Risk
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50 free Risk trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Risk was invented in 1957 by a French film director, Albert Lamorisse, as La Conquête du Monde, and has been wrecking friendships over a 42-territory map of the world ever since. Parker Brothers brought it to America in 1959, Hasbro inherited it in 1991, and it has since spawned everything from Castle Risk and 2210 A.D. to Risk Legacy, the game that invented the legacy genre. These 50 questions cover the rules and the lore: how many dice each side rolls, who wins a tie, why everyone grabs Australia, what the Golden Cavalry is for, which card combinations earn reinforcements, and what happens when you inherit too many cards from a player you eliminate. Then the history: the wooden cubes and Roman numeral pieces, the 1993 secret missions, the futuristic 2210 A.D., the Star Wars editions and the Hutts, Risk Godstorm, RisiKo! and the Italian defender's third die. Easy questions cover the inventor, the territory count and the continents; the expert tier asks about print runs, the retailer behind the bookshelf edition, the licensee that reissued the 1959 game and the number of attack routes on the current board. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation. Play it solo or print it for game night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In a famous Seinfeld scene, which Risk territory does Kramer call weak, provoking a furious subway passenger?
Ukraine
Ukraine: Kramer, playing Newman on the subway, calls it weak and feeble, and a Ukrainian passenger sends the board flying. The clip went viral all over again in 2022.
Q 02Risk's inventor, Albert Lamorisse, won an Oscar for which French film?
The Red Balloon
The Red Balloon follows a boy, played by Lamorisse's own son, who is trailed everywhere by a balloon with a mind of its own. It won him the Oscar for best original screenplay.
Q 03Which game is older than Risk, which dates from 1957?
Monopoly
Monopoly had been in the shops since the mid-1930s and entered the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998, the hall's first year. Risk missed out as a finalist more than once before joining it in 2021.
Q 04Under what French title was Risk first released?
La Conquête du Monde
La Conquête du Monde means The Conquest of the World. When the game crossed the Atlantic two years later, its American buyer changed a few rules and swapped the title for a single word.
Q 05Which American company bought the rights to Risk and released it in 1959?
Parker Brothers
Parker Brothers altered a few of the French rules and coined the one-word name, selling the game at first as Risk: The Continental Game.
Q 06The standard Risk board divides the world into how many territories?
42
42 territories, each with its own card in the deck. In some versions of the setup those cards are simply dealt out to decide who starts where.
Q 07What does holding a Risk continent earn?
Extra armies
Extra armies every turn, on a scale printed in a corner of the board, as long as the whole continent is still yours when the turn begins. Hence the rulebook's first tip: conquer whole continents.
Q 08How does a Risk player earn a card?
Capture a territory
Capture a territory and you draw one card, never more, however many places fell that turn. Wipe out a rival, though, and you inherit every card in their hand.
Q 09What is the goal of the standard game of Risk?
Occupy every territory on the board
Occupy every territory on the board, which means knocking out every rival along the way. That is why a single game can last anywhere from a few hours to several days.
Q 10In classic Risk, what colour are the attacker's three dice?
Red
Red: the attacker may roll up to three of them, and more dice mean better odds. The catch is that at least as many armies as dice rolled must then move into a captured territory.
Q 11In Risk, three dice against two favours whom?
The attacker, slightly
The attacker, slightly: the third die is just enough to tip the odds its way. That is why it almost always pays to roll as many dice as the rules allow.
Q 12In a Risk battle, who wins when both sides roll the same number?
The defending side
The defending side wins every tie. In a fight of one die against one, that is enough to make the defender the favourite.
Q 13Which Risk continent can be defended by heavily fortifying a single territory?
Australia
Australia has a single way in, so one strong army on its doorstep seals it off, and players often grab it early. The catch is that it has only one way out, and a player who holes up there can end up trapped.
Q 21Complete the subtitle long printed on Risk boxes: 'The Game of Global' what?
Domination
Domination: 'The Game of Global Domination' replaced 'The Continental Game', the subtitle on the first American sets, and it lives on in the official video game, Risk: Global Domination.
Q 22Which toy giant has owned Risk since buying its American publisher in 1991?
Hasbro
Hasbro paid about $516 million for the debt-laden Tonka Corporation, which had owned Risk's publisher since 1987, and so gained a shelf of famous board games in one stroke.
Q 23The first Risk spin-off, Castle Risk (1986), was played on a map of what?
Europe
Europe alone made up the board, with each player guarding a castle. The game flopped, but ideas it introduced, such as generals, came back in later editions.
Q 14Which Risk continent can be invaded through five of its territories, more than any other?
Asia
Asia has five territories that touch other continents and twelve to garrison in all. Lose your grip on the Middle East and it becomes nearly impossible to hold.
Q 15What do Risk's two wild cards show?
Every symbol
Every symbol appears on each wild card, all three army pictures and no territory. That is what lets it stand in for whichever card a player lacks when cashing in a set.
Q 16Each Risk territory card shows one of three symbols: infantry, cavalry and what?
Artillery
Artillery, drawn as a cannon. The 1993 edition turned the three card symbols into the playing pieces themselves, replacing the abstract counters of earlier sets.
Q 17Which Asian territory can attack Alaska across the edges of the Risk board?
Kamchatka
Kamchatka sits on the board's eastern edge and Alaska on its western edge, and the rules treat them as neighbours. That back door is one of three borders a North American empire must guard.
Q 18In recent Risk sets, what does the Golden Cavalry piece track?
The card trade-in value
The card trade-in value starts at four armies and climbs with every set cashed in, by anyone, so the golden horseman rides up its chart all game long.
Q 19Which combination of Risk cards can be traded in for reinforcements?
Three with the same symbol
Three with the same symbol make a set, and so does one of each. Each set cashed in brings more armies than the one before, so holding out can pay.
Q 20A Risk player left with six or more cards after eliminating an opponent must do what?
Trade in sets immediately
Trade in sets immediately, and keep going until fewer than five cards are left. The new armies arrive mid-turn, so the conqueror can press straight on with the attack.
Q 24Which European rules were added to American Risk sets in 1993?
Secret missions
Secret missions give each player a private goal, such as conquering set continents or wiping out one colour, so a game can end much sooner.
Q 25Which Avalon Hill edition of Risk added Moon and undersea territories?
Risk: 2210 A.D.
Risk: 2210 A.D. also lays waste to four territories at random before every game, closing them to everyone, so no two wars are fought over quite the same map.
Q 26What wins the Risk edition that ends after five 'years'?
Highest score
The highest score wins when the fifth year ends, so the war has a fixed finish and nobody has to be wiped out first.
Q 27Which 2011 edition of Risk began the genre in which each game permanently changes the board?
Risk: Legacy
Risk: Legacy has players write on the board and rip up cards for good. Its designer got the idea after joking that Clue's guests keep being invited back to dinner though one of them is always a murderer.
Q 28Risk: Factions (2010) let players fight as humans, zombies, robots, yetis and what?
Cats
Cats march in a quicker kind of Risk, where the first army to complete three objectives wins. Purists can still switch to a classic mode.
Q 29Which noted designer created the dice game Risk Express (2006)?
Reiner Knizia
Reiner Knizia turned Risk into a quick dice game: players roll for the right mix of troops to capture territory cards, with no armies to push around a map.
Q 30Which of these ancient cultures is one of the five that go to war in Risk Godstorm?
The Norse
The Norse take on the Celts, Greeks, Egyptians and Babylonians, each backed by its own gods. Death is not the end here: slain armies descend to the Underworld and fight on for a chance to return.