Cash Cab Board Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of the Cash Cab Board Game is to earn cash quicker than the other players by correctly answering questions and making it to your destination.

Set Up

Separate the Question, Strike and Destination cards. Shuffle each deck separately.
Sort the money by its value. Choose one player that is responsible for giving out cash to players as they earn it. This player can also play the game, but they need to keep their money separate from the bank’s. They will give each player $50 to start the game.
Place the gameboard in the middle of the table.
Each player chooses a cab mover and places it on a yellow landmark space. You can choose any space you want, but two players may not occupy the same space.
All of the players then draw one Destination card. If they should draw a card that matches their current location, they will have to draw another card.
The players take turns rolling the die. The player that rolls the highest number starts the game.

How to Play the Cash Cab Board Game

You will begin each of your turns rolling the die. The number you roll on the die determines how many spaces you will move on your turn. Your goal is to move towards the location printed on your Destination card. You can move in any direction on your turn, but you cannot change directions while moving. Basically you will move all of the spaces you rolled in the direction you choose. While moving you can move through another player’s playing piece, but you cannot land on their space. Should you land on their space, you will place your piece one space behind them.

Moving towards destination after rolling a three — The purple player rolled a three on the die. They are trying to make their way to the Plaza Hotel. Currently their best move is to move three spaces to the left (through the Chrysler Building).

After you are done moving, the player on your left draws a Question card and reads out the first question which is worth $50.

Should you answer the question correctly, you will receive money from the bank equal to the value of the question. You will then roll the die again and try to answer the next question on the card. You can keep answering questions and moving until you guess wrong or you answer all of the questions on the card. At this point your turn ends.

Correct answer to $50 question — The current player answered Sudoku for the first question. They were correct, so they receive $50.

Whenever you answer a question incorrectly, you will take a Strike card. Your turn ends.

Receiving a Strike card — This player guessed the wrong answer to a question. They receive a Strike card.

Red Light Challenges

Should you land on a Red Light Challenge space, the player on your left reads off the red light challenge from your current Question Card. These questions require you to name a number of answers. If you provide enough correct answers, you receive $250. Your turn then ends.

Should you not provide enough correct answers, your turn ends. Unlike normal questions, you do not receive a Strike card for answering a Red Light Challenge card incorrectly.

Red Light Challenge question — The red player has landed on a Red Light Challenge space. They will have to answer the corresponding question to try and earn $250. For this card they need to name the four other members of Mystery, Inc. If they name all four members they receive $250. If they can’t name all of the members, they don’t receive anything.

Shout Outs

On the Questions cards some of the questions will be replaced with “Shout Out”. When your card has one of these, you got lucky. You don’t have to answer a question and you still receive the corresponding amount of money. You also get to roll the die again and move.

This player was lucky that for their $100 question, they have a Shout Out Bonus. They receive $100 and get to roll again without having to answer a question.

Should the Shout Out be the last question on the card, you receive the corresponding amount of money, but you do not get to roll the die again.

Strike Cards

During the game you will acquire Strike cards if you incorrectly answer a question. Strike cards are not a good thing.

Should you ever acquire a third Strike card, your current ride ends immediately. Any money you collected during your current ride is returned to the bank.

Receiving a third Strike card — This player has received their third Strike card. Their current journey has ended. They lose all of the money from their current journey. On their next turn they will start a new journey to a different destination.

You will discard your three Strike cards along with your Destination card. At the start of your next turn you will take $50 and a new Destination card. You will now try to reach your new destination.

Reaching Your Destination

Should you reach your destination before receiving a third Strike card, you can potentially pocket the money you collected on your journey. You do not have to reach your destination by exact count.

At this point you have a decision to make. First you can decide to pocket the money. If you choose to pocket the money, your journey ends and you set aside any money you earned on the journey. This money is safe for the rest of the game.

Reaching your destination and pocketing the money — The red player has reached their destination, Battery Park. They have decided to pocket the money ($450) they earned on their journey.

Double or Nothing

Otherwise you can choose to attempt the double or nothing question. Should you get this question correct, you will double the amount of money you earned on your journey. If you get it wrong though, you lose all of the money you earned during your journey. Should you choose to answer the double or nothing question, the player on your left draws a question card and chooses one of the three top questions to ask you. They can choose whichever question they want which means they likely will pick the one that they think will be the hardest for you to guess.

If you answer the chosen question correctly, you take money from the bank to double the amount you earned on your journey. You will pocket all of the money you earned on your journey.

Should you answer the question incorrectly, you lose all of the money you earned on the journey.

No matter what you choose to do once you reach your destination, you will discard your Destination card and any Strike cards. On your next turn you will draw a new Destination card and take $50 from the bank.

Winning the Cash Cab Board Game

The players will keep taking turns going on journeys to different destinations around the city. The first player to pocket $1,000 wins the game. This likely will take several successful journeys. The money does not count towards your total until you complete the journey and pocket the money.

Winning Cash Cab — This player has pocketed $1,050 in the game. They have won the game.

If you would like a longer or shorter game, you can adjust the amount of money you need to collect to win the game.

Cash Cab Board Game FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

Gameboard
Die
4 Cash Cab Movers
190 Question Cards
21 Destination Cards
9 Strike Cards
100 $50 Bills
75 $100 Bills
Instructions

Year: 2008 | Publisher: Imagination Games

Genres: Roll and Move, Trivia

Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-4 | Length of Game: 30-45 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate-High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.