Home > Categories > Games & Puzzles > Board Games > Trivial Pursuit - Bet You Know It review
The world's greatest question master, TRIVIAL PURSUIT, is proud to present TRIVIAL PURSUIT Bet You Know It, a game where players don't necessarily need to know all the answers, but they do need to know their friends.
New for 2010 is the most inclusive and exciting version of the iconic game yet. TRIVIAL PURSUIT Bet You Know It brings high stakes betting to trivia giving each player a stake in their opponents' every turn. As ever, answer one of 1,800 fresh trivia questions to win a wedge, or if you'd rather, use chips acquired throughout your game to purchase a wedge for that elusive category that has you stumped. On your friends' turns bet on the likelihood of them getting their question right or wrong. A correct bet will earn you more chips!
The TRIVIAL PURSUIT categories are still the same - GEOGRAPHY, ENTERTAINMENT, HISTORY, ART & LITERATURE, SCIENCE & NATURE, and SPORTS & LEISURE, but adding even more excitement to the pot is the new 'mixologist envelope' that contains four different rotating question topics for each round. So after landing on one of the classic category squares on the game board, players choose one of the four rotating topics in which they'll have to answer their category question.
Will it be an ENTERTAINMENT question on Sleep, Bubbles, Japan, or Bats? This is where acquired knowledge of your opponents will come in handy. Is your friend a lover of beady-eyed, nocturnal creatures and likely to know what reality show dad once bit the head off a bat? If so, would you bet on your friend getting their question right to double your stake? The action is non-stop with everyone invested in each roll of the die.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT Bet You Know It's 1,800 new questions include contemporary topics such as Supermodels, Hot Dogs, Horror Movies, and Heavy Metal, in a variety of new question formats like multiple choice and image-based questions to make each turn a unique experience. Play and discover your inner genius in a game where knowing your friends is just as valuable as knowing the trivia.
Product reviews...
Having played other editions of Trivial Pursuit I was not expecting to do very well, however after a few minutes I realised that the questions were well balanced and I even managed to upstage my husband on a few questions which I still love gloating over.
With this edition, players/teams were given betting chips to bet for or against other players when they had to answer their questions, however we did have an issue with the number of chips supplied and we ended up 'donating' back to the bank. We found the chips helpful to bet against the players we knew, and fun for those that we did not, I think a lot of time was spent having good laughs over some unexpected answers.
In this edition you can win a piece of pie two ways, the first is by answering the colour relevant questions and the second is to buy a piece after landing on a reroll/buy segment. Once we started placing the pie pieces into the holder I noticed that they had an edge on them which was useful in stopping them from getting stuck, which I have had trouble with before.
Over all we found this game fun and would definitely play it again.
Now i've never really been a Trivial Pursuit kind of person, unless it's one targeted towards a specific topic that i'm interested in such as the Star Wars version I have previously reviewed. But this one helped make the game more enjoyable, and in my opinion even helps even out the odds for those whose general knowledge isn't as good as some others.
The reason for this is the addition of the betting element which allows you to bet on whether or not you think the person answering the question will get it right or not. They way we played this one was to make sure that everyone placed their bet before the question was read, this makes for a more interesting game in my opinion as it makes it more a game of chance for those bidders.
I also liked the fact that if you had enough chips and like me got sick of having to keep trying to get the same wedge over and over again each time failing miserably, then you can now buy that wedge instead (as long as you have the prerequisite ammount of points available), this is what makes the game more even for everyone and makes it more of a competition instead of the whitewash it can usually become.
Trivial Pursuit - a game of knowledge. In a sense this game holds true to that, you get questions to answer and if you're correct you get your pie piece.
It's also about knowing your opponents, as you get to bet on whether or not they know the answer to their questions. Points can be exchanged for pie pieces or bonuses on the final question.
Truth be told I found this version to be a bit of a disappointment. It was too much like Trivial Pursuit 'lite', something you play when you don't have much time.
This version could be good to play with kids though as they don't need to know all the answers to fill their pie and so still get a chance to win (also you get a chance to see how well you can read your kids.)
I found this version of Trivial Pursuit to be an interesting and fun game to play. I have to admit that having the opportunity to bet for or against your friends/opponents on whether or not they knew the answer was the highlight of the game for me. It was nice to see who had confidence in your knowledge or not.
I also liked the fact that if you landed on certain board segments you were allowed you to re-roll or buy a wedge, that was a bonus, especially if you happened to always land on the same colour segments (as it was in my case).
The only part of the game that I felt was not up to par was that there were not enough chips to last the entire game; we ended up having to be frugal with our bets nearing the end of the game. But with that being said, it would not stop me from playing this game again the future.
I found this to be an interesting game to play but I wasn't convinced as to the merit as a 'Trivial Pursuit' game. While the questions were there, as were the pie pieces, because part of the game is to wager on whether the opposition knows the answer to the question or not, it was not just the smart person that had a chance to win and to me Trivial Pursuit IS about knowing the answers.
We also found that we ran out of tokens with which to wager with, which was a downside but not a major one.
All in all it was an enjoyable game, I personally found I had more fun trying to watch peoples faces to see if they would give away whether they knew the answer or not.
It is a great social game to play with friends and try to discover if you know them quite as well as you think you do.
The style of this game is a radical divergence from the Trivial Pursuit you may be used to... for a start, gone are the standard segments, where you need to answer a question just to proceed... gone are the 'wheel spokes' that allow you to shortcut across the board to head for pie wedges you are missing... gone too are the special wedge segments' where you must be in order to earn the right coloured wedge piece...
Now, almost every segment you land on gives you a shot at a wedge, the exceptions being the black "Buy or Roll" segments, where you can either roll again, or 'spend' 10 'points' and simply buy a wedge of your choice. Each player (or in our case, team of 2) starts with an allocation of 15 points. When a player has their turn, they roll, move their counter, and prepare to be asked a question corresponding to the colour of the segment they landed on. After the question has been asked, all other players can choose to either bet up to 10 points on whether they think the question will be answered correctly or not, or pass and await the answer with nothing at stake.
Those who bet correctly will double their bet, those who bet incorrectly will lose their stake to the bank. BUT, once you have all six wedges, the use for the points is not over... because you still have to answer one final question - selected in a manner similar to the classic game - BUT, you can spend 15 points to over-ride the choice by forcing either the topic, or the category... or spend 30 points and over-ride both.
Overall, the game can be a lot of fun, especially if you *don't* know many of the other players well - as was the case with our test-play - because it then becomes a case of trying to work out if they are bluffing or not. For me, this was the real highlight of the game - getting to know the other players better. The biggest weakness in this version, we all agreed, was the shortage of 'points' chips. The game comes with a huge stack of red 1-point chips, teal 5-point chips and green 10-point chips... but it still proved necessary for all four teams to 'donate' stacks of chips back to the bank in order to be able to pay out on later bets. You may want to unpack the poker chips and use them instead, or restrict the maximum bets to 5 points.
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