An Easy Party Game for your Kentucky Derby celebration

We did this easy party game at our daughter's Kentucky Derby themed bridal party. However, it could be adapted to many party themes that involve popular contests, like the Oscars, the MLB Homerun Derby, the NCAA basketball tournament Final 4, the Masters or other PGA golf championships, NSCAR or the Indianapolis 500 or even to guess the MVP of the SuperBowl or World Series. Any event that has numerous potential winners would be a perfect fit for this fun and easy party game. It is family friendly and so fun for a party to watch any of the Triple Crown horse races!

Let's play Derby Dollars... an easy party game!

We set up a Derby Dollars betting stand at our Kentucky Derby themed bridal shower. Yes, it was a rather unconventional bridal shower as we included both guys and girls, held it on the afternoon of the Kentucky Derby and centered it all around the Derby, but it was fabulous! Each guest received 3 Derby Dollars on which they wrote their names on the back. Our Derby Dollars betting booth was a table of buckets, each labeled with a horse that was running in the Derby. Our niece was the event bookie, handing out the Derby Dollars and the fun sheets where we listed information and odds about each contender. Our guests then put their Derby Dollars in the bucket representing any horse, or horses that they guessed would Win, Place or Show. Everyone gathered to watch the Derby at post time.

Here was our Derby Dollars betting booth!

Declaring the winner of this easy party game - Derby Dollars

From the oldest to the youngest... everyone gathered in our family room to watch the Kentucky Derby... quite an intense and exciting finish that year!

After the race results finalized, we took the 3 buckets labeled for the horses that came in 1st, 2nd and 3rd and let our bride to be pull 2 derby Dollars from each one. So we had 6 winners! We had prizes for the winners whose name was on the back the Dollar she pulled. It was awesome. It got everyone together to watch the race and even had the non-sports fans involved in routing for the horses they chose. While the winners were based on the luck of the draw, everyone had so much fun with the whole concept! I had budgeted for cash prizes as we planned the shower, but the prizes could be anything. Instant lottery tickets, a bottle of wine or spirits, gift cards or small gifts. Such a simple game, but it generated so much enthusiasm and had everyone mingling and talking about which horses they were picking! Here we are sorting through the buckets to pull the ones representing the top 3 finishers.. and here's our bride to be pulling out the winning Derby Dollar!

Here come the prizes for the winners

Look at these cute prizes.. slipped the money in an envelope, added a small painted wooden horse and made a cute label! You can Print the Derby Dollar Prize Labels here! And here's one of our lucky winners!

More ideas for your Kentucky Derby Party

See how we decorated plain and inexpensive straw hats so that all the ladies would have their own Kentucky Derby hat.. you can't celebrate Derby Day without fancy over the top decorated hats!