Stack Cup Drinking Game: How to Play & Rules

Stack Cup is a fast-paced drinking game where two players at a time bounce ping pong balls into cups while the cups move around the table. If one active player catches the player ahead of them, they stack their cup into theirs and force that player to take a new center cup.

If you get stacked, you grab a cup from the middle, drink it, and immediately start bouncing again.

It starts organized for about twelve seconds.

Stack Cup is closely related to drinking games called Rage Cage, Boom Cup, and Slap Cup. The names are sometimes used interchangeably, but the exact rules vary by group. In the Stack Cup rules below, catching another player means physically stacking your cup into theirs.

HOW TO PLAY STACK CUP — QUICK RULES

Put 20–30 partially filled cups in the center of the table.
Give 2 players across from each other an empty cup and ping pong ball.
Both players start bouncing their ball, trying to land it inside their cup.
Make it on your first try and you can pass your cup to almost anyone.
Make it after multiple tries and pass the cup to the next player in the rotation.
If you make your shot while the player directly ahead of you is still shooting, stack your cup into theirs.
The stacked player grabs a new cup from the middle, drinks it, and starts shooting again.
Keep going until the center cups are gone.
The player stuck with the final center cup loses.

To play Stack Cup: two players race to bounce ping pong balls into their cups. After making a shot, the cup moves around the table. If your cup catches the other active cup, you stack the player ahead of you. That player takes a new cup from the center, drinks it, and keeps playing. The game continues until the center cups are gone.

What You Need to Play Stack Cup

20–30 plastic cups
2 ping pong balls
A large table
4 or more players
Beer or another drink if you’re using drinking penalties

Stack Cup gets better with a bigger group. Around 6–10 players gives the cups enough room to chase each other around the table without everyone waiting forever.

You can adjust the number of center cups based on your group size.

A good starting point is roughly 2–3 cups per player.

For more games built around a bigger crowd, check out our group drinking games.

How to Set Up Stack Cup

Have everyone stand around the table.

Put the drinking cups together in a cluster or circle in the middle.

Fill each center cup with a small, roughly equal amount of whatever your group is drinking.

Then leave 2 cups empty.

Give each empty cup a ping pong ball and hand them to 2 players standing roughly across from each other.

BASIC STACK CUP SETUP

Center of table = filled cups
2 opposite players = empty cup + ping pong ball
Everyone else = waiting in the rotation

Pick a direction for normal passing before starting.

Clockwise is easiest.

Some groups learned Stack Cup passing left, others right. The direction doesn’t change the game — consistency does.

How to Play Stack Cup

BOUNCE → MAKE IT → PASS → CATCH → STACK

1. Two Players Start Bouncing

The two starting players begin at the same time.

Each player must bounce their ping pong ball off the table and into their own empty cup.

You can keep attempting the shot until you make it.

The ball has to bounce first. Dropping it directly into the cup because everyone else is moving too fast is not a groundbreaking new strategy.

2. Make It and Pass the Cup

Once your ball lands inside the cup, pass the cup and ping pong ball along to another player.

Under a common Stack Cup rule:

First-try make: You can pass the cup to any inactive player except the person currently shooting with the other ball.
Two or more attempts: Pass the cup to the next player clockwise.

The first-try rule is important because it lets you strategically move the cup around the table and potentially put someone in danger of getting stacked.

If your group wants the simplest possible game, skip that rule and always pass clockwise.

3. Catch the Player Ahead of You

The whole point of Stack Cup is for one active cup to catch up to the other.

If you make your shot while the player immediately ahead of you is still struggling to make theirs, you’ve caught them.

Instead of simply passing your cup:

Stack your cup directly into their cup.

That player just got stacked.

4. The Stacked Player Drinks

The player who gets stacked must immediately:

Grab a new filled cup from the center.
Drink the agreed amount.
Use that cup as their new shooting cup.
Take the ping pong ball and start bouncing again.

Meanwhile, the other stack continues moving around the table.

There is basically no downtime.

That’s why Stack Cup goes from “this seems easy” to twelve people yelling at the same ping pong ball incredibly fast.

5. The Stack Gets Taller

Every time someone gets caught, another cup gets added to the stack.

As the game continues, the shooting cup can become a tower of nested cups.

That makes bouncing the ball into it more annoying, which makes it easier for the other active stack to catch up.

Things snowball.

Fast.

6. Keep Playing Until the Center Is Empty

Every time someone gets stacked, another filled cup disappears from the middle.

Eventually, there will be only one center cup remaining.

The player who gets stuck taking that final cup loses the game.

How Do You Win Stack Cup?

Stack Cup is mostly about not being the final loser.

There usually isn’t one official winner because the cups are constantly rotating and players don’t get eliminated.

The clearest ending is:

FINAL CENTER CUP = YOU LOSE.

If your group uses a larger center cup — sometimes called the King’s Cup, Death Cup, or Rage Cup — whoever gets stuck with that cup is the loser.

Everybody else gets the extremely prestigious honor of not being that person.

The First-Try Rule in Stack Cup

The first-try rule is one of the most important Stack Cup rules to establish before starting.

In a common version:

Make it on your first bounce: Pass the cup to any inactive player.

Need more than one bounce: Pass to the next player in the normal direction.

You generally cannot use your first-try privilege to hand the cup directly to the other active shooter.

Strategically, the first-try rule lets you move the cup closer to the other active cup and increase the chance that somebody gets stacked.

It also lets your friends make terrible personal decisions based entirely on who annoyed them most recently.

What Happens When You Get Stacked?

Getting stacked means another active player made their shot while you were still trying to make yours.

They place their cup or cup stack inside your stack.

You then:

Take a new cup from the center.
Drink it.
Use the new empty cup to continue shooting.

The game doesn’t pause while you contemplate what went wrong.

Drink, grab the ball, and get back into the rotation.

Is Stack Cup the Same as Rage Cage or Slap Cup?

Stack Cup and Rage Cage are often different names for the same drinking game, while Slap Cup usually uses a closely related set of rules. The problem is that none of these names have completely standardized rules.

The biggest difference is usually what happens when the faster shooter catches the slower shooter.

Game	Typical Difference
Stack Cup	Catch the player ahead of you and physically stack your cup into theirs.
Rage Cage	Often used as another name for Stack Cup; some groups use repeated stacking or slightly different passing rules.
Slap Cup	Usually uses a similar racing mechanic, but the faster player may slap the slower player’s cup away instead of stacking it.
Boom Cup	Another common regional name for a Stack Cup/Rage Cage-style game.

The names are not standardized.

Some groups call the exact same rules Rage Cage. Others make a meaningful distinction between Rage Cage and Stack Cup.

So if someone says, “That’s not how Rage Cage works,” they may genuinely be right about the version they know.

They also may just be doing what drinking-game players have done forever: confidently insisting their house rules are federal law.

Stack Cup House Rules & Variations

The core game is already chaotic enough, but there are a few common ways to tweak it.

King’s Cup

Put one cup in the very center and fill it more than the surrounding cups.

This is the King’s Cup or final cup.

Whoever gets stacked when only that cup remains has to take it and loses the game.

This gives Stack Cup a very obvious final boss.

Always Pass Clockwise

Skip the first-try passing privilege.

Every time you make your shot, pass the cup to the next player clockwise.

This is the easiest version for new players.

Less strategy, fewer explanations, same chaos.

First Try Goes Anywhere

Make your shot on the first bounce and you can hand your stack to any inactive player at the table.

You cannot pass it to the person currently shooting the other active cup.

This makes first-try shots much more valuable.

Rage Cage Re-Stack

Some groups distinguish Rage Cage by allowing the player who catches someone to keep the taller stack and immediately try to catch the same player again.

If the stacked player can’t drink, reset, and make their new shot quickly enough, they can get caught repeatedly.

This is considerably more aggressive than normal Stack Cup.

Use it only if everyone actually knows that’s the version you’re playing.

No-Alcohol Stack Cup

Fill the center cups with water, soda, or another non-alcoholic drink.

Or leave them empty and use points or another penalty when someone gets stacked.

The racing and stacking mechanics don’t require alcohol at all.

Our Recommended Stack Cup Rules

If half the table calls it Stack Cup and the other half calls it Rage Cage, establish one ruleset before the balls start flying.

COLLEGEWARES STACK CUP RULES

Use 2–3 center cups per player.
Use 2 empty shooting cups and 2 ping pong balls.
Normal passing goes clockwise.
Make it first try = pass to any inactive player.
Take multiple tries = pass clockwise.
Catch the active player ahead of you = stack them.
Stacked player takes a center cup and drinks the agreed amount.
Use one larger King’s Cup as the final center cup.
Player who gets stuck with the final cup loses.

Simple enough that new players can figure it out while the game is already happening.

Because realistically, that’s how Stack Cup gets taught anyway.

How Many People Do You Need for Stack Cup?

You can technically play with 4 players, but Stack Cup is much better with a larger group.

6–10 players is a great range.

You want enough people for the active cups to chase each other around the table without constantly being next to each other.

For a particularly large party, simply add more center cups.

Stack Cup fits naturally with party drinking games, college drinking games, and other group drinking games because almost everyone at the table stays involved.

For more options beyond Stack Cup, browse all of our drinking games.

Stack Cup Safety & Hygiene

Stack Cup moves fast, which means drinking penalties can pile up quickly if someone keeps getting caught.

Keep the center pours small.
Use beer, seltzer, water, or non-alcoholic options instead of turning every center cup into a full drink.
Don’t force anyone to chug.
Keep extra clean ping pong balls around if they’re repeatedly hitting the floor.
Use a stable table with enough space for everyone.
Move breakable stuff away from the table. The balls will escape. Frequently.

The game is already fast enough without turning every stack into a drinking arms race.

Stack Cup Drinking Game FAQ

How do you play the Stack Cup drinking game?

Two players start with an empty cup and ping pong ball and race to bounce their ball into their cup. Once successful, they pass the cup through the rotation. If one active player catches the person ahead of them, they stack their cup into the other player’s cup. The stacked player grabs a new center cup, drinks it, and continues playing.

What are the basic Stack Cup rules?

The basic Stack Cup rules are: bounce the ball into your cup, pass it after making the shot, catch the other active cup, and stack anyone you catch.

Getting stacked forces you to grab a new cup from the center and continue playing.

How many cups do you need for Stack Cup?

A good starting point is 20–30 cups or roughly 2–3 center cups per player.

You also need two empty cups that move around the table as the active shooting cups.

How many ping pong balls do you need for Stack Cup?

You need 2 ping pong balls.

Each active shooting cup gets one ball.

What happens if you make the ball on your first try?

Under a common Stack Cup rule, a first-try make lets you pass your cup and ball to any inactive player instead of simply passing to the next person.

If you need multiple attempts, pass normally around the table.

What happens when you get stacked in Stack Cup?

If the player behind you makes their shot while you’re still shooting, they can stack their cup into yours.

You then grab a new cup from the center, drink the agreed amount, and immediately start bouncing again.

What is the last cup in Stack Cup?

Many groups put a larger or fuller cup in the center called the King’s Cup, Death Cup, or final cup.

The player who gets stuck taking that last cup loses.

Is Stack Cup the same as Rage Cage?

Often, yes.

Stack Cup, Rage Cage, and Boom Cup are frequently used as different names for the same basic bouncing-and-stacking game.

Some groups distinguish Rage Cage by using repeated stacking or different passing rules.

Is Stack Cup the same as Slap Cup?

They’re closely related, but not always identical.

Stack Cup generally has players physically stack their cups when they catch another shooter. In many Slap Cup versions, the faster player instead slaps the slower player’s cup away.

The names vary heavily by group.

How many people do you need for Stack Cup?

You need at least 4 players, but Stack Cup usually works best with around 6–10 people.

Can you play Stack Cup without alcohol?

Yes.

Fill the center cups with water or another non-alcoholic drink, or replace drinking with points or another penalty. The actual bouncing, racing, and stacking rules stay the same.