How to play Langur Burja
Also written लङ्गुर बुर्जा, and typed langar burja or langur purja. In English: Crown and Anchor. In India the same game is Jhandi Munda (झन्डी मुन्डा).
Langur Burja (लंगुर बुर्जा) is the Dashain and Tihar dice game known in English as Crown and Anchor. Six symbols are painted on a cloth, everybody stakes chips on the symbols they choose, and three dice with the same six faces are thrown. A symbol pays its backers once for every die that shows it, and a stake on a symbol no die shows is lost.
The six are the four card suits, the burja and the langur, which the cloth here draws as a flag and a monkey's face. A triple pays double, and the biggest pile after five rounds wins.
Set the table up with your own house rules
- Players
- 2 to 6
- What you need
- A painted cloth, three dice and a pile of chips
- How long
- Five rounds, and a round is over in one throw
At a glance
| Dice showing it | Comes back | Gain | How often |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | 0 | -10 | 125 in 216 |
| One | 20 | +10 | 75 in 216 |
| Two | 30 | +20 | 15 in 216 |
| All three | 70 | +60 | 1 in 216 |
That is the standard table. Without the double for a triple, three dice bring back 40. Under Once, however many show it, one or two dice bring back 20 and a triple 30. On average a chip comes back as 0.935 of itself.
The same table on one card, to keep on your phone or send to the family group. Tap to open it.Rules checked 20 October 2026. How these rules are written
What the game is
Six symbols are painted on a game cloth: spade, heart, diamond, club, burja, and langur. The three dice feature these exact same six faces. Once you know the cloth, you know the dice.
The game gets its name from two specific symbols: the 'burja' (a flag) and the 'langur' (a monkey). The other four are standard card suits, making the board instantly recognisable to most players.
There are no secrets in Langur Burja. Every bet is visible, everyone's chips are out in the open, and the dice are thrown in the centre. The only mystery is how the dice will land.
The cloth, the dice and the chips
Everybody starts with the same pile, 100 chips at a standard table. Those chips belong to the match. They are not your account coins, and nothing that happens at this cloth touches your balance.
Chips come in three sizes, 5, 10 and 25, and a stake is built out of them one chip at a time rather than typed in. Pick a size, then tap a symbol to lay that size on it. The size stays picked, so tapping the same symbol again puts another chip of it on top.
A chip size bigger than what you have left to stake is greyed out, so the 25 going dead means you have under 25 left to put down, either because of the round's ceiling or because of your own pile. Laying a chip does not take it out of your pile. The counter still reads 100 while 50 of it sits on the cloth, which is why the line under the status keeps the two apart: chips left, and how much is on the cloth.
How a round goes
- The cloth is swept and everybody starts the round with nothing on it.
- The dealer stakes first, then each seat in turn round the table. One at a time, not everybody at once, so the last seat to stake can see every chip already down.
- When you have finished, press Done. That is final for the round, so a change of mind has to happen before you press it.
- When the last seat has pressed Done, the dealer throws all three dice together.
- The chips move and the round card goes up: what each seat staked, what the round did to its pile, and what it has left. Then the next round starts with the dice one seat along.
The dealer of round 1 is the first seat, and in a game against bots the first seat is you. So your opening act in a match is to stake at an empty cloth, and then, once everybody else has staked, to throw. The dice move one seat along after every round, which at three seats over five rounds means you deal rounds 1 and 4.
Putting your chips down
Two numbers fence in what you can do. The cloth takes at least 5 from you before Done will work, and until you get there the button reads Stake 5 more instead. At the other end you may not have more than 50 on the cloth in a round, and that 50 is counted across every symbol together rather than on each one.
Between the two, the decision is how far above the floor to go and how wide to spread. All 50 can go on the langur, or 25 on the burja and 25 on the spade, or 5 on each of the six. A standard table sets no limit on how many symbols you may back, although the lobby can hold you to one, two, three, four or five.
Taking a stake back is all or nothing. Clear lifts your whole stack off one symbol, and there is no way to lift a single chip off a stack of three. On the symbol buttons it is a right click, and on a phone you tap your own stack on the cloth instead. Clearing hands back the symbol as well as the chips, so at a table limited to three symbols you can lift one stack and back something else with it.
Clearing can drop you back under the floor, and then the button goes back to reading Stake 5 more until you re-stake. One case is excused the floor entirely: a seat with nothing left to lay presses Done with a bare cloth in front of it and the round goes on without it.
The throw
The dealer throws all three dice together. Each die lands on one of the six symbols, and each symbol is 1 in 6 on each die, every throw, whatever came up in the round before.
Three dice across six faces means at most three symbols can pay in a round. Back four or more and you have guaranteed yourself a dead stake. Back one and you are on a symbol that stays away on 125 throws out of 216.
One throw can pay you on more than one stack. Each symbol you have backed is settled on its own, so a cloth with your chips on both heart and club pays you twice when the dice come down heart, heart, club.
What a winning symbol pays
The standard rule is that a symbol pays as many times your stake as there are dice showing it, and your stake comes back on top of that. A 10 chip on a symbol that shows on one die is 20 back, a gain of 10. On two dice it is 30 back, a gain of 20.
The app prints the gain rather than the total. Your seat line reads +20 and the Paid row on the round card is the same figure, so read it as what the round did to your pile, not as what was swept back to you.
A symbol on none of the three dice pays nothing whatsoever, and the whole stack on it is gone. There is no half measure and no consolation. Either a symbol came up or it did not.
A table can play the other way. The second choice under A symbol pays is Once, however many show it, and on that rule the same 10 chip on two hearts comes back as 20 rather than 30. It sounds like the gentler rule and it is the worse one to be playing.
All three the same
When all three dice land on the same symbol, that symbol pays double what it otherwise would. A 10 chip on it is 70 back instead of 40. This is the throw everybody round the cloth shouts at, and it comes up 6 times in 216.
The double is on by default and can be switched off, which takes that same triple back to 40. With it on, a triple is also the largest thing a round can do for you: at a standard table, 50 on one symbol that shows on all three dice returns 350, a gain of 300.
Why a pile drifts down
Every stake at this cloth is a little worse than even, and that is the game rather than a fault in it. At a standard table a chip staked comes back as 0.935 of itself on average, which is 6.48 percent gone. There is no banker and no house here, so what goes does not go to anybody. It simply leaves the table.
Spreading does not change that figure. Put 5 on each of the six symbols and it looks like covering everything. It is not. Three different faces, 120 throws in 216, bring back exactly what you laid. A pair, 90 throws in 216, costs you 5. A triple, 6 throws in 216, gains you 5. Averaged out that is the same 6.48 percent as anything else.
So spreading buys the shape of the result and nothing else: small swings often instead of big swings rarely. Which of those you want depends on where the match stands. A seat that is ahead wants small, and a seat that is behind with one round left wants everything on one symbol, because the match goes to the biggest pile and nothing else is counted.
Winning the match
A match is five rounds by default and can be set to three or ten. The seat with the most chips at the end takes it. Rounds won are not counted and nothing is added up: what is left of your pile is the score.
If two seats finish level at the top, the match is a draw. It goes to nobody rather than to whoever happens to sit first, and the header reads Level at the end.
Nobody is knocked out along the way. A seat that has lost everything keeps its place, presses Done with a bare cloth and plays the rounds out. It cannot climb back, though. With nothing to lay there is nothing that can pay it, so it sits at nought to the end.
The settings
Langur Burja is a game of house rules more than most, and the game's own page carries all of them. Set them before you start, because a table keeps the rules it was made with.
| Setting | Standard | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 3 | Seats at the cloth, from 2 to 6. Several seats can back the same symbol, and each one's chips sit in their own stack on that panel. |
| Rounds | 5 | Throws in the match: 3, 5 or 10. The dice move one seat along after each round, so they only go round evenly when the round count divides by the number of seats. |
| Chips each | 100 | The pile every seat starts with: 100, 200 or 500. These chips belong to the table and are not your account coins. |
| Most per round | 50 | The most one seat may have on the cloth in a round, counted across every symbol together: 25, 50 or 100. |
| Least per round | 5 | The least you must have on the cloth before Done will work: 5 or 10. Sitting a round out is not offered, because a pile that is off the cloth cannot shrink and waiting would be the strongest move for whoever is ahead. |
| Symbols at once | As many as you like | How many different symbols one seat may back in a round. At the limit you can still stack more on the symbols you already back, and clearing one frees the slot for another. |
| A symbol pays | Once for every die showing it | The standard rule pays your stake back plus your stake times the number of dice showing the symbol. The other choice, Once, however many show it, pays the stake back plus the stake once, and returns 0.847 per chip against 0.935. |
| All three dice the same | Pays double | Doubles what a symbol pays when it shows on all three dice. A 10 chip on a triple comes back as 70 with this on and 40 with it off. |
| Difficulty | Medium | The dice are blind, so this is not foresight. An easy bot chases whatever has been coming up, which is worth nothing, and puts about half the ceiling down every round whatever the standing. A perfect bot treats every throw as new, stakes the floor while it is ahead, and when it is behind puts its whole stake on one symbol. |
The words
- Langur Burja (लंगुर बुर्जा)
- The game, named after two of its six symbols. It comes out at Dashain and Tihar, usually on a cloth spread on the ground with everybody crouched round it.
- Burja (बुर्जा)
- The flag symbol, drawn as a flag on a pole. One of the two the game is named after.
- Langur (लंगुर)
- The monkey's face, and the other half of the name.
- Hukum (हुकुम)
- Spade. The other three suits are paan for heart, itta for diamond and chidi for club, and the app names all six in whichever language you are reading.
- Dau (दाउ)
- A chip, and the stake laid with it. Where the English here says chips or stake, Nepali says dau.
- Kapada (कपडा)
- The cloth. The six symbols are painted on it and the chips are laid on it, and the status line says on the cloth for the chips you have out.
- Pasa (पासा)
- Dice. Three of them, thrown together, and the button that throws them reads Throw.
- Bhayo (भयो)
- Done. The button that ends your staking for the round, and pressing it is final.
How other families play it
Every family plays it a little differently. These are the ways we know of. The ones with a button are house rules this table can play.
Once, however many dice show it
A symbol pays once whether one die shows it or two. It looks gentler and costs more: a chip comes back as 0.847 of itself rather than 0.935. The table has it as a setting.
No double for a triple
Three dice on one symbol pay three times the stake rather than six, so a 10 chip comes back as 40, not 70. The double is on here by default because that throw is the one everybody round the cloth shouts at, and a setting turns it off.
A cloth with a crown and an anchor
In Turner's Nepali dictionary of 1931 langur is an anchor and burja a dome, and in 2007 the Himalayan Times listed burja as the crown and langur or jhanda as the flag. The cloth here follows how most players read the names now, with a flag for the burja and a face for the langur.
Questions people ask
What is Langur Burja in English?
Crown and Anchor. In the Nepali of a century ago langur meant an anchor and burja a dome, so the name translates the English one. In India the same game is Jhandi Munda.
How do you play Langur Burja?
Put chips on any of the six symbols on the cloth, then the dealer throws three dice. Every die that shows your symbol pays your stake once, and your stake comes back with it. A symbol no die shows loses its whole stake.
How much does Langur Burja pay?
Your stake once for each die showing the symbol, plus your stake back. A 10 chip on a symbol on two dice comes back as 30. All three dice the same pays double, so the same chip comes back as 70.
What are the six symbols in Langur Burja?
Spade, heart, diamond, club, the burja and the langur. In Nepali the suits are hukum, paan, itta and chidi. The cloth here draws the burja as a flag and the langur as a monkey's face.
Can you bet on more than one symbol?
Yes. A standard table lets you back all six, with at most 50 on the cloth in a round across all of them. Each symbol is settled on its own, so one throw can pay you twice.
Can you beat Langur Burja?
Not on average. A chip staked comes back as 0.935 of itself whatever you back, and spreading your chips only makes the swings smaller. The match goes to the biggest pile at the end, so the choice is how much to risk and when.
Is Langur Burja legal in Nepal?
Not for money. Section 125 of the Penal Code of 2017 forbids gambling all year, Tihar included, and the police raid courtyards every festival. On this site the chips have no money value.
Who wins a game of Langur Burja?
The seat with the most chips after the last round, five rounds by default. Rounds won are not counted, and two seats level at the top make the match a draw.
Every rule on this page is the one the app plays by. Change any of them on the game's own page before you start.