Everything about playing People Snake & Ladder — the rules, what the board does, the odds behind it, and what counts as fair play.
The board runs from square 1 in the bottom left to square 100 at the top. Everyone starts off the board and takes turns rolling one die. Roll a four, move four squares. First player to land exactly on 100 wins the game.
That word exactly matters. On 97 you need a three. Roll a five and you stay where you are and lose the turn, because there is nowhere past 100 to move to. Plenty of games are decided by somebody sitting on 98 rolling everything except a two.
There are nine ladders and nine snakes on this board, and they sit in fixed places. Land on the foot of a ladder and you climb to the top. Land on a snake’s head and you slide to its tail.
The ladders lift you from:
And the snakes drop you from:
Look at the last few squares. Square 98 sends you back to 77, and 95 sends you to 75. The closer you get to winning, the more there is to lose. A player on 94 is one bad roll from starting the last stretch over again.
The other square worth knowing is 87. Land there and you drop all the way to 48 — thirty-nine squares gone in one turn. It is the longest slide on the board and it sits right in the middle of the home straight. Squares 49 and 47 are nearly as bad, dropping you to 11 and 15.
The flip side is the run of ladders in the 60s. Square 61 carries you to 82, 65 to 84 and 69 to 91, and any one of them can turn a losing game around in a single roll.
Every roll is generated fresh at the moment you press the button. Rolls are never weighted for or against a player, and the game does not know what is coming next any more than you do.
There is an undo button for genuine mistakes — a mis-tap, or a player rolling out of turn. It steps the board back one move. It is there to fix errors, not to re-roll a bad result, and in a friendly game it is worth agreeing up front when it is allowed.
The game takes up to four players on one device. Everyone plays on the same board and passes the phone or tablet along after each turn, the same way you would slide a board across a table.
More players means a longer game and more chance that somebody hits a ladder you wanted. Two players is quick and sharp. Four is chaos, and usually more fun.
Coins are virtual and just for fun. They are tied to your account rather than to one device, so if you sign in on a phone and later on a laptop, your balance follows you. They have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for money.
Each game costs 10 coins, and every new account starts with 200 free coins, which is 20 games. When you run low you can buy more from the shop. That is optional, and the guides on this site are free to read either way. Payment is handled by Stripe, and this site never sees or stores your card details. Refunds are covered in the terms.
We worked out what this exact board does to a single token, using the real snake and ladder positions and the exact-roll rule for the finish. The results are worth knowing before you start a game.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Average turns for one token to reach 100 | about 63 |
| Typical (median) number of turns | 52 |
| Quick games: 1 in 10 finish within | 25 turns |
| Slow games: 1 in 10 take more than | 114 turns |
| Ladders climbed in an average game | about 4.5 |
| Snakes hit in an average game | about 7 |
| Chance of hitting at least one snake | about 93% |
The game you actually play is a race, and the number that matters is how long it takes until the first token finishes. With more players that comes sooner:
| Players | Average rounds until someone wins |
|---|---|
| 2 | about 43 |
| 3 | about 35 |
| 4 | about 31 |
Going first barely helps. In a two-player game the first player wins about 50.5% of the time, so there is no real advantage to arguing over who starts. These figures come from simulating the board many times, so treat them as close averages, not promises about any single game.
Not every snake and ladder gets the same attention. Squares early in the board are passed by almost everyone, while some ladders sit in a part of the board most tokens skip past. In our simulation, these are the share of games in which a token lands on each square at least once:
| Square | What it does | Games where you land on it |
|---|---|---|
| 55 | ladder up to 67 | about 62% |
| 49 | snake down to 11 | about 56% |
| 36 | ladder up to 45 | about 52% |
| 47 | snake down to 15 | about 51% |
| 87 | snake down to 48 | about 45% |
| 98 | snake down to 77 | about 39% |
| 69 | ladder up to 91 | about 27% |
| 65 | ladder up to 84 | about 21% |
The pattern is easy to see. The big ladders at 65 and 69 are the rarest to find, while the heavy snakes at 47 and 49 catch about half of all games. That is why games feel harsh in the middle of the board, and why a token that gets past square 50 without sliding is in good shape.
The Hint button looks at where the current player is standing and checks the next six squares. If a ladder is in range it flashes that square and tells you which number to hope for. If a snake is in range it flashes the snake and tells you which number to dread. If neither is near, it simply tells you where you are.
Be clear about what it does not do. The die decides the move, so Hint cannot change your roll. It is a way to see danger coming, and it is a good teaching tool: ask a child to say which number they are hoping for before they press Roll.
Undo takes the board back one move. It is meant for slips, such as tapping Roll for the wrong player. If you are playing for fun with children it is a kind option; if you are playing competitively, agree before you start that it is for mistakes only.
Snakes and ladders works best as a game that sits in the background of something else: tea, a catch-up, a family evening. A few things make it run smoothly on a single device.
Remember that each game uses 10 coins from the account that started it. If you are hosting, check your balance before guests arrive.
