Overview
Bet your hard-earned coins at the high-stakes camel track. Camels sprint around the course through legs of the race while you place wagers on who wins each leg and the overall race. Camels can ride on top of each other — which changes everything.
Featured on: Best Gateway Board Games for Beginners
Ryan’s Review
Likes
- Simple to learn and teach
- The yelling in desperate hopes it affects the dice
- Quick setup
- Supports up to 8 players
Dislikes
- Not much strategy involved
- Not as intense a race as I hoped
- Limited player interaction beyond taking each other’s bets
First Impressions
We received this as a housewarming gift. The guy who picked it out could barely contain himself: “There are camels, and racing, and gambling, and dice, and yelling — like horse racing!” He got me completely pumped. Plus it seemed lighter than our usual games, which was a welcome change.
Thoughts
When you first set up Camel Up, you’ll notice it’s all pretty simple — and that simplicity is the whole point.
The standout component is the pyramid dice shaker, which you assemble once and reuse every game. It holds all the coloured dice (one per camel) and releases them one at a time. Clever design that creates genuine suspense with every shake.
The stacking mechanic is what makes this game. When a camel moves, any camels riding on top of it come along for the ride. The top camel is always in first. This means the last-place camel can leapfrog to first in a single roll if the right dice comes out of the pyramid. You genuinely have no idea who will move next or how it will shake out. That uncertainty is pure gambling — in the best way.
You can bet on the leg winner (limited cards that pay out decreasingly the more people pick the same camel), or on the overall race winner and loser. The overall bets are where games are won and lost. First person to correctly call the overall winner gets the most coins; wait too long and the payout shrinks to almost nothing.
You can also place desert tiles on the track to help or hinder camels — and rolling the dice yourself earns a guaranteed coin. There’s some minor strategy in timing your bets and tile placements, but don’t expect Agricola-level depth.
Does everyone yell at the camels? Yes, absolutely. “Blue! Come on Blue for three!” It’s not as intense as a real horse race, but the energy is genuinely fun.
Conclusion
I probably wouldn’t have bought this for myself, but I’m glad it’s in the collection. It plays with anyone, sets up fast, and never overstays its welcome. We’ve had nights where it was supposed to be a warm-up game and ended up being the whole evening. Lots of laughs, very little real frustration — exactly what a light gambling game should be.
