
- NEXT always counts. Passing is not sitting out, and it does not get commented on.
- Water and something to eat are on the table, not in the kitchen. Whatever is not standing there, nobody goes to get.
- An end is agreed before the first ball drops: a fixed number of rounds or a time.
- Nobody pours for anybody else. Everyone fills their own glass – that sorts out the amount by itself.
And one point of terminology, because every second set of instructions leaves it out: 'Russian roulette' as a party game usually means that one glass holds something much stronger and nobody knows which. That is not a variant we describe, because it only runs in one direction. The appeal of the game is the chance of who is up – not who ends up taking the most.
Shot roulette in a chalet – and in the snow
A thirty-centimetre bowl with a loose ball fails on any chalet table: the top is uneven, the ball jumps, and the first time someone knocks the table it is all on the floor. A flat disc does without a loose ball, and that alone means nothing falls off the table.
And when the group wants to drink together, the disc gets pushed aside: the SwigSki3000® is made of four wooden modules with one place each, every one of them removable and wipeable. One place measures 25 centimetres, so four modules come to exactly one metre, and if your group grows there are extensions – we recommend up to eight places. At the Shotski the spinning stops: four people lift at the same moment, and it is the one point in the evening when everybody does the same thing.
Two things go with that: real glass has no business on the slopes, in the lift or in the park, and stays tied to the table. And taken apart, the ski fits in a backpack, which is what makes it fit for a chalet in the first place. Which Shotski length suits which group is in our shot ski buying guide; how a whole apres ski evening runs is in our guide to apres ski party games.
The five most common mistakes
- Too many glasses for too few people. Sixteen glasses between four people means four glasses each before anyone has topped up. Use half the amount.
- Only clear spirits in the glasses. If every glass looks the same and tastes the same, the tension is gone after ten minutes.
- Unclear assignment. Whether the spinner drinks or the owner of the glass does is decided beforehand – not argued out on the first hit.
- A wobbly table. On a soft blanket or a camping table nothing spins out cleanly. Firm, level surface, otherwise the result keeps landing differently.
- No end. With no agreed finishing point the game runs until nobody is enjoying it any more.
If you need something else after the roulette: more games are in our overview of drinking games and among the weird drinking games.
Frequently asked questions
How do you play shot roulette?
One spin decides who is up next: with a classic set a ball drops into a numbered field and so points at a glass, with a spinning disc the spin points at a field, and in our version the ski tip points at the person and the field at the same time.
How many glasses do you need for shot roulette?
The retail standard is sixteen glasses, eight red and eight black. But it also works with eight glasses, or with no set at all: with a spinning disc the glasses come out of your own cupboard, and you only need one per person.
How many people is shot roulette for – and how long does a round take?
Two to eight people works well; above that the assignment gets confusing. Depending on how many turns you play, a round lasts roughly thirty to sixty minutes.
What drink goes in the glasses – and how many cl?
In a UK bar a single is 25 ml and a double 50 ml, in some places 35 and 70 ml; the glasses in most game sets hold 2 cl (20 ml), our ski boot glass 4 cl (40 ml). Mix clear and dark so you cannot tell straight away what is coming, and deliberately fill some of the glasses with water or something alcohol-free.
Can you play shot roulette without alcohol?
Yes, and on equal terms: same glasses, same fields, same pace. The only thing that matters is that the alcohol-free row tastes of something – cold, strong tea or a sharp, sour shot rather than tap water.
What is the difference between shot roulette and 'Russian roulette'?
In shot roulette, chance decides who is up. 'Russian roulette' usually means that one glass holds something much stronger and nobody knows which. We deliberately do not describe that variant – it only runs in one direction.
Sources: product details of standard retail roulette sets (16 glasses, 8 red/8 black, 2 balls, roughly 30 cm across, 2–8 people) at monsterzeug.de, otto.de and ebay.de; rules and variants at spielregeln.de, beerpong.de and trinkspielzone.de; UK bar measures of 25 ml and 35 ml under the Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order, which covers what a bar serves rather than what a glass holds; capacities of 2 cl and 4 cl per calibrated glasses. As of September 2026.