One-Minute Penny Games

Press Pick another game for a penny game with its coin count and goal, then start the 60-second clock.

One-Minute Penny Games

  1. Penny CheckerboardYou need: 16 pennies. Goal: lay them out as a square, four rows of four, with heads and tails alternating like a checkerboard: no head next to another head, across or down. The rows have to be straight enough to pass for a board.
All 36

Next step Desk-top games for a class60 everyday games with household props

How it works

These 36 one-minute penny games need a jar of coins and a table. On the TV show Minute to Win It, players had 60 seconds for stunts with household objects. This page was not made by the show.

Read the full guide

One-minute games with coins from a jar

Sixty pennies and a heap of mixed coins run the whole list. Stacking coins holds 8 towers. Spinning and flipping holds 9 games, and the spins want a smooth table. Sliding and bouncing to a target holds 9 slides, hops and tosses.

Quiet games for a table

Sorting and counting has 10 games with no flying coins: stacks of five, a checkerboard, rubbings and exact change. None of these games has been timed, so every target is a first guess.

Tips
  • A tablecloth stops coins rolling off, and the two hopping games need one anyway.
  • Count the coins back into the jar before small children come back to the table.

Questions and answers

Which is the penny stack one-minute game?

Two-Finger Penny Stack: fifteen pennies in one tower, each lifted between your two forefingers. Stacking coins has seven more, such as Alternating Faces Tower with 20 pennies and Partners Build Thirty for a pair.

How many pennies do I need?

Sixty covers every game, since Fifty in Neat Fives asks for a pile of at least 60. Most games use 20 or fewer. A few need other coins as well: three sizes for the rubbings and four kinds for the sorting games.

Which coin games are the easiest?

Ten Thumb Flips, The Dotted Penny, Penny Checkerboard, Brightest Copper First and Four Heads Around the Circle, which a whole group plays at once. All five are marked Easy.

What is the answer to Flip the Triangle in Three Moves?

Slide the two end pennies of the row of four up beside the row of two, one each side. Then slide the single far penny around to sit below the old row of four. The rows now run four, three, two, one.

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All 36 games

Stacking coins 8

  • All Five Balanced on Their Rims You need: 5 coins of any kind and a table that does not wobble. Goal: stand all five on their edges, each one alone, so that all five are upright at the same moment for a count of two. Nobody else touches the table. Bigger coins are easier, and a tablecloth makes it harder.
  • Alternating Faces Tower You need: 20 pennies. Goal: stack all twenty in one tower that alternates all the way up: heads, tails, heads, tails. At zero the judge takes the tower apart from the top and checks every coin. One coin the wrong way up and the tower does not count.
  • Four-Tier Coin Cake You need: 12 coins: three each of four different sizes, mixed in a heap. Goal: build one tower like a wedding cake, the three largest coins at the bottom, then the next size, and the three smallest on top. The judge looks at it from the side: every tier has to be narrower than the one below.
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Stacking coins, continued

  • Leaning Penny Stair You need: 12 pennies. Goal: build a tower in which every penny sits a little further to the right than the one below, like a staircase leaning out. It wins if the top penny hangs wholly past the edge of the bottom penny and the tower still stands for a count of three.
  • Partners Build Thirty You need: 30 pennies and a partner. Goal: build one tower thirty pennies tall, taking turns to add a coin, each using only the hand they do not write with. It has to stand alone for a count of three. Whoever knocks it down picks up the coins while the other starts again.
  • Six on a Fingertip You need: 6 pennies. Goal: hold one forefinger straight up and stack the pennies flat on its tip with your other hand. Six balanced there for a count of three wins. Resting the wrist of the stacking hand on the table is allowed, and resting the finger is not.
  • Stack as High as a Quarter Stands You need: a pile of pennies and one quarter, kept in your pocket until the end. Goal: stack pennies until you think the tower is exactly as tall as a quarter standing on its edge. Say done. Then stand the quarter beside it: level with the top penny, or within one penny, wins.
  • Two-Finger Penny Stack You need: 20 pennies spread out on a table. Goal: pick each penny up between your two forefingers, one finger from each hand, like a pair of tweezers, and build a single tower. Fifteen high and standing for a count of three wins. Thumbs stay tucked in. A fallen tower is rebuilt from the first penny.

Spinning and flipping 9

  • Always One Coin Turning You need: 3 coins, a smooth table and a partner. Goal: one player sets a coin spinning. Before it falls, the partner spins a second, then the first player spins the third, and so on, picking up fallen coins to use again. At least one coin has to be spinning at every moment for 30 seconds.
  • Call It in the Air You need: one coin and a flipper who is not you. Goal: call heads or tails while the coin is in the air. Four right calls in a row win. The flipper catches the coin and turns it onto the back of the other hand each time, so nobody argues about a coin that rolled.
  • Fingertip Freeze You need: one coin and a smooth table. Goal: spin the coin on its edge, then bring one fingertip straight down on top and stop it dead, still standing upright under your finger. One clean freeze wins. Coming down too hard sends the coin across the room, so clear the table first.
  • Four Heads Around the Circle You need: one coin and a circle of players. Goal: the coin goes around the circle, and each player flips it once, catches it and shows it. Four heads in a row, from four players in turn, wins for the whole circle. A tail sends the count back to nothing, and the next player starts it again.
  • Knuckle Roll You need: one large coin, and a tablecloth below to catch it. Goal: hold your hand in a loose fist, knuckles up. Balance the coin on edge between the first two knuckles and tip it from finger to finger until it reaches the little finger. One full trip across the knuckles wins. Most people need the whole minute.
  • Matching Flips You need: a coin each and a partner. Goal: both flip at the same moment and show. Two heads or two tails is a match, and a head and a tail is not. Five matches before zero win, and the pair wins together. Keep the flips low so the coins stay on the table.
  • Spin Past a Slow Count You need: one coin, a smooth table and a judge who counts seconds out loud. Goal: spin the coin on its edge so that it keeps spinning, not just rattling flat, for a full count of ten. Two ten-second spins before zero win. Bigger coins spin longer, so choose your coin before the clock starts.
  • Ten Thumb Flips You need: one coin. Goal: flip the coin off your thumb so that it turns over in the air, catch it in the same hand and slap it onto the back of the other. Ten flips in a row with no drop win. A coin that goes up without turning does not count.
  • Turn Ten With a Coin You need: 10 pennies in a row on a tablecloth or a place mat, all heads up, and one bigger coin. Goal: press the bigger coin down on the rim of each penny so that it jumps and lands tails up. All ten turned before zero wins. A penny that hops off the cloth comes back heads up.

Sliding and bouncing to a target 9

  • Bottom Coin Out You need: a stack of 8 coins of the same kind on a smooth table and one more as the striker. Goal: slide the striker hard and flat at the foot of the stack so that it knocks the bottom coin out and the rest drop straight down, still stacked. Three bottom coins knocked out without a collapse win.
  • Coin Beds You need: a sheet of paper with 5 lines drawn across it, two fingers apart, taped to the far end of a table, and 8 coins. Goal: slide the coins from the near edge with the heel of your hand so that they come to rest between two lines without touching either. Three coins lying clean in a bed win.
  • End Coin Shoots You need: 6 coins of the same kind and a saucer a hand beyond the end of a row. Goal: line five coins up in a row, touching. Slide the sixth hard into one end of the row: the coin at the far end shoots off. Reset and do it again until 3 shot coins have stopped in the saucer.
  • Flip It Into the Mug You need: an empty mug two hand spans from the table edge and 10 coins. Goal: flip each coin off your thumb so that it turns in the air and drops into the mug. Two in the mug win. A coin that hits the rim and goes in counts, and a coin that is tossed without a flip does not.
  • Hop Into the Saucer You need: 8 small coins on a tablecloth, one bigger coin and a saucer a hand away. Goal: press the bigger coin down on the edge of a small one so that it hops forward, and land it in the saucer. Three in the saucer win. A coin that falls short is hopped again from where it lies.
  • Pennies in Three Cups You need: 3 paper cups in a line on the floor, one, two and three steps away, and 12 pennies. Goal: toss the pennies underhand, one at a time, and land at least one in every cup. A penny that bounces out does not count. The far cup is the hard one, so start with it while your pile is full.
  • Pitch for the Baseboard You need: 5 pennies each, marked with a dot for one player, a partner and a bare wall. Goal: take turns pitching a penny underhand from four steps back. When all ten are thrown, the penny closest to the wall wins the round, and one that is touching the wall beats everything. Best of the rounds you fit in.
  • Table Bounce to the Bowl You need: a hard table, a cereal bowl a forearm from the edge and 10 coins. Goal: bounce the coins off the table one at a time, flat side down, so that they hop into the bowl. Three in the bowl win. Collect the misses while the clock runs. Play well away from anything that can chip.
  • Three-Coin Soccer You need: 3 coins in a small triangle at one end of a table, and a partner at the other end making a goal with two fingertips. Goal: flick one coin so that it passes between the other two, then flick another between the new pair, and so on down the table. A final flick through the goal scores. One goal before zero wins.

Sorting and counting 10

  • Brightest Copper First You need: 8 pennies that range from bright new copper to nearly black. Goal: lay them in a row from the shiniest to the dullest. A second player lays out their own row with another eight, and the room votes on which row runs most smoothly from bright to dark.
  • The Dotted Penny You need: 40 pennies spread out heads up, one of them marked by the host with a dot of marker on the tails side. Goal: turn the pennies over one at a time, using one finger, until you find the dot. Finding it before zero wins. Every coin you turn stays turned, so you never check one twice.
  • Every Kind in Its Own Cup You need: about 40 mixed pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in a heap, 4 cups and a partner. Goal: each of you uses one hand. Sort the whole heap into the cups, one kind of coin to a cup. The judge tips out one cup at zero, and a single stray coin in it loses the round.
  • Exact Change Five Times You need: a heap of mixed coins and a partner as the shopkeeper. Goal: the shopkeeper names a price under a dollar, such as 37 cents, and you lay out exactly that amount. The shopkeeper counts it and names the next price. Five right amounts before zero win. Swap roles for the next minute.
  • Fifty in Neat Fives You need: a pile of at least 60 pennies. Goal: count out fifty, as ten neat stacks of five standing in a row. At zero the judge picks any two stacks and counts them. A stack of four or six loses, however many stacks are standing.
  • Flip the Triangle in Three Moves You need: 10 pennies laid out as a triangle pointing away from you: one, then two, three and four in rows. Goal: make the triangle point toward you by moving only three pennies. Coins slide, and none is lifted over another. The answer is in the questions lower on this page, for the judge only.
  • Make a Dollar Three Ways You need: a heap of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Goal: lay out three piles that are each worth exactly one dollar, with no two piles made of the same coins. Four quarters is one way, and ten dimes is another. A penny is worth 1 cent, a nickel 5, a dime 10 and a quarter 25.
  • Penny Checkerboard You need: 16 pennies. Goal: lay them out as a square, four rows of four, with heads and tails alternating like a checkerboard: no head next to another head, across or down. The rows have to be straight enough to pass for a board.
  • Six Clear Rubbings You need: 3 different coins, a sheet of thin paper and a pencil. Goal: lay the paper over a coin and rub with the side of the pencil lead until the picture comes through. Do both faces of all three coins. Six rubbings clear enough for the judge to name each coin win.
  • Wrap a Penny Roll You need: 20 pennies, a strip of paper as wide as your hand and one piece of tape. Goal: stack the pennies, lay the stack on its side on the paper, roll it up tight and fold in both ends, then tape it shut. The roll has to survive one shake from the judge without a penny escaping.

How this list was compiled: Written by the Game Night Generator editors for this page on 2026-10-03 from general knowledge of table-top, pocket and playground games. We wrote every description ourselves and copied no wording from a television show or from another site's list. Party games are passed around freely, so a game here may be played elsewhere under another name. Every game uses ordinary coins, and pennies do for most; a few add a cup, a saucer, paper or a pencil. No game shares a name with a game on another page of this site, and none repeats a coin game from another one-minute page: no one-handed tower of 25, no three coins spinning at once and no coin rolled on its edge between two cups. Each was written to be playable in about a minute. The games have not been stopwatch-tested, so every target (fifteen high, a count of ten, three in the bowl) is a starting point for the host to raise or lower. One fact is used: United States coins circulate in denominations of 1, 5, 10 and 25 cents among others, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_the_United_States_dollar (read 2026-10-03, CC BY-SA 4.0); the sums in the games are the editors' arithmetic. The triangle puzzle is an old one, and its answer was worked through by the editors. Screened line by line for the clean-deck rule: nothing is bet, won or kept, and every coin goes back to its owner. Coins are small objects: the American Academy of Pediatrics' choking prevention page asks adults to check for small items such as coins that young children could put in their mouths (https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/injuries-emergencies/Pages/Choking-Prevention.aspx, read 2026-10-03), so the host counts them back in. Licence: own work