Flip cup rules: teams, turns and table setup

Flip cup is a team relay, not a taking-turns card game. Two lines face each other. On a shared start, the first player in each line deals with one cup. When that cup has landed the way the house requires, the next player in the same line may begin. The other line is doing the same thing at the same time. The first line to finish every cup wins.

This page is for adults 21 or older in the United States. If anyone playing or waiting at the table is under 21, do not put alcohol in the cups. Water follows the same relay. A small pour of water is a complete race. Beer is optional, and only for a table of adults who have all agreed. Nobody is required to drink alcohol to stand in a line. A player who wants water gets water, in the same amount as everyone else, so the relay stays even.

The skill is a clean flip and a line that waits its turn. It is not a contest to see who can drink the most. Large pours make the relay a fast route to intoxication. Use the first ridge inside a disposable cup, or less, and prefer water. Stop the race if anyone is impaired. The rest of a party does not need this game. The games of chance topic has other table games, and the about page describes this site.

You need a table long enough for both lines, with a flat top and an edge people can agree is "the lip." A warped card table makes landings random. A wet top makes every cup slide. Wipe it. If the table rocks, fix the rock before you fill cups, because a wobble will be blamed on the flip.

Teams must be equal. Four against four is a race. Five against four is a head start, unless the extra person is sitting out. Pair people across from each other so each player has an opposite number. Those pairs are not taking alternate shots. They start together only for the first cup. After that, each line advances on its own flips.

What to put down

• One matching cup per player. Mixed cup weights change the flip. Use one sleeve of the same cup.
• An agreed fill. The first inner ridge is a common mark. Lower is fine. Both teams use the same mark.
• Water as the default fill. Beer only if every participant is 21 or older and wants it.
• A start signal everyone can hear. A spoken "three, two, one, flip" is enough. Music is a poor signal.
• Space between neighboring cups so one flip does not kick the next cup off the lip.

Point at the two starters before you pour. A player who shows up late waits for the next race.

Both starters go on the same signal. A starter who goes early restarts that cup after a fair start, and on a strict sheet the whole team waits while the other line continues. Early starts are the most common argument. If you want a remedy that does not invite a fight, the early team resets its first cup and the other team keeps the time they gained.

The player with the live cup finishes the agreed pour. Sipping past the mark is finishing. Leaving a pool in the bottom is not, if the house said the cup has to be empty enough to flip. A practical test: the cup is light, and a drop left on the bottom is not a second drink. Do not refill mid-race.

Set the cup on the lip, in the orientation your sheet uses. Then flip it with one hand by flicking or lifting the bottom so the cup rotates and lands. The published Wikipedia version starts open side up and wants the cup face down, rim on the table, sitting still. A house that wants the cup upright starts on the rim and counts a landing that sits open side up. Either way, the player who flipped is the one who resets a failure.

Only a legal, resting cup releases the next teammate. The next person may not touch their own cup, drink, or practice-flip while the previous cup is still live. Hands stay off. A teammate who starts early puts their cup back to the start position and waits for a real release. They do not get to keep a lucky early landing.

A legal flip is a cup that rotated, landed in the agreed orientation, and stayed on the table without anyone holding it. Everything else is a retry by the same player. The retry is immediate. There is no turn penalty beyond the time you lose, and time is the whole score.

Count the landing only after the cup stops. Sideways, off the table, and a hand still touching the cup are misses on every sheet.

One hand

Wikipedia's gameplay summary says the player may not use two hands and may not blow on the cup to steer it. Use that as the default. A legal flip is that landing, by the owner, with one hand. A second hand that catches, guides, or sets the cup down is not a flip. Blowing is not a flip. If a house wants two hands because the table includes someone who cannot flick one-handed, say so before the race and give both teams the same permission.

The cup has to be the player's own cup. Flipping for a slower teammate is a foul. Coaching with words is fine. Touching their cup is a foul. Put that cup back and let the owner flip it.

Most fouls are time fouls. The line pauses itself by fixing the cup. You rarely need a referee if the sheet is short. You need one if the room is loud and both teams are shouting "good."

If the cup falls off the table, the owner picks it up, sets it back on the lip in the starting orientation, and flips again. A teammate may hand the cup back. A teammate may not flip it. The opposing team does not touch it, except to keep it out of a drink or off the floor where someone will step on it. Hand it back and let the owner reset.

If two cups collide and both fall, both owners reset. If a finished cup is knocked over, the common rule above applies: that player re-flips before the relay continues past that spot. The player who caused the knock does not "inherit" the extra flip unless they are the owner.

Starting early is a foul. The remedy is a reset of the early cup, not a bonus cup for the other team. Adding drinks as a punishment is a bad remedy. It pushes alcohol on people who are already in a fast game. Keep the penalty inside the race: lost time.

Arguing a landing by grabbing the cup destroys the evidence. Point, do not touch. If the cup is clearly sideways, it is a miss. If it is clearly in the agreed orientation and still, it is good. If it was good and a protester knocks it, restore it as good. Do not make the owner flip a cup that had already won the spot.

The relay includes finishing the cup. That is the rule that makes pour size the real safety rule. A full party cup, repeated across a line and then across several races, is a lot of alcohol in a short time. Research write-ups on drinking games, including the survey Wikipedia cites via North Carolina State, have flagged flip cup as a fast way to raise blood alcohol when the cups are not small. Read that as a warning, not as a target.

Use water, or use a small mark and fewer races. One or two races is a party stunt. A bracket of them is a drinking plan, and this page is not a drinking plan. Adults who choose beer should eat, skip the game if they are driving, and stop when they feel it. A player who is dizzy, vomiting, or hard to wake needs medical help, not another heat.

Keep the lines equal after every change. If one person sits down, the opposite person sits down too, or you redraw both teams. Uneven lines are how a "quick game" becomes an argument about fairness instead.

If the table is done with relays, stop while the top is still dry enough to use for something else. Casino party ideas are a way to reset the room around cards and chips. You do not need to keep flipping until the sleeve of cups runs out.

Say these items while the cups are still empty. Filling first and legislating later is how a face-down landing and an upright landing end up in the same race.

• Equal teams, and who the starters are.
• Water, or a small beer pour for adults 21 or older, and the fill line.
• Landing: face down, or upright. One of them.
• One hand, no blowing, owner flips their own cup.
• Early start resets that cup.
• A cup off the table is a reset by the owner.
• A knocked-over finished cup is re-flipped by its owner, or it stays counted. Pick one.
• Anyone may switch to water or step out, and the opposite line shortens to match.

Then give the signal once. A practice flip into an empty cup, before the pour, teaches the landing without turning the lesson into a drink. Use it when the table has new people. Veterans can skip it.

The toss game at the same party is beer pong: two teams, a rack of cups, and throws, not a relay. If the table is finished with both, left right center moves chips with three dice.

Keep the sheet for the whole party. Changing from face down to upright after one team loses is a new game, and it starts at 0-0. The line that won under the old landing keeps that win.