Ring Toss Games

Carnival Ring Toss Games

• When you are at the carnival, you might see ring toss games with large stuffed animals or expensive electronics as prizes. This is because the game is not easy to win. You need to toss a small plastic ring onto the top of a bottle. The bottles are placed close enough that if you don't land the ring perfectly, it will hit the edge of a neighboring bottle and bounce off the bottle toward which you were aiming.

Ring Toss Prize Games

• Some ring toss games at carnivals don't display prizes above the game, but instead have the prizes taped to the poles themselves. In these games, if you can land a ring around the pole and the prize taped to it, letting the ring slide to the bottom of the pole, you win that prize. The trick here is that many of the prizes are thick enough that the only way to get the ring around them is for the ring to land directly onto the pole without an angle, which can be challenging when tossing it from in front of the pole, so it doesn't land perfectly flat.

Single Pole Ring Toss Games

• Some ring toss games use a single pole as a target. These games are played similar to the game of horseshoes. The goal is to land your ring on the pole, or to get it closer to the pole than your opponent. Landing the ring on the pole scores three points. If nobody gets a ring on the pole, then the player that gets closest to the scoring pole scores one point.

Multiple Pole Ring Toss Games

• When playing ring toss games with multiple poles, the goal is to land your rings on as many scoring poles as possible. Some variations might have three poles in a row, one behind the other. Others might have the poles in an "x formation" with one in the middle, and the four others on the ends of the x. Point values can be assigned to the poles based on the host's own rules, but the center pole typically has the highest point value.