Wits and Wagers Game – review

My family is somewhat picky when it comes to table games we enjoy. More accurately, Lyle and I are picky. The kids enjoy a wide variety of games, but especially ones they can get us to play with them. Which, admittedly, aren’t that many. We are more apt to play games around the picnic table when we’re camping, but we will occasionally play games on Sundays or holidays at home.

North Star Games sent me Wits and Wagers Family edition to review for TOS Crew just before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day we tried it out. All four of us loved it! It’s a trivia type game, but the answers are always numbers. Questions range from things we should know… (How many feet in a mile?) …to silly… (How many colors of Froot Loops are there?) …to obscure… (How many stories was the tallest skyscraper before 1890? –or something like that. I told you it was obscure!) What makes it fun is that you don’t have to know the answers. You can make an educated guess… or a wild guess. Everyone guesses on each question and writes his answer on a little marker board. Then all the boards are turned over so everyone can see all the guesses. At that point you have a chance to “wager” on whether you think your own answer is the closest to being right, or if someone else’s is. For example, I had a ballpark idea of how many feet are in a mile, but I wasn’t sure of the exact number. However, I knew Lyle would know. So I wrote down my best guess, but then I “wagered” on his guess. You get points for guessing or wagering on the closest number without going over. Each turn has the potential of 1-4 points. The first one to reach 15 points wins.

The questions are fun and lend themselves to generating interesting discussions– which makes playing a game all the more fun, in my opinion. Each question card also lists the source of the “trivia” as well as an extra little snippet of information related to the question, so it’s educational as well.

We also played it as a group game for our Christmas party, dividing into 5 teams of 2-3 people each. To simplify it for the larger group, we left off the “wagering” step and just did the guessing part. It took longer because without the “wagering” there is only a potential 1 point per turn. But it was still a lot of fun, and interesting to see who knew the answers to which questions.

Wits and Wagers Family retails for $19.99, and can be found at Target, Amazon, and your local toy and game retailers.