Fives rules: a visit that does not divide by five costs a life
All Fives is the game where the total matters more than the target. Three darts, and if the visit adds up to a multiple of five you bank the total divided by five. If it does not, you score nothing and lose a life. First to 51 points wins.
How a visit scores
Add the three darts up and divide by five. That is your score for the visit — not the total itself, the fifth of it:
- 60 (three darts in the 20) — 12 points.
- 75 (three darts in the 25 ring) — 15 points, and the friendliest big visit in the game.
- 140 (T20, T20, 20) — 28 points, which is more than half the way to 51 in one throw.
- 180 — 36 points, the maximum a visit can bank.
- 57, 41, 26 — nothing, and a life gone.
Everybody starts with three lives. Run out and you are eliminated; when only one player is left standing they win, and if everybody goes out together the highest score does. Reach the target and you win outright, whoever still has lives.
Why it is harder than it sounds
The 5s and 20s that make a visit divide neatly are on opposite sides of the board from each other, and the moment your first dart lands somewhere unintended the whole visit becomes an arithmetic problem with two darts left to solve it.
A dart in the 20 leaves you needing 5, 10, 20, 25, 40, 45, 60 — reachable. A dart in the 7 leaves you needing 3, 8, 13, 18 and their neighbours, which is a rescue mission rather than a throw. That is the skill the game teaches: not scoring, but knowing what is left and finding a bed that finishes the sum, which is exactly what a checkout is.
It is also merciless in a crowd. A visit that scores nothing costs a life, so an evening of near-misses is an early exit, and everybody else can see it coming.
House rules this board plays
The part no other rules page has, because no other site implements them. Each one opens the setup screen with that rule already set, and each list of divisors keeps its own high-score board.
- Fives & threes The dominoes version, and the one most pubs actually play: a total dividing by five or three scores, and one dividing by both pays twice — 30 banks 6 + 10 = 16. It turns a narrow squeeze into a real hunt, because most visits are now savable. Set it up →
- All Sevens Name your own divisor and the whole game moves: sevens are far rarer than fives, so lives go quickly and 51 is a long way. The version to play when All Fives has stopped being difficult. Set it up →
- All Nines Harder again, and a different board entirely — the trebles of the 3, 6 and 9 all divide by nine, so the awkward left-hand side of the board is suddenly where the game is. Set it up →
- Land on the target The finish this game’s ancestor insists on. This board normally plays the classic race: the first visit that reaches or passes the target wins it. Under this rule the dominoes finish: the target has to be landed on exactly — a visit that would carry you past it banks nothing and costs no life, because it did divide. On 46 with 51 to reach, only a visit of 25 finishes it. Set it up →
- No lives at all Nobody is eliminated: a blank visit simply scores nothing and the race to the target runs to the end. The version for a practice session, or for a board where one player is much stronger than the rest. Set it up →
- A quick 31, five lives Half the target and a bit more rope — about fifteen minutes, and the version to open an evening with. Set it up →
A custom list can be one or two numbers from 2 to 20, so All Sevens, All Nines, and pairs like nines-and-threes are all games this board scores — and a total dividing by both still pays twice.
Common questions
- How does All Fives work? Add your three darts up. If the total divides by five you bank a fifth of it, and if it does not you score nothing and lose a life. First to 51 points wins.
- What is the highest scoring visit in All Fives? 180, which banks 36 points. Three darts in the 25 ring is 75 for 15, and 140 banks 28, which is more than half the way to 51 in one throw.
- What is fives and threes? The dominoes version, and the one most pubs play: a total dividing by five or by three scores, and one dividing by both pays twice, so 30 banks 6 plus 10.
Play it
Fives is one of the twenty modes in Friendly Fire Casper, a free darts scoreboard that runs in a browser and keeps working when the wifi drops. It scores the game for you, undoes the dart you typed wrong, remembers who won, and can put the board on a TV while everybody scores from their own phone.