St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect day to excuse copious amounts of drinking. It is one of those rare days when going on bar crawls, wearing green, and being drunk with friends (and maybe even family) is considered completely socially acceptable, so you might as well take advantage of it. If you and your friends are celebrating St. Paddy’s Day together, you’re going to want to take a look at these 20 St. Patrick’s Day drinking games for adults that will make the day even more fun.
1. GREEN POTATO
You don’t necessarily need a green potato for this game, but we’ll call it green for the sake of keeping everything in theme. One player stays in charge of the music and must play and stop it whenever they want. When the music is playing, the players must pass the potato to another player. Whoever is caught holding the potato when the music stops must take a shot of something—ideally, something green! The person who takes the shot is now the new person in charge of the music.
2. LEPRECHAUN’S LUCK
In this very simple St. Patrick’s Day drinking game, players take turns rolling a die. However, each number rolled has a rule assigned to it that you can switch up to your liking. For example, the rules can be:
1: Take a drink
2: Give out a drink
3: Girls drink
4: Boys drink
5: Truth or dare
6: Take a shot
3. IRISH HOUR
At the party, have everybody choose an hour. For example, 4 o’clock. When that hour rolls around, everyone must take a shot glass filled with beer. For the entire hour, players must take a shot of beer every minute!
4. IRISH POKER
Don’t worry if you’re no good at playing poker, Irish poker is not like your standard Texas Hold’em game. To play this card, all you need is a deck of cards with jokers removed. Then, have each player guess the color of the card on the top of the deck. If they are right, they give out a drink. If they are wrong, they take a drink. Simple as that!
Keep playing until you run out of cards.
If you want to take this game a bit further, you can play Ride the Bus, which is just like the game above but with more rounds.
5. LEPRECHAUN SAYS
Have you played the classroom classic game of Simon Says? If so, you’ll already be familiar with Leprechaun Says, a St. Paddy’s Day version of the game. One player is the leprechaun and stands in front of the group, giving commands. If a command is preceded with the phrase “Leprechaun says,” everyone must follow the command. If the leprechaun only says a command without saying, “Leprechaun says,” whoever is caught following this command is out and must take a drink (or shot) as punishment.
This can be a family-friendly game for the day as well if you take the drinking out of the equation. For more, check out our post on St. Patrick’s Day games and activities.
6. GREEN BEER PONG
Are you a beer pong fanatic? Instead of using standard beer, use green beer (or green cups) to play this very classic cup drinking game that everyone loves. Follow standard beer pong rules. Two teams of two play against each other, trying to sink each other’s cups by throwing ping pong balls into the cups from across the table. The team to sink all of the opposing team’s cups first wins!
7. RAINBOW RACE
Before you play this game, create 7 different drinks in the colors of the rainbow. Then, set up 7 shots per person in order of rainbow color. To play this game, players simply take the shots one by one until they finish! You could also play this as a team relay game and make them real shots instead of standard drinks in tiny cups.
8. FLIP CUP WITH GREEN BEER
Another one of the best classic drinking games you might want to play for St. Patrick’s Day is Flip Cup. In this relay-style team game, teams face each other with a plastic cup filled with a green alcoholic drink. The first player of each team must down the contents of the cup and then flip it on the table by flicking the bottom of the cup so that the cup flips over and lands upside down. Once successfully flipped, the next player does the same, and so on. The first team to successfully complete the relay wins!
9. QUART O’QUARTERS
In this St. Paddy’s drinking game, every player starts with a full drink in front of them. Make sure all the drinks are the same size. Then, someone spins a quarter on the table. Everyone must drink as much as they can before the quarter stops. Whoever drinks the most wins.
10. LEPRECHAUN LIMBO
Whether you’re hosting the Saint Patrick’s Day party indoors or outdoors, Leprechaun Limbo can be a big hit with the partygoers. All the players must try to go underneath a stick or rope (by bending over backwards) that lowers after each round. But the twist is that as players limbo underneath, they must be holding a full drink! You spill, you drink!
11. IRISH ACCENT CHALLENGE
This is one of the simplest St. Patrick’s Day drinking games for adults, everyone has to speak in an Irish accent all day long! If you slip up at anything and are caught, you’ve got to drink!
12. ST. PADDY’S BINGO
You’ll need to do a bit of preparation for this St. Paddy’s Day drinking game, but the effort will be well worth it. Prepare a 5×5 card and write down common things you might see or experience during St. Patrick’s Day, such as:
- Someone with an Irish surname
- Green hat
- Someone wearing green, head to toe
- Green wig
- Seeing the words “Kiss me, I’m Irish”
- Someone drinking a Guiness
Make sure to mix them up and ensure the 5×5 cards are not exact copies of one another. Then, hand out each bingo card to every player and have them cross out items on their list as they come across them. The first player to cross out a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line wins!
13. THE IRISH STUMBLE
The Irish Stumble is none other than a good old pub crawl. Get an itinerary in mind and stumble onto these bars one by one, drinking at least a drink at each one! This is a fun way to get around the city while drinking the drinks in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
14. IRISH WATERFALL
All players stand in a circle or a line. The first person starts drinking, then the next person in line drinks… basically, you cannot start drinking until the person to your right starts drinking. No one can stop drinking until the person to their right has stopped drinking, starting with the person who started the waterfall.
15. GOLD COIN FLIP
Hand every player a coin for this super fun Saint Patrick’s Day drinking game. Every player flips their coin. If it lands on heads, they must drink. But if it lands on tails, they can give out a drink to a player of their choice. This game can be more chaotic and fun if everybody plays at the same time!
16. IRISH TRUTH OR DARE
What about playing some good old truth or dare at the St. Patrick’s Day party? Take turns asking a player to choose between answering a truth or doing a dare. If a player refuses, they must take a shot instead, which might loosen them up in the next rounds if needed!
Here are some truth or dare ideas if you’re not sure what to ask.
17. LUCKY CHARMS
For Lucky Charms, one of our favorite St. Patrick’s Day drinking games, you won’t need the cereal. Instead, you’ll need some dice. Before you begin, choose one player to be “lucky” for that round. This “lucky” player rolls their die and announces the number that is face up. Now, everyone else must roll their die. Whoever rolls the “lucky” number must drink. But if no one rolls the “lucky” number, the “lucky” player must drink!
18. GREEN THUMB
If you’ve played Ring of Fire or King’s Cup before, you may already be familiar with the side game Thumb Master. However, to play this with a St. Paddy’s twist, we’ll call the game Green Thumb. Just like in standard Thumb Master, one player is the designated “thumb master.” Throughout the night, whenever the thumb master surreptitiously places their thumb on a surface, everyone else must do so. The last person to catch on must take a shot!
19. LEPRECHAUN HUNT
Before the St. Patrick’s Day party, hide a few plastic leprechauns or shamrocks around a designated area. Then, have everyone hunt for them! Whenever someone finds one, they must announce it and give out a drink.
20. ST. PADDY’S SCAVENGER HUNT
And finally, one of our favorite St. Paddy’s Day drinking games is a scavenger hunt. But unlike your standard scavenger hunt, this is a photo scavenger hunt. Divide everyone into small teams. The teammates must work together to take photos of every item on the scavenger list, which might include items such as:
- A group of at least 10, all wearing green
- A person with green paint on their face
- A person chugging a Guinness
- Shamrock decoration
- Bartender wearing something on theme
The first team to take pictures of everything on the list and come to the organizer with proof of each of these photos wins!
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