The Ultimate Guide to Playing the Drinking Game Rage Cage

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Learn all the rules to this competitive and fun drinking game

Co-authored by Cheyenne Main

Last Updated: July 9, 2024 Fact Checked

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How to Play Rage Cage

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Variations

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Video

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Warnings

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Things You'll Need

ARTICLE

VIDEO

Rage Cage (also called Boom Cup, Slap Cup, or Stack Cup) is a drinking game that involves skill, fast reflexes, and tons of fun. The goal of the game is to bounce a ball into a cup and pass it as fast as you can before the person next to you stacks their cup on yours. If you're not fast enough, you have to drink! All you need to play Rage Cage are several beers, 10-30 plastic cups, 2 ping pong balls, a table, and 3-8 friends. Let’s dive in!

Things You Should Know

To play Rage Cage, 2 starting players each take a cup, drink the beer inside, and try to bounce a ball into it.
When a player makes it in, they pass the ball and cup to the person on their left.
If a player gets passed to before they get the ball in, they get "stacked" and have to drink one of the other cups on the table.

Section 1 of 2:

How to Play Rage Cage

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The number of cups you need depends on how many players you have—if you have 3-4 people, 10 cups are probably all you need. If you have 5-8 people, consider using 20 to 30 cups. Place the cups together, creating a tight circle in the middle of the table.^{[1]
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Fill the cups ⅓ of the way with beer, and fill the one in the middle completely. The filled cup in the middle is called the “King’s cup” and players only drink it once all the other cups on the table have been consumed or if a person bounces their ping pong ball into it accidentally.^{[2]
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- You don’t have to use beer for Rage Cage—you can also use hard seltzer or other beverages with a lower alcohol content. You can also swap the alcohol out for soda to play a sober version.
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Pick two players opposite from each other at the table. Both players count backward from 3. When they reach “1,” both players pick a cup from the middle, drink the beer inside, and place it on the table, where they try to bounce their ping pong ball from the table into the empty cup.^{[3]
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The player to their left then tries to bounce the ping pong ball into the cup in the same way.^{[4]
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It can be any player at the table except for the one who’s still trying to make it in their cup.^{[5]
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Say player 1 bounces the ball into their cup while player 2 directly to their left is still trying to bounce their ball in. Player 1 would then stack their empty cup onto player 2's empty cup. Player 2 then has to stop what they're doing, pass the ball and stack of cups to their left, grab a new cup, drink it, and then continue bouncing in the newly empty cup. Basically, getting stacked means you have to drink!^{[6]
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The game ends when all the cups are completely empty. There are no winners or losers in Rage Cage. Instead, everyone is here to have fun and enjoy a cool drinking game with their friends. Please drink responsibly and have fun!
- If you’d like to play other drinking games, try beer pong, play king’s cup (not to be confused with the name of the center cup) or play Land Mines.

Section 2 of 2:

Rage Cage Variations

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1
Slap the person’s cup off the table instead of stacking your cup on top. In this version of the game, if you bounce your ball into the cup before the person to your left makes it in, you can slap their cup off the table. They then have to grab another cup from the center, drink it, and continue bouncing the ball into the empty cup.^{[7]
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- To make it even harder, you can also make the person collect their slapped cup, drink from a new cup, and stack both together before they can try to bounce their ball inside.
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Form teams and compete to see who can stack the most cups. In this variation, 4 or more people form teams of 2 and compete against each other to see who can drink less and stack more cups. Pick a person across the table to be your teammate. The gameplay is the same, but your strategy might change a little bit:
- If you bounce the ball into your cup on the first try, you might pass your cup and the ball to the person to the left of your teammate to prevent the person to their left from stacking their cup.
- If your teammate is struggling to bounce their ball into the cup and you have the other cup, you might try to give them more time by bouncing slowly or missing the cup on purpose.
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Set a timer before the game and stack all the cups before time runs out. In this version, set a timer for 20 to 30 minutes before the two starting players drink from their cups. Play the game as normal, and work together to see if you can stack as many cups as possible before the timer ends.
- Try not to set the timer for less than 20 minutes, especially if you have 5 or more players, and drink non-alcoholic drinks between bouncing to keep your hydration up.^{[8]
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