Favoriten

About this board game

Favoriten is a betting and horse-racing game for 2–5 players, played over three races in about 60 minutes. It combines simple dice-driven movement with a tense press-your-luck decision: when should you commit one of your three betting chips?

Five horses compete in each race, but no player owns a horse. Before every turn, players may place a bet, beginning with the player who will roll. After one player backs a horse, the next player can either place a betting chip or decline. Betting continues until every player declines, then the active player begins moving the horses.

On the active turn, the player rolls a die and uses each result to move one of the five horses. The race track has two lanes that help record which horses have already moved during that turn. All horses begin in the same lane; whenever a horse moves, it switches to the other lane. The turn continues until all five horses have been moved once, leaving the lane where they started empty.

• Five horses race in each of three races.
• Players use three betting chips rather than owning horses.
• Dice determine which horses advance during a turn.
• The first three horses to finish pay out for win, place, and show.

The central challenge in Favoriten is judging both popularity and performance. Back an unpopular horse and you may watch it fall behind; wait for others to support a promising horse and your eventual reward may be much smaller. The first player to bet on the winning horse receives the greatest payoff, while later supporters earn less. With every wager carrying the risk of choosing badly or waiting too long, each race creates an agonizing balance between conviction and caution.