Customer Reviews

Wits And Wagers

5 star:		(106)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wits & Wagers is the trivia game that levels the playing field for those who can't abide trivia games. Even a child can play this and win. The skill comes more from making smart bets than answering correctly.

COMPONENTS

The game comes with a set of question cards that ask questions that even Jeopardy! players would find hard to know. (Such as "How many elevators operate within the Empire State Building?") The cards are nicely designed and sturdy. The answers come printed on the backs and include extra details to flesh out the interesting nature of the questions.

The players bet on a betting table board (fabric over a rubberized back in the first edition, felt in the second). The betting board contains a series of odds that run from the middle at 1:1 to the ends at 4:1. Each players selects one of seven colors and receives two wooden bet markers painted in their color. Players then receive a dry-erase marker and a small dry-erase board framed in their color. They also receive ten red chips (worth 5 pts each) and three blue (10 pts). A 30-second sand timer limits stalling on answering questions or betting.

PLAY

A game consists of seven questions. A question with a numerical answer is read from the card and the timer set. Each player writes his answer on his dry-erase board. When time is called, the player's answers are placed on the betting board according to their spread; the response in the middle of all answers is placed at the center of the betting board at 1:1 with the rest spread in numerical order across the betting positions (with increasing odds against) on each side.

Players are then given 30 more seconds to bet once the answers are in place. They can bet on two answers up to 10 point chips total, tracking their bets with the bet markers. The answer is then read. The response on the betting board closest without going over is declared the winner. Chips are then doled out according to the odds to the players who won on that bet. All other bets are cleared form the table and go into the bank. The player who provided the winning response gets one additional blue chip.

The final question allows players to go all-in. After that final solution is read and chips doled out, the person with the most points in chips wins.

PROS:

* A unique approach to trivia games. The dual nature of the play (answering, betting) mixes things up.

* Anyone can win, even if he doesn't know all the answers. Good betting can compensate for bad responses.

* The questions are intriguing.

* Though the instruction booklet is daunting, the game play is simple.

* Up to seven people can play.

* A complete game can be played in only twenty minutes, allowing for multiple rounds.

* The game components are well-made.

* Plenty of question cards help maintain question freshness.

* Because the answers are all numerical, it makes it harder to remember answers in later game play should a familiar question arise (especially since many of the answers are minutia).

* Because of the betting aspect of the game, even responding with the correct answer from time to time may not guarantee a final win.

* When played at large parties, even non-players can get involved in the fun.

* Easy to learn and explain.

CONS:

* Can be slow the first time it's played (though familiarity brings the speed up considerably).

* The rules for spreading the answers across the board, especially if a couple players give the same response, can be tricky at first.

* The game does involve a Las Vegas style of wagering, and not every crowd may feel comfortable with the "gambling" aspect.

* The all-in final question has the tendency to negate good play on previous questions. (You may wish to alter this rule to set a limit on how much players can bet on the last question.)

People who have played this game with us enjoy it a great deal. Many people like trivia questions and some of these are just outlandishly hard. But that's the point. Most people aren't going to know these answers, and that's where the betting aspect heightens the fun.

While Wits & Wagers may not be the ultimate party game, it's got a lot going for it. Because of its two-pronged play, the game enables a wide variety of people to enjoy it. What more could one desire in a game?

I received Wits & Wagers as a gift last year and have since given it to four different friends. People love this game. It's fast (everyone answers each question), fun (lots of interaction - you're betting on your friend's guesses) and easy to play (the rules sound complicated, but they are not). Besides a few date/year questions, it's pretty hard to embarrass yourself and the gambling levels the playing field. The way the game is structured (with a no limit final round), almost everyone is in it until the end too. Unlike some other trivia games, this one lends itself to mixed crowds of trivia buffs and children. Knowing lots of trivia really won't help you all that much, as smart bets are the key. I highly recommend this award winning game!

This review will be a bit unusual. Instead of reviewing the game normally I'm going to tell you the story of how our first game of Wits & Wagers went.

If you simply want to read the summary of what I think about Wits & Wagers, here it is: It's one of the best party games your money can buy. It's got all the hallmarks of a great party game: Fun & Exciting, light, family friendly, easy to learn, and short gametime to allow for multiple playings.

So that's it. But if you want to know how our first game of Wits & Wagers went, read on.

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I had not been into the gaming scene for a long time, and in my small collection I had zero party games. This led me to do some searching around for the ONE party game that will make it to my tiny collection.

I had come across Wits & Wagers in my searches and found the premise of the game to be very interesting. However, being a value (read: cheap) gamer that I am, I wanted to wait to place my order as a bulk to save on shipping cost. When North Star Games graciously offered a 2nd edition copy to be reviewed, I immediately jumped on the opportunity. After a few days the game arrived.

I then waited and waited, and waited for the right opportunity to introduce the game to our group. Having read the rules and learning about the overall sense of the gameplay I have a feeling that the game will do better with more people than it would with less. Our group consisted of some casual gamers and many who are non-gamers. When we finally had our Christmas gathering, I did a headcount and there were twenty-three people left after dinner. There were 4 simultaneous games going on and one group just finished a game. perfect.

I walked to my game shelf and pulled Wits & Wagers out. As I began to lay the game board on the table people saw the poker chips and began to wonder: "What kind of game is this? Gambling?" One guy commented on the nice glossy feel of the board. Some other dude started to get excited and exclaimed "Wooo, I'm going to whoop everyone's butt if this is a gambling game!!" I just smiled and carried on.


There were 7 people so we had enough for 7 teams. I handed out the starting betting chips to everyone. I handed out the answer sheets and the markers. At this point some people starting to wonder about what kind of game it really is.

Then I started my introduction with my best Drew Carrey impersonation (as best as an Asian Drew Carrey could do): "Welcomeeeeeeeee to Wits & Wagers!!! Where teams will compete, some will rise and some will fall, to answer corrrrrectly. Wits & Wagers is a game of trivia, and a hint for all of you, the answers will always be a positive number. After I read the question, you may write your answer in the pad I gave you, and put your pad on the board face down!!."


At this point someone wondered: "But we only have 1 pad.. how many questions do we have to answer? Ohh.. wait... you can easily erase the answer! Cool!!"

"Alrighttttt... everyone ready??? Here's yourrrrr first question." I started reading some question about the fastest speed of a fish ever recorded. Everyone immediately groaned because they never heard of such trivia. The same dude who said he's going to whoop everyone's butt already mumbled "Oh man, I'm going to lose so bad.."

And that's exactly the point of Wits & Wagers, some of the trivias are so out-of-this-world that you WONT know the answer... but knowing the answer is NOT the ONLY way to win this game.. which these guys will soon find out.


"Alllrightttt... time's up! [gasp in the crowd] Put down your answers, and lets reveal them together on the count of one... two... three!!" Everyone flipped their answers and immediately they made fun of each other's answer. Much Laughter ensued when one MATH teacher put down "415 mph" as her answer.

I sorted out the answer, and I told them. "OKKKK.... now you may put down your bets! Bet on which answer is the closest without going over! The payouts are shown at the bottom of the column!" At this point everyone understood how the game works. I didn't even explain the rule beforehand. This is one of the hallmark of a great party game: Anyone can just start playing the game and immediately have fun.


"Annnd... the answer to the fastest speed of a fish ever recorded iiiiiiissss....." (dramatic pause) I blurted out the answer which was on the 60s.. and everyone's expression was priceless. More laughter. More teasing. There's one person who reaped the prize in the form of more betting chips.

Then someone asked me: "Hey, how many questions did the game come with? At this pace we're going to run out of questions really soon." I showed them the stack of cards with 7 questions each (700 total), and how NorthStar Games give additional question to be used from time to time. He nodded.. "Ahh yeah, this way we wont get to the same question until many, many games in the future."

Then something happened. On question 3 one person exclaimed: "Oh, I know this!! I read it somewhere before!" and started writing down her answer confidently. When the betting time came, 3 or 4 teams put their bets on her answer. Her answer was wrong. More hilarity ensued.


By question 4 the other 2 games that were going on was also finished and they all gathered around our table. After our first game which only took 20 minutes or so everyone else wanted to play too, so we ended up having 7 teams of 2 people each, many of them couples. It was hilarious seeing couples argued on the answers, and many "I told you so!!" comments after the answers were revealed.

By the third game, EVERYONE gathered around our table. The laughter got louder. The bets got more furious. The questions didn't get any less ridiculous.

As we said our goodbyes that night, one girl asked me "hey, what was the answer of the fastest fish question again?"

And that's how our first game of Wits & Wagers went.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND ALL THE HIGH REVIEWS!
I purchased this game after seeing a review on a blog and reading all the positive reviews here on Amazon. However, after playing it twice with friends, and looking through the reviews, I'm convinced that the reviews are NOT all genuine. (As of this writing, my review is the ONLY one that's not 4- or 5- stars.... how is this possible?)

ALL THE ANSWERS MUST BE NUMBERS. BORING!
I thought this game would require some "Wit" and creativity (hence the name!), but the questions are uninspiring and uncreative trivia questions ("What's the population of Montana?" or "How tall is the world's tallest volcano?") that allow for basic numerical guesses with absolutely no creativity. I thought the game would ask for creative answers that we could make up on the spot and have fun with, but no, it's just a number you have to write down on a little dry-erase card.

THE WAGERS AREN'T ALL THAT EXCITING, EITHER.
The second part of the game is placing a bet on which answers you think are correct. The betting isn't all that interesting, and although you can move your bets around based on what other people are doing, it doesn't really get all that exciting.

We spent more time distributing and collecting the chips than we did actually betting.

MORE PLAYERS IS MORE FUN, BUT ONLY MARGINALLY
The first time we played was with four players, and it was awful. Playing with seven players helped, but only marginally.

This games is uninspiring, not much fun or witty, and not challenging or exciting in the least. I'm completely disappointed, and have no desire to ever play this game again.

TRY APPLES TO APPLES INSTEAD!
We put this game away and played Apples to Apples instead and had a much better time.

After playing this game at EuroQuest, GameDays, and other GCOM locations/events, I finally got a copy of Wits and Wagers, just in time for the Thanksgiving weekend. I convinced my wife, not even close to being a serious gamer, to play Thanksgiving night with a couple friends and my Dad. It turned into a 10-game marathon, at her request. She loves it.

The next night we had another marathon session with our neighbors (whose family was up from Tennessee), and the following night, when the family of one of my son's football teammates came over for the evening, we ended up playing again. It's a good thing I love the game, too.

As far as everyone who played during that three-day "Wits and Wagers Fest" is concerned, the best thing about the game is that you don't have to know the exact answer. Any guess even remotely close -- and sometimes ridiculously incorrect -- will do just fine.

Dominic -- the game's designer -- has suggested that a very good variant to the game is an alteration to the betting rules, allowing any amount to be bet on any of the seven questions, instead of just on the seventh (final) question.

So, just how many Lego pieces, out of one million, fail to meet the company's quality standards?

I play a lot of games. A few of them fall under the "party" category. And Wits & Wagers is the best of them!

When trivia games come off the shelf, half the people are up to the challenge while the other half groan. This game is perfect for both groups. One gets to test their general knowlege on some impossibly hard questions while the other enjoys the bluffing and betting that comes along with selecting the best answer. This is "The Price is Right" meets "Trivial Pursuit" with everyone having a blast.

With 600 questions, the game holds up to repeated plays. We play this game a lot, with a lot of different people. We enjoyed it so much that we made it part of our wedding reception where each table played in their own game. Everyone went away wanting more!

I highly recommend this game for any gatehring. You'll be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't like this game.

Recently broke this out at a party. About half the guests enjoyed it, and half drifted away in apathy. Some people just don't LIKE making estimates, over and over again.

Wits & Wagers is hands down the best trivia game I've played. My friends and family spent years playing Trivial Pursuit games, Tribond, Scene It, Oodles, Split Second, even Smarty Party (32 best game), but once we found Wits & Wagers the rest just collect dust. The clever twist that allows anyone to score after guessing what they think the answer is, is pure genius! Accessible to any age over 7 and up past 100. If you like trivia games and you don't own this, add it to your cart now!

My wife wanted this game because, well, "Dave Ramsey says..." (Dave Ramsey frequently recommends this game on his radio show.) But as usual Mr. Ramsey was right. Wits and Wagers is a very enjoyable game and can be played all the way through in no time flat. It is a trivia game but a very unique one: the answer to every question is a number. The details may be percentages, dollars, years, pounds, feet, etc. But it must be a number. When everyone has written down their guesses, they place them on the board, and everyone places their bets ("wagers"). (Don't worry: there's no endorsement of actual gambling in the game.)

Questions we've had so far include "How many speaking parts were in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy?" "How many times larger is Jupiter than Earth?" "What year was penicillin first developed?" "What year was the 4-minute mile first run?" The questions are extremely varied and fun because you never know what you're going to get next or which category it may be.

This is a great and addictive family game which does not wear out easily. I'd rather play Wits and Wagers than Cranium any day of the week. I highly recommend it.

Wits and Wagers is a deceptively simple, engaging, entertaining game. The game consists of simply seven questions, the answers of which are all numbers. A question is asked, everyone writes down what they think is the answer without going over the actual answer, and then everyone bets on which answer out of the group they believe is actually the closest without going over. The answers are arranged in number order, so the smaller or larger an answer is, the better the payoff for betting on that answer--and this aspect of the game is where points are won and lost the most. With the seventh and final question being a no-limits bet, anyone can win at any time, keeping everyone in the game.



Pros: no serious trivia knowledge necessary, game is quick to play (fifteen minutes or so), never the same, and a fun way to interact with others.



Con: sometimes it's too easy to run out of chips, if seven people/teams are playing and/or one too many people wins a big payout!



All in all, it's a fast-paced, entertaining party game that I highly recommend.