Vegas is the side game your group will try once and then play every week for a year. The rules are simple — two-on-two teams, scores pair into a two-digit number, lower number wins. The multipliers are what get you.
There's no single official Vegas — different groups handle the variations differently. What follows is the most common base game, plus the three optional variations ForeBoard supports. Once you know the base, the options make sense.
The basics
Vegas is a four-player game played as two-on-two teams. Each player plays their own ball through every hole. At the end of each hole, the team's score becomes a two-digit number formed by combining the players' two scores.
- The lower individual score goes first (tens digit)
- The higher individual score goes second (units digit)
Example: Player A on Team A shoots a 4. Player B shoots a 5. Team A's score for the hole is 45.
Team B shoots a 5 and a 6. Their team score is 56.
Team A wins the hole by 11 points (56 minus 45).
That's the entire base game. The lower team-number wins; the difference is the points. Run the math hole by hole. You decide the stakes.
Many play for a fixed dollar value per point — $0.25 per point keeps it civil; $1 per point turns a casually bad hole into a significant emotional event.
The three Vegas variations ForeBoard supports
Beyond the base pairing math, Vegas has three optional rules that ForeBoard supports. Toggle any combination on at round creation. Each one can compound the swing on certain holes.
The Flip. When the losing team gets blown out on a hole — meaning their best ball is worse than the other team's worst ball — their team score is flipped before the points are calculated. The high ball flips from the unit digit, to the tens digit.
Example: Team A cards a 3 and a 4 (team score: 34). Team B shoots a 5 and an 8 (team score: 58).
- Team A wins. Team B's best ball (5) is worse than Team A's worst ball (4) — Team B got beaten on every ball.
- The Flip triggers: Team B's team score flips from 58 to 85.
- Team A wins by 51 points (85 minus 34) instead of 24 (58 minus 34).
The Flip never changes who wins — it just amplifies the margin.
Double on Par 5s. The winning team's points are doubled on every par 5 hole. A 10-point swing becomes 20; a 50-point swing becomes 100. Simple multiplier that adds risk/reward to long holes, where bigger numbers are more common.
Birdie Doubles. When the winning team makes a birdie or better, that hole's points are doubled. A clean 5-point win turns into a 10-point win. Rewards aggressive play.
These stack. A birdie on a par 5 = 4× the points. A winning team that makes a birdie (or better) on a par 5 with a Flip-triggering blowout could turn a single hole into a 100+ point swing.
House rules outside the variations
Beyond the three multipliers, a couple of decisions still need to happen at the tee:
Net vs gross. Net scoring applies handicap strokes before the pairing. The recommendation for Vegas, and all side games, is to use net scoring. If you and your group aren't tracking handicaps, time to start (you can pay to have it done, or use a number of free options). It balances out the varying skill levels and makes games more fun/competitive for everyone.
Dollar value per point. Set it before the first tee. Setting stakes grows more difficult if one team jumps out to an early lead.
Triple-bogey caps (informal). Some groups cap individual scores at, say, 9 or net double bogey, to prevent a single blow-up hole from going completely sideways or from a 10 making the math especially messy. ForeBoard scores the actual numbers you enter — if you want a cap, agree on it before the round and self-enforce.
When Vegas works best
Vegas shines in specific conditions:
- Foursomes. Like most games of this type, Vegas is built for exactly four players in two-on-two teams. It doesn't translate to threesomes or fivesomes without significant rewrites.
- Mixed-handicap groups. The team format softens individual talent gaps. The better player on each team can carry the team score (their lower number becomes the tens digit), but the worse player can still tank a hole with a bad units digit. Both players contribute every hole.
- Groups that like volatility. With all three variations on, the swings can be substantial.
It works less well with:
- Conservative players when Birdie Doubles is on. That variation rewards aggressive birdie attempts.
- Groups that can't agree on rules. Three multiplier toggles plus net/gross plus dollar-per-point = a lot of variables. Lock them all down before the first tee.
The math problem
Here's what happens by hole 5: someone shoots a 6, their teammate shoots a 4. Team score is 46. Other team shoots 5 and 5, so 55. Team A wins by 9 points — except hole 5 is a par 5 and the group wanted to apply doubles on Par 5s, so Team A actually wins by 18. Also Team A's player made birdie, and Birdie Doubles is on too — so it's 36. The Flip didn't trigger because Team B's 5 wasn't greater than Team A's 6.
And what's the running total again?
By hole 12, the math has drifted. Someone insists Team A is up 130. Someone else says it's 60. There's a debate about whether the Flip applied on hole 7. There's a handwriting discrepancy because of a smudge mark on the scorecard. And the player keeping score has spent more time looking at the scorecard and using the calculator app on his phone than golfing.
This is the universal Vegas experience. The per-hole math is simple. The bookkeeping across 18 holes — with the variables — is where it falls apart.
ForeBoard handles all of it automatically. Enter each player's score on the hole, ForeBoard pairs them low-ball-high-ball, applies the Flip when triggered, applies the multipliers when enabled, and runs the cumulative team total. The leaderboard updates live on every player's phone. You don't have to remember the rules. The app does.
Ready to try Vegas? Create a round on ForeBoard → Pick four players, choose Vegas as your format, toggle the variations you want, share the link with the group. You're scoring within thirty seconds — no app, no accounts, no math arguments.
