Howard Vegas, the doubling game.

Overview

Howard Vegas plays exactly like Vegas on the surface — two teams of two, two-digit team numbers, deltas determine points — but every hole carries a multiplier based on accumulated rolls. Each roll doubles the cost. Hit a few birdies, flip the lead, or shoot a poker-hand pattern and a routine 5-point delta turns into 40, 80, or more. Duck Hook Golf is the only place you can play it with automatic scoring.

How Howard Vegas Works

1. Play exactly like Vegas. Form the team's two-digit Vegas number (low digit + high digit), subtract the lower team's number from the higher, and the same flip rule applies (gross birdie by the winning team, or a single winning player beating both opponents).
2. Count rolls on every hole. A "roll" is any qualifying event — poker hand on the previous hole, a lead change, a birdie or eagle on the current hole. Each roll counts.
3. Multiply the cost. The hole's effective unit cost is base unit cost × 2^{total rolls}. One roll doubles the cost. Two rolls quadruples it. Three rolls is 8×.
4. Money flows the same way. Hole money equals delta × effective unit cost. The deltas can be small while the multiplier is huge, and vice versa.

Detailed Rules

Rolls come from three independent sources. They all stack on the same hole.

1. Poker hands from the previous hole's four gross scores. After each hole, the four gross scores (both teams, both teammates) are evaluated as if they were a 4-card poker hand. The hand triggers rolls on the next hole:

• Four of a kind (all four scores identical) → 2 rolls
• Large straight (four consecutive scores, e.g. 3-4-5-6) → 2 rolls
• Three of a kind (three identical, one different) → 1 roll
• Two pair (two pairs, e.g. 4-4-5-5) → 1 roll — with an option for the losing team to reject the roll (more below)
• Small straight (any three of the four scores are consecutive) → 1 roll
• No qualifying hand → 0 rolls from poker

2. Lead change. If the cumulative score crossed from one team being ahead to the other team being ahead on the previous hole, the next hole gets 1 roll. (Going from a tie to a lead, or from a lead to a tie, doesn't count — it has to be a true sign flip.)

3. Birdies and eagles on the current hole. Bonuses are counted per player:

• Each gross birdie (1-under par) by any of the four players → 1 roll
• Each gross eagle or better (2-under or lower) by any player → 2 rolls

So if two players birdie the same hole, that's 2 rolls just from birdies. An eagle plus a birdie on the same hole is 3 rolls. These stack with poker-hand rolls and lead-change rolls.

The two-pair option. Because a two-pair pattern is borderline (just two coincidentally-shared scores), the losing team gets to decide whether to accept the roll. If they reject it, the two-pair roll is removed before the multiplier is calculated. The option is offered live in the app on the hole the roll would apply to.

The multiplier formula. Effective unit cost = base unit cost × 2^{total rolls on this hole}. Each roll doubles the cost.

• 0 rolls: 1× (base cost)
• 1 roll: 2×
• 2 rolls: 4×
• 3 rolls: 8×
• 4 rolls: 16×
• 5 rolls: 32×

It's not unusual to see 3- or 4-roll holes when birdies and lead changes line up. A par-5 with a birdie, an eagle, and a previous-hole three-of-a-kind is 4 rolls — 16× the base cost.

Variants & Handicap

Gross or net. The Vegas-number delta uses gross or net scores depending on the game setting. Roll triggers always evaluate against gross scores: birdies are real birdies, poker hands are based on actual stroke counts, and lead changes look at the gross-derived cumulative.

USGA or relative handicaps. USGA is the default; relative is available.

The flip rule still applies. Inherited from Vegas: the losing team's number flips when the winning team makes a gross birdie or a single winning player beats both opponents. Flips compound the delta; the multiplier compounds the cost.

Strategy

• Watch the previous hole. The poker-hand multiplier is the most overlooked mechanic. If three of you scored a 5 on the par 4, the next hole is already a roll before anyone tees off.
• Birdies are doubly valuable. A birdie flips the Vegas number and adds a roll. Two birdies on the same hole adds two rolls, plus the flip.
• The two-pair option is real leverage. If you're losing and the next hole has a two-pair roll on it, rejecting can save you a doubling on a hole you expect to lose.
• Cap your downside. Multipliers compound fast. Agree on a hole-cap or per-roll cap if your group hasn't played Howard Vegas before.

Presses and side bets. Turn stacking on and the app scores a 2x press on top of the game’s own multiplier, up to a cap. It also tracks side bets like closest to the pin and long drive on top, and settles them with the rest of the round.

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