What you need
A board of 100 numbered squares with ladders and snakes drawn between some of them, one ordinary die and a token for each player. Buttons or coins work as tokens. Our printable board has 8 ladders and 8 snakes and prints in black and white on Letter or A4. The American edition, Chutes and Ladders, replaces the snakes with playground slides and uses a spinner instead of a die; the rules are the same.
Snakes and ladders needs no reading and no strategy, which is why it is a classic first board game for children from about four.
Setup
Lay the board flat where everyone can reach it. Each player picks a token and places it off the board, next to square 1. Everyone rolls the die once: the highest roll goes first and play passes to the left.
The squares follow a zigzag path. Row one runs from 1 on the left to 10 on the right, row two continues from 11 on the right back to 20 on the left, and so on up to 100 in the top corner.
How to play
- On your turn, roll the die and move your token forward that many squares along the numbered path. From off the board, a roll of 5 puts you on square 5.
- If you stop on the bottom of a ladder, climb straight up to the square at its top.
- If you stop on the head of a snake, slide down to the square at its tail.
- Passing over a ladder or snake does nothing; only the square where you finish counts. Landing at the top of a ladder or the tail of a snake does nothing either.
- Several tokens can share a square. There is no capturing.
On our board the ladders run 4→14, 9→31, 20→38, 28→84, 40→59, 51→67, 63→81 and 71→91. The snakes run 17→7, 54→34, 62→19, 64→60, 87→24, 93→73, 95→75 and 99→78.
Scoring and winning
The first player to reach square 100 wins. In the commonly printed rules, and in the Chutes and Ladders instructions, you must land on 100 by exact count: if your roll would take you past 100, you stay where you are and try again next turn. The others can play on for second and third place.
Common variants
- Bounce back: if the roll is too big, count up to 100 and back down the extra squares. A player needing 3 who rolls 5 ends on 98.
- Roll again on a six: many older rules give an extra roll after a six.
- No exact finish: for very young children, any roll that reaches or passes 100 wins.
- Two dice: speeds the game up for older children; move the total.
- Adders and Ladders: a skill version from the mathematics book Winning Ways. Players share a pool of identical tokens and on each turn move any token one to four squares; whoever brings the last token home wins.
Tips for first games
- Let children count the squares aloud as they move. It turns the game into counting practice.
- Point out the zigzag on the first turns; going the wrong way along a row is the most common mistake.
- Agree on the finishing rule before you start, so nobody argues about it at square 97.
- The game is pure luck. If a child is upset after a long slide, remind them that the leader can slide too.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need an exact roll to win? Most rules say yes: if you would go past 100, you stay put. Some families play bounce-back or allow any roll to finish. Agree first.
What happens if you land on a ladder’s top or a snake’s tail? Nothing. Only the bottom of a ladder and the head of a snake move your token.
Can two players be on the same square? Yes. Tokens never capture or block each other.
How many players can play? Two to four is usual, but any number can join if you have enough tokens.
Where does the game come from? From ancient India, where it was called Moksha Patam and taught that good deeds lift you and bad ones drag you down. It reached Britain in the 1890s.
