Cast five marked beans and run six markers around a cross-shaped loop, every capture and tip square shifts the wagered tokens.
Patolli is an ancient Aztec race-and-wager game played on a cross-shaped loop of 24 cells. Each side runs six markers around the loop and home to the centre, while a stake of tokens passes back and forth on captures and special squares. The cast comes from five beans whose marked faces decide your move.
Patolli is one of the oldest games of the Americas, played across Mesoamerica by the Aztecs and by cultures before them, on a cross-shaped track with beans marked on one side thrown as dice.
It was inseparable from gambling. Players staked goods, and Spanish chroniclers record wagers running to serious property — accounts that are coloured by the writers' disapproval but consistent about the scale. That association is why the colonial authorities suppressed it: the game was tied to ritual and to betting, both of which they were trying to stamp out, and boards were destroyed where they were found. What survives comes largely from codices and from the archaeology of the courts themselves.
Patolli is an ancient Mesoamerican race game that fused movement, capture, and gambling on a cross-shaped track. This is an original, free browser recreation with bean casts, token wagers, and an exact-count finish, no download, sign-up, or real money.