This fun pop a prize party game is the perfect game for giving out prizes in a hilarious way! Players have to roll a certain number on a dice to get a chance to pop balloons and win prizes. It makes a super fun Christmas party game, birthday party game, or just family game!
Fun Balloon Prize Game
People love the saran wrap ball game but sometimes you need something different, and this pop a prize game is a new variation on the same concept – roll dice to get a chance to win a prize!
So whether you’re looking for the best Christmas party games to play with your family, birthday party games for your tween, or even just something hilarious to do for a girls night – this party game fits the bill!
Kind of like with our Let’s Make a Deal game or our 12 days of giftmas game, this game is designed for people to win prizes of varying levels and values! We used this for our latest Christmas party with larger gifts instead of doing a gift exchange game.
Who is This Game Best For?
- Older kids and up – while younger kids can pop balloons, every balloon doesn’t come with a prize, which can be tricky for little kids to understand. The prize distribution is definitely not equal in this game, so I recommend for ages 8+.
- People who are okay moving – this game is definitely more of an active one with the popping balloons! If you want more of a sitting game, try Christmas family feud!
- Groups of 6 or more – while you could play with a smaller group, it definitely wouldn’t be as fun. If you want a small group game, try this Christmas Jeopardy game instead!
Game Supplies
You really don’t need much to play this game, but I’ve included details and tips for the supplies you do need!
- Dice – you’ll need two six-sided dice. While I love to use larger dice in games like our 6-7 gift exchange game, I actually recommend using regular size dice in this game so you can roll and pass them around quickly!
- Black Balloons – normal size balloons work best. If you’re going to make people pop without hands, I recommend 10 balloons per person. If you’re going to allow hands, you can do more – just remember you have to blow them up! Also, I highly recommend using these black balloons so no one can see which balloons have papers in them. You can see in my pictures we did red balloons, and that was a mistake!
- Electric balloon pump – you are going to want one of these, I promise. I use mine ALL the time, and it’s fantastic. You may even want two!
- Prizes – you can do as many or as few prizes as you want. I did 25 for my Christmas version, but you can do whatever you want. I’ve included a list of our prizes and recommendations in the prize section of this post!
- Prize printouts – you’ll need two copies of each of the prize images. I’ve included three sets of printouts with this game – Christmas images, birthday images, and numbers (from my Christmas bingo and birthday bingo games). Print two copies of each – one copy will go in the balloons and the other will be on the prizes!
How to Setup this Pop A Prize Game
Setting this game up is definitely the longest part of the game since you’ll need to blow up a bunch of balloons, but it’s worth the fun!
- Print out two copies of the printout images you’d like to use. Decide how many prizes you’d like then cut out that many images (25 prizes = 25 images).
- Place one set of those cut out images into individual balloons.
- Blow up all of the balloons you’d like to use (including the ones with images inside). You’re going to want an electric balloon pump for this, trust me!
- Place all of the balloons in a large area where they won’t accidentally be popped by other things.
- Prep your prizes and add the matching image printouts to the outside of the prizes so everyone can see them when they’re getting their prizes at the end of the game!
- Place all of the prizes with their matching tags on a table for everyone to see!
- Setup a table or area for rolling – make sure it’s large enough for everyone playing!
Note!
If you are not using the black balloons I recommended, blow up one of the balloons you’d like to use with a printout inside. See if you can see the printout easily – if you can, I highly recommend adding papers to all of the balloons (the printed out images and then blank ones in the rest of the balloons) so people don’t know which ones are prize winning balloons and which ones are not. It’ll be more like a raffle where only some of the papers have matching images and others don’t.
How to play pop a prize
This is a super simple game, just like I like my party games!
1 – roll for prizes
Have everyone stand around a table and give the youngest person in the group the dice to start.
When you say go, they roll the dice and what happens next is dependent on what they roll!
- Roll a 7 or 11 – they go over to the balloons and race to pop as many of the balloons as they can, picking up any papers that come out of the balloons. They keep popping until someone else rolls a 7 or 11 and they then leave the balloons and the new person places them.
- Roll doubles – the dice passing reverses direction. You’ll start the game passing them clockwise and the first time someone rolls doubles, they will go counter clockwise. They’ll keep reversing throughout the game so just pay attention!
- Roll anything else – pass the dice to the next person (going in the right direction).
Tip!
If you want the game to last longer, you can tell people they have to pop without their hands. This definitely makes the popping last longer, but it’s always a lot more difficult. I actually recommend just increasing the number of balloons and letting people use their hands because it’ll give everyone a chance to pop more balloons (versus people who may struggle with popping sans hands).
Keep rolling the dice, passing them around, and popping balloons until all of the balloons are popped and the game is over! People will be constantly switching in and out of the popping and rolling – it’s all part of the fun!
Game Play Tips
- If someone pops a balloon and doesn’t notice the paper before their turn popping is over, the next person can absolutely pick that paper up and claim it as theirs. This shouldn’t cause any fighting – if someone is going to pick up a paper they popped as they are walking back to the dice table, the new person shouldn’t just steal it out of their hands!
- When someone is returning to the table, they should just hop into the spot that the person popping balloons just vacated, assuming there is space there. If not, they can just hop in where there is space!
Important Note!
Make a rule that no one is allowed to use their teeth to pop balloons for safety reasons, this especially applies to younger kids playing – make it clear at the beginning to avoid any issues!
2 – Distribute Prizes
Once all of the balloons are popped, it’s time to pass out the prizes. Anyone who has picked up a paper with a prize image on it finds the prize with the image that matches their paper and they win that prize!
Keep matching papers to prizes until all of the prizes are passed out! Some people may not get any prizes if they didn’t ever roll a 7 or 11 or didn’t ever find a paper, and some people may end up with may more prizes than anyone else if they were balloon popping masters. It’s part of the fun of the game!
That’s it! This game is fun to play, watch, and prep because you get to choose all of the prizes people will win!
How does the game end?
The game is over as soon as the final balloon is popped! Then everyone goes through their papers to figure out which prizes they’ve won!
Add a punch game
Want to make it even more festive? Make a Christmas punch game with numbers on the front of each cup. Then just do numbers on the printouts and each number goes along with one of the cups to punch – kids and adults love punching the cups, so it’s a fun variation!
Prize ideas
For our prizes, I did all sorts of different values of prizes to make it a surprise! Some of them were white elephant gift type prizes, others were really good (like $20), and then some were just small stocking stuffer gifts like a bag of candy.
I’ve included a list of fun prizes below that would work great for this game! Just make sure your prizes are things that work for most of your guests (they can always trade).
- Card Games – we love small card games like Cards Against Gravity, Capybara Squad, and Something Fishy. They’re all about the right price for this kind of thing and universal!
- Unique board games – I also love to do new board games that people may not have tried like Connect 4 Frenzy (so fun!), Pop Darts, or Calliope!
- Practical items people wouldn’t buy themselves – things like a card shuffler, food chopper, and warming mat!
- Universally enjoyed items – think things like back scratchers, tote bags (this one is great!), or shoulder massager!
More Prize Games
Want more fun party games with prizes? Try one of these fun ones!
- Stack attack – this fun game combines Christmas trivia (or any trivia) with Connect Four in a risk and reward style party game!
- Santa’s Grab Bag Game – this viral game will have people trying to come up with Christmas related lists to win gifts!
- Christmas price is right – this game inspired by the iconic game show will have people try to price things correctly to win prizes!
- Music bingo – who can recognize songs first to get a musical bingo and win prizes?
- Deal or no deal – another fun game inspired by a game show, this one is always a hit!
Download the Printouts
Enter your first name and email address in the form below to get the printable free download PDF. You will receive a link to download the PDF to your email within minutes. Print two copies of your choice of printouts and you’ll be good to go!
If you do not see the form, click here to get to it.
If you do not see the email with the printable design templates immediately after you fill out the form, make sure to check your promotions, spam, and junk folders!
The file will include:
- Instructions
- Three different sets of printouts – one Christmas, one birthday, and one generic (colored shapes)!
- Use policy (everything is for personal use only)
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